International Community for Auditory Display

A thermometer that measures the temperature change in one molecule of a circuit could help realise the dream of ultra-small electronic gadgets    

In Earth's youth, photosynthetic life forms thrived for a billion years without producing so much as a whiff of oxygen. So why did some start pumping it out? (full text available to subscribers)    

Precisely measuring supplies of meltwater could help farmers in the US plan what they plant in order to battle a changing climate    

The evolution of resistant pests should be a warning – if we don't cultivate genetically modified crops properly, they'll stop working    

Helen Thomson meets murderers in Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital and learns how neuroscience is directing their treatment    

Revelations about government snooping show just how much they know about us. But there are ways to opt out    

If the latest models are to be believed, Earth isn't in the midst of the sun's Goldlilocks zone, but on the brink of becoming Venus    

The smallest galaxy known, Segue 2, is either an impossible runt or a battered companion of the Milky Way    

Two major objections to installing a software update – that you have to stop running the program and the fear that the update will introduce bugs – could soon be removed    

The debate over internet and phone surveillance should be conducted in the open, not the shadows    

High-tech collars fitted on wild cheetahs reveal what is really required to be a winner on the African savannah    

Shave off the very tip of your finger or toe and it should grow back. Now we know how. It's all got to do with some very special cells beneath your nails    

All the latest on newscientist.com: goodbye to Goldilocks, super-pests beating GM crops, US carbon emissions turn down, and more    

Images from a pinhead-sized sample of a glacier corpse's brain shows evidence of his final, deadly fight    

From life's point of view, Earth sits in the solar system's sweet spot. But new calculations suggest it is teetering on the brink of a solar roasting (full text available to subscribers)    

Five of 13 key agricultural pests can now eat crops genetically modified to poison them – but our fight-back plan is clear (full text available to subscribers)    

The latest figures on carbon dioxide emissions suggest US emissions are still falling, while China's emissions growth is also in decline    

The next generation of programming languages will put computation directly into the hands of people who can use it best (full text available to subscribers)    

A NASA spacecraft has spied a wandering boulder and the scar it left on a Martian slope, but it is a mystery what set the ball rolling    

All the latest on newscientist.com: a way out of binary babel, China's space ambitions, DNA art in trouble with the law, cod comeback, and more