Drug testing is an expensive business because of the huge cost of carrying out tests on animals and humans. This is why various researchers have been trying to develop "silicon guinea pigs" – microchips carved with wells and interconnecting...

Aircraft noise is serious problem for the aviation industry, particularly during take off and landing near urban areas. Jet engines are a major source of that noise.Now, though, Dimitri Papamoschou at the University of California, Irvine, US, says it...

Despite being the world's lingua franca, English is the most difficult European language to learn to read. Children learning other languages master the basic elements of literacy within a year, but British kids take two-and-a-half years to reach the...

Incandescent tungsten-filament light bulbs face a global switch-off as governments push for energy efficient fluorescent lamps to become the standard.

It sounds like the avian equivalent of an Ozzy Osbourne legend. Great tits have been discovered killing and eating bats by pecking their heads open. Although bats have been reported preying on songbirds before, this is the first time great tits have...