An ambitious three-year mission to bring back a soil sample from Mars’ moon Phobos has been launched by Russian scientists

Phobos-Grunt probe designed to collect samples from a moon of Mars becomes stuck in orbit after booster rockets fail to fireThe Russian space agency is battling to save a faulty Mars probe that became stuck in Earth’s orbit after booster rockets failed…

You would be hard pressed to find a book on mathematics with the same humour, wonder – and the comfort of knowing the author is resolutely on your sideMathematics. It’s a word that either transports you back to a dark classroom with impossible-lookin…

A hectic celebration of the periodic table of chemical elements through ‘true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world’Enter our competition to win all six books shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Winton Prize for Science BooksAt the…

Weather over the UK has a tendency to arrive from the west, and is strongly dependent on the “jet stream” – the high-level fast flowing river of air that weaves its way over from North America. Meteorologists predicted the existence of the jet stream…

Friday marks The Date That Most Resembles Corduroy. I’m so excited I just can’t contain myselfI have been waiting for more than three years to write this column. This is no exaggeration, and considering I am the type of person who pays three times…

The parasite uses a lock-and-key mechanism to invade red blood cells that is common to all malaria strainsScientists have uncovered an important lead in their search for an effective vaccine against malaria, identifying a lock-and-key mechanism the par…

Cancer survival rates in the NHS are excellent. But without costly meddling they could be even betterA new piece of research linking survival rates from cancer with investment levels in treatment has shown that the NHS provides excellent value for mone…

Parliaments of this North American mystery bird form around banquets on nearly every continent in the world (includes video) Short-eared owl, Asio flammeus, Pontoppidan, 1763 (synonym, Asio accipitrinus; protonym, Strix Flammea), also known as the (c…

Annual IUCN ‘red list’ of endangered species includes upgraded threat to tree whose bark is harvested for cancer treatment• In pictures – the IUCN red list update 2011A species of Himalayan yew tree that is used to produce Taxol, a chemotherapy drug…