In 1976 NASA's Viking spacecraft snapped a photograph of a feature on Mars that was startlingly familiar to all Earthlings: part of the rocky surface looked just like a human face. Most interpreted

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the United Nations' agency responsible for administering the Law of Sea Treaty, has started discussions on a code to govern the recovery of minerals from the

BABIES born to mothers who live near hazardous waste landfill sites have a higher risk of serious birth defects, warns a European report. Women living within three-kilometre of a hazardous landfill

Acupuncture seems to activate the parts of the brain involved in pain control, say scientists in Taiwan. Jen-Chuen Hseih of the Veterans' General Hospital in Taipei and his colleagues used positron

Floods sweeping across the Seoul metropolitan area have left at least 119 people dead and 53 others missing in South Korea's worst natural disaster in years. With flood waters receding, tens of

Bananas that are actually vaccines. Potatoes that kill bacteria. Tobacco plants that fight tooth decay. Medical science has more tricks up its sleeve

Smoking might be dangeous for human health, but tobacco plants are not, claim Japanese scientists who have used the gene genie to get some health benefits from these plants. Tobacco plants could soon

Earlier it was "Green Forests are Nepal's Wealth", now it is "Green Forests are TCN's Wealth", TCN stands for the Timber Corporation of Nepal. Thanks to the politicians, the state-owned entity now

An accident at a steel mill in Spain has contaminated large parts of southern Europe with radioactivity, say environmentalists. The Spanish Nuclear Safety Council says scrap containing the