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.

Patrick Barkham: More than 150 residents of Carancas in Peru have suffered headaches, irritated skin and vomiting brought on by a 'strange odour', rising from a crater.

Letters: As a member of the RSPB, I was disappointed to see its conservation officer (Letters, September 18) repeating the erroneous conclusions drawn from the farm-scale trials of GM crops.

Letters: The government should take a close look at the how poorly GM crops have performed before getting into bed with the biotech industry and the NFU (Return of GM: ministers back moves to grow crops in the UK, September 17).

The government must prevent police from storing the profiles of innocent people on the national DNA database, an influential group of experts has said.

Lie detectors have never been so widely used. Claim on your insurance or apply for housing benefit, and you could find yourself having to satisfy a piece of machinery as well as a human inquisitor. But can the results be trusted? Patrick Barkham reports.

A 10-year-old boy has recovered from a life-threatening illness, only to emerge with a new accent.

· Widespread concerns led to voluntary moratorium · Study highlighted risks to farmland wildlife

Climate concerns will reduce chance of new public backlash, says industry.

Lawyers representing Glasgow lorry driver Thomas Ross Young, who has served 30 years in Peterhead jail for raping and killing bakery worker Frances Barker, have been given access to evidence gathered by detectives working on the World's End murders.

Ageing is a disease that can be cured. This is the radical claim that has made biomedical theorist Aubrey de Grey a popular hero of gerontology - and a maverick among the science community. Tom Templeton meets the man who wants us to live for 1,000 years.

Carol Sarler: Robert Winston is the latest scientist to find that potential life-saving research is thwarted by a misplaced public outcry of moral outrage.