The Antarctic ice sheet is disappearing at twice the speed of when it was last surveyed, losing 159 billion tonnes of ice to the ocean every year.

Eighty native birds have been caught on Little Barrier Island and delivered to a new wildlife reserve in the Hauraki Gulf.

It is said that lightning never strikes twice. But scientists have long been puzzled as to how lightning even strikes at all.

Bones discovered over 30 years ago in the Waipara River in Canterbury have now been identified as the elasmosaurs. Here are eight sea monsters that once cruised in the earth's waters.

A research breakthrough could net our economy $125 million each year by combining cutting-edge technology with something New Zealand famously has in abundance - sheep.

Call it the Cretaceous cold case. For years scientists were puzzled by bones found in a Canterbury river in 1982. Which sea monster did they belong to?

A survey off the North Island's East Coast has uncovered a huge hidden network of frozen methane and methane gas.

It was a bizarre phenomenon that troubled researchers for decades – a mysterious under sea 'quacking' heard every winter and spring in the depths of the Southern Ocean.

Remnants of human habitation on New Zealand's remote Campbell Island are at risk of being wiped out.

Uranus - the planet with the unfortunate-sounding name - has long been the butt of jokes.

Unless New Zealand takes urgent steps to slow the expansion of dairying, many more rivers and lakes will be degraded, writes David Skegg.

Throughout history, a select band of the brave has willingly turned into human guinea pigs in the cause of science.

If you want to go on eating regularly in a rapidly warming world, live in a place that's high in latitude or high in altitude.

The Adelie penguin population in Antarctica's Ross Sea has boomed to an estimated 30-year high, despite signs that climate change is driving population declines elsewhere on the continent.

American scientists operating a $23 million telescope in Antarctica have announced the discovery of what could be described as the fingerprint of God.

Cosmologists were last night excitedly anticipating one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in history - a direct window into how the universe was born.

A Kiwi believes she has what it takes to spend a year on "Mars" - although any close encounters won't be with cute aliens but curious polar bears.

A UK scientist who linked old mining operations to serious floodwater contamination in Wales has begun a similar investigation in the Hauraki Plains.

From the steaming banks of Lake Rotomahana, watching a man hanging off the side of a boat and dropping a strange yellow object into the water may seem an odd sight.

Researchers studying the New Zealand storm petrel have, for the first time since they were rediscovered nine years ago, found an egg of the critically endangered birds.

A gem found on a sheep ranch in Australia has been found to have formed 4.4 billion years ago - making it the oldest piece of our planet ever recorded.

Living amid Rotorua's notorious rotten-egg pong might be hard on the nose, but it won't slow your mind.

Using advances in genetic science, a small research team are testing whether it is possible to make an evolutionary loophole work to the advantage of pest control.