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The Greek government's research funding originated in an era of support from the European Union that is coming to an end. The country's potential deserves a much greater focus on fundamental research.
An international team of scientists and engineers is in Cameroon to begin 'degassing' Lake Nyos, scene of a 1986 natural disaster in which a cloud of carbon dioxide killed more than 1,700 people. Tom Clarke assesses the risks and benefits.
Some historians of science are moving away from the traditional image of lone scholars poring over ancient manuscripts. Alison Abbott talks to one of history's digital pioneers.
Force biological membranes close enough together and they will fuse. SNARE proteins are well suited to force proximity. But biochemical studies of yeast show that proximity is not the only requirement.
An intense laser beam might be expected to cut, burn or blast anything in its path. But at the right wavelength and with a suitable target material, laser light can also chill.
Crystal structures of proteins not only shed light on how those proteins work. By revealing previously hidden similarities, they can also force a re-evaluation of what other proteins are predicted to do.
Materials that change their colour as a result of a simple electric potential could be key to a new generation of flat-screen displays. But the speed at which they undergo this change of hue has held them back, until now.
Planetary waves, also known as Rossby waves, propagate throughout the world's oceans on very large scales. They influence the ocean–climate system and also, it seems, the delivery of nutrients to the ocean surface.
Nitric oxide is a biological signalling gas that has been assumed to reach its protein targets by simple random diffusion. The discovery of molecular mechanisms for precise nitric oxide delivery challenges that assumption.
