Dogs have been called "man's best friend" for the longest time, and they have even been know to save human lives. And it looks like they could save even more lives in the future, according to a team of researchers from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in the US. Frankie is a German Shepherd dog who had previously shown the team that he could be trained to sniff out thyroid cancer from ...

With badger-cull conflict having swept the UK for the past couple of years, doesn't it make you wonder how much easier everything would have been if Bovine TB weren't something to worry about? Well, thanks to scientists from the Ministry of Agriculture in Northwest A&F University in China, that might very well be something we can look forward to in the near future. Researchers have managed to geneticall ...

Take a moment and think about the beautiful music that could be made with a piano and... fungus. "What on Earth...?", you may be thinking. Well, Professor Eduardo Miranda from Plymouth University is also a arts festival director and musician, and he's been inspired by slime mould. The professor's latest work uses cultures of the fungus Physarum polycephalum, which has been turned into the core component for ...

Some people can spend weeks, even months, on dating sites, trying to find their one true love. But somehow, they get passed by. Why? According to research published in the BMJ: Evidence Based Medicine, there are little ways you can enhance your profile and self-image across to potential partners - all while just being yourself. (Which, let's be honest, is what we should be doing anyway... ) The study was le ...

Scientists at the SETI Institute have said at a conference in the US that it is time for us to start actively seeking contact with alien life. The SETI, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, has been in operation for more than 30 years, use radio telescopes to listen for signals from outer space. So far, there hasn't been anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything there, according to the inst ...

Less than two months after the death of his wife of colon cancer, Dr Billy Boyle and his company have invented a breath test that can detect lung cancer. Former advisor to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as well as CEO of the charity Africa Governance Initiative, Kate Gross was diagnosed with colon cancer in October 2012. She passed away on Christmas Day last year, but not before inspiring her scientist husban ...

Can you remember the last time you treated yourself and actually felt like you deserved it? Or - no matter how silly it sounds - when the last time said, "I love you" to yourself? You might think it sounds a little silly, but according a website called Happify, we can make ourselves happier. And we would be a lot better off if we started treating ourselves with the same amount of love and respect that we gi ...

Back in July, we told you about the UK's progression towards three-person IVF. The procedure in question involves creating a baby using DNA from three people, a man and two women. The buzz surrounding this contentious topic isn't something to be taken lightly, but the technique also isn't a way of paving the road for so-called "designer babies". The procedure would only be available to families with a histo ...

After millions of pounds invested in imaging technology and two long years of work, Dundee University in Scotland has finally opened its new microscopic imaging centre, the Dundee Imaging Facility (DIF). The DIF comprises of various forms of imaging technology, including super-resolution and non-optical imaging, image analysis, sample preparation and histology, to name but a few. The facility, which opened ...

Imagine, within your grasp, a scroll from the first-century AD, holding the secrets of the long-gone past. Unfortunately, this rolled-scroll was buried by Mount Vesuvius, the same volcano that obliterated Pompeii, and is nothing but a charred and burnt relic that could crumble if the wind blew the wrong way. The scroll is not the only one of its kind, either. It belongs to a remarkable library in Herculaneu ...