The research facility that provides more than half of Europe's medical isotopes will close while checks are carried out

Despite a perfect launch, the fledgling H2-A rocket fails to deploy one part of its payload correctly

Improvements are needed before any new GM plants are passed fit for consumption, says UK science academy

A bizarre unmanned spy plane that can take off vertically and hover passes its first tests

NASA's $85m craft readies for lift-off, after more than 18 months of delays

Women of childbearing age can vastly improve their ability to detect odours - this is not true of men

Future space tourists must undergo special training - criminals and the "notoriously disgraceful" need not apply

Laboratory fears electronic espionage, but experts say ban is unnecessary

The number of Britons diagnosed with HIV will soar by almost 50 per cent to 34,000 in 2005, suggest new figures

US scientists have taken stem cells from very early monkey embryos created using an egg that has not been fertilized

A partially paralysed man is able to walk further with electrodes permanently implanted in his spinal cord

Excessive use of some game console controllers can cause 'hand-arm vibration syndrome', say UK doctors who have identified the first known case

Smoke hoods fitted to kitchen stoves could save the lives of more than one million women in the developing world each year

Volunteers walk across London's Millennium Bridge to make sure it's wobble-free

The WHO announces it is on target to rid the world of leprosy by 2005 - but leprosy charities disagree

Ultra-thin jets of water could be fired at storm clouds to deflect lightning strikes, thinks a US group

A chip that will automatically create hundreds of cloned embryos at a time is being developed by a Californian biotech company

The expression pattern of 70 genes in a breast cancer sample predicts whether the patient will develop secondary tumours

A "bioeconomic" model for the shark trade, combining ecological and market data, should appease both conservationists and shark-fin soup connoisseurs

Ten mountain ranges, from the Alps in Europe to the Snowy Mountains in Australia, are under severe environmental stress, says a major report

British scientists are failing to educate the public on the importance of animal experimentation, with significant implications for UK research, says a government committee

NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer will re-enter Earth's atmosphere on 30 or 31 January - up to nine pieces of debris will land within a 1,000-kilometre area

Farmers in Britain have a new mission - to switch from growing food to caring for the countryside

US scientists claim to have grown kidneys using stem cells taken from cloned cow embryos - but experts are sceptical that the team has created fully-functional organs

More than one third of patients with a range of disorders say they feel more relaxed after telehypnosis - but long-term effects on symptoms have not been investigated

Zapping errant heart cells with high-intensity radio waves can cure atrial fibrillation - a life-threatening condition

Although the breakthrough is in mice, the researchers think it will eventually lead to treatments for men

Ozone could be used to kill anthrax spores in mail safely and cheaply, says a US company

A British man has become the first in the world to successfully father a child after a testicular transplant following life-saving chemotherapy

A study in New Zealand finds that 90 per cent of soft toys examined in doctors' waiting rooms are contaminated with disease-causing bacteria

Players of the computer game EverQuest earn assets worth an average of $3.42 every hour, new research reveals

American Astronomical Society