Science

Circumcision 'is the best weapon in fight against Aids'

The billions of dollars spent on Aids prevention programmes based on HIV vaccines, wide-scale testing and the promotion of condoms or sexual abstinence have turned out to be less effective than a simple surgical operation to remove the foreskin.

Inside Science

After 200-year quest, scientists finally unravel the bizarre origins of the duck-billed platypus

Thursday, 8 May 2008

When the first skin of a duck-billed platypus arrived in England in 1799, the keeper of natural history at the British Museum thought it must be an elaborate hoax; how else to explain an animal with the fur of a mammal and the beak of a bird?

Tomorrow's sports stars: Is talent all in the genes?

Wednesday, 7 May 2008

Some people are born to play football. So says David Beckham's official website. After attending the Bobby Charlton Soccer School at 11, Beckham was selected to be a trainee for Manchester United at just 16 years old. The rest, as we know, is history, tattoos and Gillette razor blades. But what if footballers really are born and not made? A test to determine whether a child will turn into an élite soccer player is the stuff of football managers' dreams.

Insects 'will be climate change's first victims'

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Tropical insects rather than polar bears could be among the first species to become extinct as a result of global warming, a study has found.

Revealed: secret of how birds navigate during migration

Thursday, 1 May 2008

The mystery of how migratory birds exploit the Earth's magnetic field using an internal compass may have been solved by scientists who have discovered how molecules in the eye can be orientated by weak magnetic lines.

Women's voices sound less Mariella and more Marilyn during ovulation

Thursday, 1 May 2008

A woman's voice becomes more attractive to both men and women at the point in her monthly cycle when she is at her most fertile, according to a study of vocal changes during ovulation.

Weather modification: The rain makers

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Whether it is the Chinese firing weapons into the sky to make it rain, or the Thai government setting up a "royal rainmaking project", the science of weather modification has always had a touch of the sci-fi about it. So it is perhaps little surprise that the effectiveness of such an eccentric area of research has always been a little foggy. Indeed, no matter how hard you try – say, through launching silver-iodide particles into clouds to make them rain – it's hard to tell how influential you're actually being as it might have happened anyway.

Dead as a dodo? Why scientists fear for the future of of the Asian vulture

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

You have to feel sorry for vultures. For animal campaigners they are a difficult case. Other, more photogenic, slightly less sinister creatures may gain the world's sympathy at the drop of a hat, but raising money to save the world's most proficient scavenger is a different matter.

$Spiders store silk proteins in a watery solution and are able to convert them into solid fibres within a fraction of a second$

Scientists succeed in mimicking the way spiders spin their super-strength webs

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

The dream of producing spider silk in industrial quantities has come a step closer to reality after scientists managed to mimic the way silk protein is spun naturally into fibres that are potentially stronger than steel.

The blind man who was given the gift of sight by gene therapy

Monday, 28 April 2008

A pioneering gene therapy trial has helped a blind man to see in a breakthrough that brings hope to millions affected by eye diseases. British scientists have claimed a world first for the revolutionary treatment, which involved a single injection into the retina at the back of the eye.

EU launches Galileo satellite

Monday, 28 April 2008

The European Union launched the second and final test satellite for its $5.3-billion rival to the US Global Positioning System yesterday, brushing off industry doubts over its viability.

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