Paintings of striking sunsets show effect of huge volcanic eruptions on climate.

Ben Goldacre: This week, a new study was published on acupuncture. Many newspapers said it showed acupuncture performing better than medical treatment: in fact it was 8 million times more interesting than that.

Recent government initiatives to combat superbugs in hospitals were today condemned by a leading medical journal for not being based on scientific fact.

French and Italian researchers have decoded the genome of the pinot noir grape, a breakthrough that could one day lead to the engineering of pest-resistant strains or - more controversially - new varieties and flavours of wine.

The UK is in danger of losing its leading position in stem cell research if the next US president relaxes restrictions imposed by George Bush, according to the new head of the Medical Research Council.

· Industry enlists academia to identify medical threats· Gains in safety would save firms hundreds of millions

Women who jog or play racket sports and ball games early in pregnancy risk losing their baby, according to a study of more than 90,000 pregnant women in Denmark.

· Plastic pipes could pump water to bring up nutrients · Less orthodox views need consideration, say experts

Becky Price: One of the big issues around the introduction of GM crops is people's lack of trust in biotechnology companies.

· Official advice on avoiding peanuts may be harmful · Call for specialist centres to be set up across UK

Eleven new species, including a snake and two butterflies, have been discovered in a remote region of Vietnam known as the Green Corridor, the WWF reveals today.

Obituary: The physicist who became known as the father of spacecraft ion propulsion.

Tim Radford: Because it's there, because it could answer questions about Earth history, because it represents unfinished business for Nasa, the US space agency, and because it could be a rehearsal for a manned mission to Mars.

Food poisoning bacteria become super-virulent in space, according to a study of salmonella that spent 12 days orbiting the Earth on the space shuttle Atlantis.

· Call for adjustable seats with more leg room· Higher risk faced by obese people and those under 30

Nasa has given preliminary approval for a successor to the British-based Beagle 2 space mission that crash-landed on Mars on Christmas Day 2003.

Hitting the right notes is more effective than noise reduction in making life less stressful.

Ben Goldacre: Wondrous, amazing, buy-more-now positive results of even more trials of fish oils have started appearing all over the media.

Velociraptor, the fearsome dinosaur made famous in the Jurassic Park films, had feathers and probably more closely resembled a big turkey than the killer screen dinosaur, scientists have discovered.

·Scientists shed new light on disputed skeleton find· Bone analysis supports distinct species theory

Obituary: Psychiatrist renowned for her research into schizophrenia.

Taryn Simon: This is a cryopreservation unit just outside Detroit, Michigan. Cryopreservation allows people to have the possibility of an extended life - their bodies are stored in liquid nitrogen until developments in science mean they can be defrosted and resuscitated.

The government yesterday announced plans for a new programme of research which could save more than 100,000 animals from use in scientific experiments.

Fossilised remains of the earliest known human ancestors to make the journey out of Africa suggest that our forebears still had many primitive ape-like features when they began exploring the globe.