Massey University researchers are painstakingly unravelling DNA sequences in the hope of gaining valuable insight into the causes of cancer.

Pre-school teacher Nicola Fahey is one of just 0.5 per cent chosen from the original pool of people who put their hands up for a one-way ticket.

The ability to make friends with those who have similar personality traits dates back to when chimps and humans were on similar evolutionary paths, scientists say.

It's a frightening figure - 11 per cent of early deaths in NZ are due to poor nutrition and obesity. So what can be done to reverse the trend?

Early childhood education centres are targeted in a new study examining some of the root causes of NZ's growing obesity problem.

All 52 passengers, including six Kiwis, from a ship trapped in thick Antarctic ice, have been helicoptered off.

Passengers aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy are now being evacuated from the research ship that has been stuck in Antarctic sea ice for more than a week.

If there was ever a reason not to be nosey, then this video is it. And if you happen to be an arachnophobe, the scenes here are the stuff of your darkest nightmares.

Observer writers look at hot topics for next year, from surveillance to missions to map out the galaxy.

Kiwi ornithologist Kerry-Jayne Wilson's fourth day stranded on a ship trapped by pack ice in Antarctica started with news that rescue could still be days away.

A rescue icebreaker is making steady progress zig-zagging through ice to rescue an ice-trapped ship in Antarctica with 74 people on board, including six New Zealanders.

A ship trapped by heavy sea ice in Antarctica with 74 people on board, including six Kiwis, will not be rescued until tomorrow night at the earliest.

Kiwis are in for an astronomical treat in April and October next year

An icebreaker is expected to reach a stranded Antarctic research ship with six Kiwis on board late tonight.

A New Zealand scientist stranded on board a ship stuck in thick pack ice in Antarctica has reassured family back home that all is well.

Can exercise during pregnancy combat obesity in your baby? And could it help offset the so-called "fat gene"?

The lines of thousands of love poems and songs may have to be rewritten, according to Professor Alain Carpentier.

DNA taken from the 50,000-year-old toe bone of a Neanderthal woman has shown that she was highly inbred.

A student has invented the answer to your problems - a T-shirt that is impossible to stain.

Computer giant's motto is 'Don't be evil', but some worry that tech purchase brings allure of defence contracts.

Three inexpensive sunscreens sold in supermarkets have come out tops in Consumer NZ testing.

As hardy perennials go, there is little to beat that science hacks' favourite: the hard-wiring of male and female brains.

Cognitive development research is, like its subjects, still in its infancy, but it seems that our tiny tots are a lot smarter than science once gave them credit for. Angela Saini reports on the latest evidence — and argument — from the baby labs.

Asteroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth could have shot life to Mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, US scientists have said.

NZ Science Media Centre staff and their Oz counterparts put together their 10 top picks for the world's biggest science stories of 2013.

Adults' rate of smoking has declined to 15 per cent in the latest census, down from 20.7 per cent in 2006.

Plastered across posters and T-shirts, inspiring a play, and named by a popular blog site as word of the year, "munted" became the catch-cry amid Christchurch's post-quake devastation.