Scirus is a search engine for scientists that allows them to dig through not just scientific journals, but also unpublished research, university websites, corporate Internet sites, conference agendas and minutes, discussion groups and mailing-list archives.

A grisly surveillance video of a man’s suicide that appeared on a pornographic Web site prompted calls on Thursday for tighter controls on the use of security cameras in New York’s low-income housing.

Engineers at Bath University yesterday unveiled a project to build a three-wheeled, tilting micro-vehicle which is only a metre wide, has a top speed of 50mph, and runs on compressed natural gas.

The dream of commercial space flight has taken an important step towards reality with the granting of the first licence to a private company to launch people to a height of 100 kilometres.

Smallpox has killed a billion humans. That’s more deaths than in all modern wars combined. Yet despite its virulence, smallpox typically kills only 30 percent of the population it infects. Naturally evolving pathogens keep enough victims around to kill again.