When it comes to our health there are bacteria that are beneficial, and there are also bacteria that are quite detrimental. Some UK researchers wanted to address this problem of why some bacteria are pathogenic …

The scientific, technological, political, and even moral aspects of geoengineering are fascinating, but they’re well beyond the scope of this humble column. My goal here, as usual, is to focus on the new language being …

Although Germany’s capital is short on big businesses, small enterprises are abundant, with creative industries in particular blossoming faster than in other cities. In Berlin, this creative boom is aided by a project which helps …

Spain has designed the world’s first robot with its own “conscience” and “life”, which will “entertain, teach and be a companion” to humans who purchase it. The AISoy 1, which will go on sale in …

Stories about India these days tend to focus on the new India — young, dynamic and with a rising GDP. But like many other parts of the world, India is graying rapidly. By 2050, a …

China declared its “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea and held naval drills in the waters, pushing back against a U.S. role in resolving disputes in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. …

Cambridge startup Recorded Future trawls the internet for raw data that it uses in an attempt to predict world events—understandably interesting stuff. But what do both Google and the CIA both see in the company? …

A US foundation that helped launch private spaceflight Thursday turned its gaze and pocketbook towards Earth, unveiling a 1.4-million-dollar contest to find new ways to clean up oil spills. … Read more

An alliance of national financial markets that preserves some differences, while standardising a range of financial practices and legislative frameworks, would make Asia more self-sufficient, argues Standard & Poor’s. … Read more

Alberta researchers say gender-bending fish swimming in the province’s southern rivers raise serious questions about whether the water is safe for people to drink. Two University of Calgary professors have been studying how a small …

Over millions of years, retroviruses, which insert their genetic material into the host genome as part of their replication, have left behind bits of their genetic material in vertebrate genomes. In a recent study, a …

The Internet has undergone a key upgrade that promises to stop cyber criminals from using fake websites that dupe people into downloading viruses or revealing personal data. … Read more

Robotic wheelchairs, mechanical arms and humanoid waiters are among the cutting-edge inventions on show at a robotics fair in Japan, a country whose population is ageing rapidly. … Read more

Recently funded by the National Science Foundation, Jeffrey V. Nickerson, and Yasuaki Sakamoto of Stevens Institute of Technology are conducting research on how well design can be accomplished by a set of individuals quickly assembled …

A pioneering study has shown that failing joints can be replaced with a joint grown naturally using the host’s own stem cells. The work paves the way for a future of naturally grown joints that …

Some intelligence veterans say it’s time to rethink how widely classified material is shared at lower levels or, at the very least, to step up monitoring of the people who are given access. … Read …

China is actively grooming at least three Latin American states as potential springboards for exploring and exploiting greater business and investment opportunities on the continent, new U.N. data indicated. … Read more

Microscopic marine algae called phytoplankton that produce half the world’s oxygen and support most ocean life have been declining dramatically over the past century, Canadian researchers say. … Read more

Google is holding talks with online game developers as part of its bid to build a social-networking service that could compete with Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reported. … Read more

Lookout Inc., a mobile-phone security firm, scanned nearly 300,000 free applications for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and phones built around Google Inc.’s Android software. It found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users’ …

The U.S. response to the financial crisis probably prevented a depression, slowed a decline in gross domestic product and saved about 8.5 million jobs, economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi said. Policies including the government …

World hunger remains a major problem, but not for the reasons many suspect. Nature analyses the trends and the challenges of feeding 9 billion by 2050. … Read more

The US Chamber of Commerce report said China was abusing the allure of its vast market to push foreign companies to transfer their latest technologies to Chinese competitors. This was a “blueprint for technology theft …

Like economies and businesses, universities are competing, expanding abroad and striking cross-border deals. … Read more

The EU’s 2009 e-money Directive aimed to enable the design of new, innovative and secure electronic money services. … Read more