Some birds can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and orientate themselves with the ease of a compass needle. This ability is a massive boon for migrating birds, keeping frequent flyers on the straight and narrow. But this incredible sense is closely tied to a more mundane sense – vision. Thanks to special molecules in their retinas, birds like the European robins can literally see magnetic fields. The fields appear as patterns of light and shade, or even colour, superimposed onto what they normally see.

HIV research is undergoing a renaissance that could lead to new ways to vaccinate against the AIDS virus and other viral diseases.

In the latest development, U.S. government scientists say they have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered. They are now deploying the technique used to find those antibodies to identify antibodies to influenza viruses.

Archaeologists have begun a major dig to unearth the hidden mysteries of a buried ancient stone circle site that is ten times bigger than Stonehenge.

The enormous 4,000 year old Marden Henge, in Wiltshire, is Britain's largest prehistoric structure stretching for 10.5 hectares, the equivalent of 10 football pitches.

English Heritage is carrying out a six-week dig hoping to reveal the secrets behind the giant henge which has baffled historians for centuries.

Most of the Neolithic henge has been destroyed over the years due to farming and erosion but minor excavations in 41 years ago estimate the site to between 2,000 and 2,400BC.

A beautiful Norfolk estuary with ample hunting, but watch out for those sabre-toothed cats.

Norfolk just ain't what it used to be. Some 850,000 years ago, coniferous forests covered East Anglia, and on the floodplains of the Thames estuary roamed herds of giant elk, horses and mammoths. Early human hunters of the species Homo antecessor would have been spoilt for choice, according to a study published in Nature yesterday.

The proton seems to be 0.00000000000003 millimetres smaller than researchers previously thought, according to work published in today's issue of Nature1.

The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace.

How big is a proton? The most accurate measurement yet suggests it's smaller than we thought. This could be due to an error – or it might just hint at totally new particle physics.

"The new experiment presents a puzzle with no obvious candidate for an explanation," says Peter Mohr of the international Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), which calculates values for fundamental constants in physics, who was not involved in the new work.

A small black hole has been observed blowing a vast bubble of hot gas 1,000 light-years across.

The gas is expanding because it is being heated by powerful particle "jets" being released by the black hole.

The observations were made by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and Nasa's Chandra space observatory.

Astronomers have unveiled the findings in the latest edition of Nature journal.

Research into artificial atoms could lead to one startling endpoint: programmable matter that changes its makeup at the flip of a switch.

The hardest thing you can ask them is how old they are. The question seems to rock them back, to give them pause. "I guess I'm 38," one of them tells me uncertainly. "I must be 54," another answers, after even longer deliberation. It's not that these men are slow, it's that they're physicists. And they're involved in a new research area as promising as it is strange, so if they seem a little distracted, well, c'est la vie. Despite modesty and caution so deeply ingrained that it might well be genetic, they also project an air of barely contained excitement. They're building the future, and they know it.

NASA has confirmed that its Phoenix Mars Lander has not survived the harsh Red Planet arctic winter, and appears to have suffered serious ice damage to its solar panels.

The agency has been attempting to contact the lander since January, in the slim hope it may have supported the weight of up to 30cm of accumulated carbon dioxide frost. However, NASA says that although its Odyssey orbiter last week "flew over the Phoenix landing site 61 times during a final attempt to communicate with the lander", Phoenix remained silent.

Anxiety and uncertainty can cause us to become more idealistic and more radical in our religious beliefs, according to new findings by York University researchers, published in this month's issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In a series of studies, more than 600 participants were placed in anxiety-provoking or neutral situations and then asked to describe their personal goals and rate their degree of conviction for their religious ideals. This included asking participants whether they would give their lives for their faith or support a war in its defence.

WAKEHURST PLACE, England -- Scientists at the Millennium Seed Bank in this idyllic rural area some 30 miles south of London are racing against time to gather seeds from as many of the world's plant species as they can before habitat loss and climate change erases them from the face of the Earth.

In the decade since they started, it has been an uphill struggle against tight budgets, political whims and local suspicion. Now the toxic combination of the global recession, the rise of the climate skepticism, the failure to advance a global treaty and empty government coffers risk making it far harder.

It doesn't seem to make sense.

The eastern United States is broiling in a dangerous heat wave, with temperatures in some cities shooting above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Yet this week Earth is farther away from the sun than the planet will be at any other time during 2010.

How can that be?

The answer, astronomers say, is that the distance between our planet and the sun has little do with Earth's surface temperature—and therefore almost no bearing on heat waves, blizzards, or other extreme weather.

James Leininger looks and acts like most other 11-year-olds; but, beneath the playful spirit is a very deep soul.

PAYERNE, Switzerland — An experimental solar-powered plane landed safely Thursday after completing its first 24-hour test flight, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.

Pilot Andre Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse onto the runway at Payerne airfield about 30 miles southwest of the Swiss capital Bern at exactly 9 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT) Thursday.

Helpers rushed to stabilize the pioneering plane as it touched down, ensuring that its massive 207-foot wingspan didn't scrape the ground and topple the craft.

Satish Kumar is an Indian, currently living in England, who has been a Jain monk and a nuclear disarmament advocate, and is the current editor of Resurgence, founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international centre for ecological studies and of The Small School. His most notable accomplishment is a "peace walk" with a companion to the capitals of four of the nuclear-armed countries - Washington, London, Paris and Moscow, a trip of over 8,000 miles. He insists that reverence for nature should be at the heart of every political and social debate.
Visit his homepage at http://www.resurgence.org/, and see the Video Page for more interviews.

What can a wide-eyed, talking robot teach us about trust? A lot, according to Northeastern psychology professor David DeSteno, and his colleagues, who are conducting innovative research to determine how humans decide to trust strangers -- and if those decisions are accurate.

The interdisciplinary research project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is being conducted in collaboration with Cynthia Breazeal, director of the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots Group, Robert Frank, an economist, and David Pizarro, a psychologist, both from Cornell.

Scientists have just returned from a voyage with samples of rare animals and more than 10 possible new species in a trip which they say has revolutionised their thinking about deep-sea life in the Atlantic Ocean.

One group of creatures they observed - and captured - during their six weeks in the Atlantic aboard the RRS James Cook is believed to be close to the missing evolutionary link between backboned and invertebrate animals.

Physicists working at the CERN nuclear research lab on the border of Switzerland and France have generated the coldest particles of antimatter ever recorded.

The team cooled down antiprotons to temperatures colder than the surface of Pluto, as low as -443 degrees F (9.26 kelvin) -- just 17 degrees above absolute zero. Physicists studying cold antimatter hope to ultimately glean insights into why the universe is made of matter rather than antimatter.

Clusters of heated, magnetic nanoparticles targeted to cell membranes can remotely control ion channels, neurons and even animal behavior, according to a paper published by University at Buffalo physicists in Nature Nanotechnology. The research could have broad application, potentially resulting in innovative cancer treatments that remotely manipulate selected proteins or cells in specific tissues, or improved diabetes therapies that remotely stimulate pancreatic cells to release insulin.

The work also could be applied to the development of new therapies for some neurological disorders, which result from insufficient neuro-stimulation.

A canister recovered from the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid and return to Earth, contains dust particles, say Japanese scientists.

Japan's space agency (Jaxa) began to open the Hayabusa craft's sample container on 24 June.

It has now revealed images of tiny dust particles inside the container.

Whether the particles are from the near-Earth asteroid, Itokawa, or from Earth is still unknown.

Jaxa released two photographs of the inside of the Hayabusa sample container.