A drug based on the active ingredient in a Tibetan shrub makes cells think they are starving, priming a response that fights inflammation and possibly aging

The same properties that make Morpho butterfly wings iridescent could help them detect inflammation in people

Earth 2.0 is in our sights. Checking it for signs of life will be the next big issue, says Jill Tarter

The unique pattern of your heartbeat could one day be used to encrypt hard drives and other electronics

Half of the days in November 2009 were 0.1 milliseconds shorter than normal thanks to slower-than-usual currents around Antarctica

In the run-up to Rio, top environmental scientists bemoan two decades of political failure and say the future is in the hands of grass-roots activists

Paper structures filled with air could lead to new "soft" robots that can handle delicate objects

All today's stories on newscientist.com, including: cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice and first Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain

No images exist of the most massive black hole ever measured but a new, realistic simulation suggests that will soon change

Watch a mushroom coral expand to push itself through a pile of sand in a new time-lapse

A moving series of portraits of an elderly couple living with Alzheimer's disease in Argentina have won a 2012 World Press Photo award

In our latest expert guide, Derk-Jan Dijk and Raphaëlle Winsky-Sommerer explore the mystery of sleep and what modern life is doing to it

Watch a dramatic contrast effect that makes a chessboard look warped

David Cronenberg's new film explores the relationship and rivarly of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung

A suite of artificial intelligence algorithms may become the ultimate chemistry set by predicting the properties of molecules that have never been made

The body's self-healing system often botches nerve repair – now a surgical breakthrough seems to have tamed it in rats and promises speedy recovery in people

The oldest cave paintings ever found could have been created by our extinct cousins

A drug approved for use in humans reverses Alzheimer's disease in mice, but may not have such dramatic effects in people with the condition

Edible at the Science Gallery in Dublin examines the future of food, with a giant inflatable belly and a vision for 3D-printed morsels

The scientist in our Big Wide World blog says indifferent, but the entrepreneur hopes for benevolence

A crate containing some the world's most important hominin fossils vanished amid war in 1941 – along with secrets about the origins of language

All today's stories on newscientist.com, including: face-stealing robots, the latest Higgs revelations and how the zebra got its stripes

A strange feature of high-speed trading could be used to create an early-warning system of future 'flash crashes' in stocks

Despite having no new data, the world's largest particle smasher has released fresh analyses shedding some light on this most wanted of particles

Photographer Sharon Beals creates an intimate portrait of birds' nests from across the US