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Precautions need to be taken to protect researchers threatened by violent pressure groups. But open access to information and public accountability need to be sustained in the face of determined anti-rationality.
Scientists' work is often evaluated using citation statistics compiled by a company called the ISI. But how useful and reliable are the data? David Adam gets the measure of citation analysis.
Science budgets are being trimmed at the European Space Agency. Sally Goodman talks to David Southwood, the man charged with deciding how the money should be saved.
The relationship between genes that originated through speciation is one of the most widely misunderstood — and misused — concepts of evolutionary biology.
If you look closely, stainless steel is not actually 'stainless' — it does corrode. Corrosion is known to develop near sulphide impurities in the metal, but not, it seems, in the way we once thought.
Chameleon species are widely distributed and provide a test for some basic principles of biogeography. The latest analysis supports the idea that they have dispersed from Madagascar on several occasions.
Conditions in Earth's mantle can be inferred from seismic-wave velocities which reveal areas of anisotropy. Evidence emerges of such an area at mid-mantle level, associated with a subducting tectonic plate.
Many developmental events depend on gradients of key molecules to tell cells where they are. These gradients vary between embryos, but a noise-filtering mechanism ensures that development proceeds normally.
Daedalus is looking into ways of making stored food taste fresh. He hopes to identify or synthesize the elusive compounds that restore the illusion of freshness, which could be added at the table rather like salt and pepper.
Plant stem cells, contained in specialized structures called meristems, have amazing regenerative powers. They enable plants to grow and produce new organs throughout lifetimes that can span hundreds of years.
