Halting march of Zika virus is health priority for 2016
The virus, which is linked to brain damage in unborn babies, spread rapidly in the Americas in 2015. Global health agencies are hoping they can thwart it next year
Learning to live with floods will be key to UK policy review
UK flood policy needs a complete overhaul says the Environment Agency, including accepting that flooding is inevitable
Ovary freezing offers a drug-free way to tame menopause
Freezing an ovary and then having thin slices of it periodically put back in looks set to offer women a way to delay or reverse menopause
Two missions face off to seek life in icy seas of Enceladus
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been sampling the plumes on Saturn's moon for a decade, with no sign of microbes. Two proposed missions hope to change that
One Per Cent
You pressed for food? It doesn’t get better than this. Or do we mean lazier? Developer Stavros Korokithakis has cobbled together a button he can press when wants food. When he pushes the internet-connected button, a takeaway delivery is requested from a website. He was inspired by Amazon Dash buttons, which let customers order more […]
Penguins filmed in epic underwater fight stealing a large squid
To get an easy meal, gentoo penguins opt to steal each other's unwieldy prey – a behaviour revealed for the first time by cameras strapped to their backs
Physicists struggle to squeeze new particles from the LHC
The first results since CERN's massive particle collider was switched back on are in – and a new particle may be on the horizon in 2016, if we're lucky
New species of human may have shared our caves – and beds
A controversial bone discovery suggests we lived alongside a primitive species of human – and may have cannibalised them
3 billion-year-old fossils show early microbes lived in cavities
Fossil bacteria found in South Africa suggest that spaces covered by tidal sediments provided a sanctuary from heavy UV radiation on Mars-like early Earth
Earthquake detectors pick up wartime explosions and helicopters
A seismic observatory in Iraq has detected vibrations from weapons and flying helicopters, so seismography could be used to gather military intelligence
