The physicist Stephen Hawking reveals details of his U-turn on his own theory and surrenders his wager

Filthy water - even urine - can be used to rehydrate a dried food ration developed by food scientists for the US army

Key steps to change internet infrastructure to prevent internet addresses running out may also boost online security

The centres of galaxy clusters might be stormy places - with turbulent gases heating them up, suggests a new study

Chimps show "contagious yawning" like humans - bolstering the notion they can empathise with others

A device vibrates flowers at high frequency to generate sound, but some experts are sceptical about audio quality

The first handheld PC virus is relatively harmless but could be a harbinger of more serious threats to come

Animal rights extremists have intimidated a building company into stopping work, say scientists, jeopardising medical research

Proper parenting can abolish the effects of a "bad" gene for aggression and stop young monkeys going off the rails, suggests a new study

Surface water on Mars could have flowed for eons, allowing enough time for life to evolve, suggests new data

Moon analysis may explain why the first runner collapsed and died upon reaching the finish line 2500 years ago

This improbable link is based on the idea that eggshells and discarded space rockets break up in a similar way

The danger is highlighted in a report written by radiation experts for the UK government, which has been leaked to New Scientist

Computer glitches are less annoying if PCs are programmed to acknowledge errors gracefully, finds a researcher

Whale strandings are no longer quite such a mystery - on the beaches of south-east Australia at least

Passengers make calls via a satellite link, but concerns remain over possible interference with on-board electronics

Messenger will endure extreme temperatures to determine how the innermost planet formed and whether its craters could hold water

The laws were invented to protect humans from rogue bots, but experts say we are still a long way from needing them

Newly uncovered fossils reveal in extraordinary clarity the strangeness of the Earth's earliest complex life

The world's oceans have soaked up half the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities - but this may harm marine life and ocean chemistry

The finding, even in hearing babies, supports the idea that human infants have an innate sensitivity to the rhythm of language

After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Stephen Hawking says he was wrong

One in three people with HIV also have TB, which is the biggest killer of AIDS patients - Nelson Mandela leads the call for action

Collisions that occur in some parts of the Solar System are propelled to Earth by the gravity of Jupiter or Saturn

The technique could one day reveal the 3-D shape of molecules and atomic-scale features inside transistors

The effect is small but significant - however claims that there is no unique Gulf War Syndrome continue

NASA must not rule out a shuttle mission to repair the telescope, says a top-level panel - a robotic mission would be "experimental"

Lessons learned during the SARS epidemic are driving the country's response to AIDS, reveals a Chinese health minister

A six-minute experiment aboard an unmanned rocket suggests that dust orbiting a young star coalesces to form tiny elongated "worms"

In the "cruellest pandemic" of the AIDS crisis, 50 million children are predicted to be orphaned due to the HIV virus in sub-Saharan Africa

The winner is an aggressive and daring software program called Junior, which is also prone to the odd human-like error