SCIENCE

Loud natural-gas plants and other sounds keep vital scrub jays away from pinyon pine trees.

One of my favourite tips for a greener home is to make your own laundry powder and dishwashing powder. For a fraction of the cost of environmentally safe detergent, you can make a HUGE amount of green detergent.

A team of researchers from the University of Central Florida claims to have found a way to make hydrogen fuels more efficient and cost effective.

Adventurous travelers looking for a unique vacation spot should start saving up right now. SpaceX is offering commercial round trip tickets to Mars for US$500,000.

The overuse of antibiotics could lead to a time when it would be so ineffective that a normal infection could kill, according to the World Health Organization.

A no-cost solution to make air travel easier? It's true.

Junk food, lack of exercise and now even the air you breathe could contribute to you gaining weight. Danish researchers have proposed a theory that steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air maybe increasing appetite and could explain the rising obesity rate.

Russia set forth an ambitious space strategy where the country plans to send Russian cosmonauts to the surface of the moon, send unmanned probes to Jupiter and Venus and build a network of research stations on Mars and the Russian space agency plans to do these by 2030.

Floods and powerful cyclones will remain as features of the Australian weather in the current century but scientists warned that scorching heat waves will also intensify in the decades ahead, no thanks to the worsening global warming.

The ordinary garden snail is now being recruited into the military as hi-tech spies. Scientists have turned the snail into a data-gathering cyborg spy that will gather and transmit intelligence back to its handler on a military base. It may sound like a plot to a Hollywood movie but it's actually happening in a research lab in New York.

The threat of big asteroids hitting Earth has made for entertaining Hollywood movie fare but as NASA astronomers discover more asteroids that could spell real-life Armageddon for Earth could there be a way to save the planet from these gigantic cosmic killers? Turns out that Hollywood had the solution all along as scientists found that a well-placed nuclear explosion could actually save humanity from a big asteroid hitting Earth.

While the most advanced computers today can perform the most complicated tasks and calculations than average humans but computers still fall short in learning ability. However scientists are looking to remedy this by learning from "the greatest learning machines in the universe": human babies.

A new study released on Wednesday warned of the growing menace of diabetes among young Australians. The report by Diabetes Australia said one in three of young Aussies will likely acquire the chronic ailment, which has no known cure.

Who needs months of lessons in foreign languages when one handy app can get you talking in Mandarin or French without an ounce of effort? Microsoft Research has developed new software that translates your speech into another language but with your own voice.

A Norwegian family was shocked to find that a piece of item from the vast expanse of Space had crashed through the roof of their allotment garden hut in the middle of Oslo.

Hospitals face a perennial lack of organ donors that many patients die waiting for kidneys, hearts and livers but an international group of researchers may have found a way to solve this by proposing that doctors could grow fully-functioning organs for their patients.Growing New Organs Could Solve Donor Shortage, Doctors Says

Taking Seattle's P-Patch concept to dizzying, permaculture-tastic new heights, a 7-acre plot of unused land in the middle of the city will be transformed into the nation's largest 'food forest.'

In response to the rapidly expanding green home building market, USGBC teams up with Home Depot to launch a database of LEED-qualifying products ranging from toilets to trim.

There are so many things to buy nowadays that merely going to the shops can be a task in self restraint. Being frugal and eco usually go hand in hand and there are some big savings to be made in the home by changing a few small items!

New research findings have suggested that the accelerated pace of global warming may be nearing the tipping point as shown in the observed increasing vulnerability of the Greenland ice sheet.

China, the world's number 2 economy, plans to hurtle 100 rockets and 100 satellites by 2015, including sending out its first manned spacecraft Shenzhou-9 sometime middle this year, in a bid to surpass the U.S. and Russia in the space exploration game.

Hollywood director James Cameron is exploring a world as alien as the one in his movie "Avatar." Cameron is attempting to descend to the deepest place on Earth later this month.

Batten down those hatches, the Earth is experiencing the biggest solar storm in five years and it may cause disruptions in power grids, communication networks and power grids over the next 24 hours.

Scientists reported that solar flares generated by a huge storm in the sun will reach Earth by Thursday, with high possibilities that the electrically charged particles they bring would cause serious technological disturbances.

Despite advances in robotics that produced such realistic robo-pets like Paro, the robo-seal, many robo-pets are still hindered because they don't look or act like real pets. However a team from the University of British Columbia is set to make robo-pets more realistic with a smart fur that can allow robo-pets to sense their owners' emotional state.

Internet surfers will soon be able to go below the surface to immerse themselves in the spectacular coral and marine life of the Great Barrier Reef, under a joint venture between global technology giant Google, the University of Queensland Global Change Institute and insurance company Catlin.

NASA's putting a lot of effort dispelling those pesky end-of-the-world scenarios. After assuring the public that the Earth isn't going to get sucked into a black hole or getting hit by a supernova blast, NASA is now downplaying speculation from doomsayers that asteroid 2012 DA14 won't obliterate the Earth next year.

Greenpeace Australia plans to disrupt and delay coal export projects in the country in a campaign to stop the booming sector. The Australian reports that the funding proposal for the anti-coal campaign considers 2012 and 2013 the critical years.

Alien plant species are fast finding their way on Antactica by “hitchhiking” on scientists and toursist. A new nternational study found that this poses a threat to the "delicate frozen ecosystem" in the continent.