Science News

RASSOR drops the scientific instruments of its cousins for 100 pounds of durability. Meet RASSOR, NASA's newest mini-space explorer. What you're looking at is a prototype. But one day, NASA plans to send something simila...

The DoD's track record shooting missiles from the sky with laser beams is checkered at best, but DARPA is nonetheless taking a new 150-kilowatt energy beam into trials. The last time the Pentagon took an active interest ...

Following North Korea's semi-successful December space launch, South Korea one-ups its rival by launching a space rocket AND successfully placing a satellite in orbit. In what might be considered a chemically-fueled midd...

The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks

Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected

All today's stories on newscientist.com, including: why humans love alcohol, women at war, the coming asteroid threat, first time travel movie, and more

Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money

As home computers have become near ubiquitous, unused computing power has risen in tandem. Just think how often your laptop is asleep on your desk. So, why let all those idle processors go to waste? Einstein@Home--a web ...

Google has put North Korea on the map. Literally. You can now see North Korea without ever leaving your living room. New data added to Google Maps has made it possible to virtually explore this notoriously isolated count...

Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like (full text available to subscribers)

A vertigo-inducing 360 degrees from the Burj Khalifa. This is the view from the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Photographer Gerald Donovan set up a tripod at the top (2,722 feet) and ...

Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal

Newly released photos let you see underground construction in progress. New York City's Second Avenue subway line was the greatest project the city never built -- until 2007, almost 90 years after its initial proposal, w...

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm? (full text available to subscribers)

The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men? (full text available to subscribers)

Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist

Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand (full text available to subscribers)

Ghost hunters like to believe that ghosts exist, but science and logic are ghost busters.

A simple how-to for any espresso drink you could want Maybe you're tired of brewing your cups of joe in an old coffee pot. Maybe you're ready to try something a little tastier. But where to start? Well, the appropriately...