Girls like bigger guys, that's not a tall story

Nicky Phillips MOST women prefer taller men, but how many end up with a lofty lover and how many settle for their own Tom Cruise?

Supermassive theory vanishes into its own black hole

Nicky Phillips A pair of Melbourne astronomers have overturned a decade-old theory on how supermassive black holes grow and, in the process, identified the location of a missing population of medium-sized black...

Tall woman, short man ... what are the chances?

Nicky Phillips Scientists have studied how inherent height preferences play out in real life.

Mars rover on brink of drilling breakthrough

Nicky Phillips NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is preparing to drill into the Martian surface for the first time.

Ancestors of modern Indians may have come to Australia before Europeans, genetic study shows

Nicky Phillips LONG before Australia and India faced off on the cricket pitch, people from the subcontinent arrived on our shores and bred with Aborigines, scientists report.

Study shows 'gene flow' from India to Australia 4000 years ago

Nicky Phillips Indian people may have arrived on Australian shores around 4000 years before Europeans colonised the continent, scientists report.

Team gears up for lunar mission

Nicky Phillips AT THE age of 17, Robert Brand spent his summer holidays in Sydney wiring video and audio connections for NASA to relay Apollo 11's images from the moon to the world.

Scientists seek to take the sting out of killer jellyfish

Nicky Phillips Scientists have described how box jellyfish venom attacks cells, and have found that a type of zinc can slow its damaging effect in mice.

Here comes the sun: solar eclipse draws stargazers

Nicky Phillips The beach front is starting to fill at Palm Cove in far north Queensland with enthusiastic eclipse watchers. Sunrise is due just after 5:30am (6:30 AEST).

Smart country sells itself short

Nicky Phillips Ian Frazer knows how to prevent and treat herpes - in mice. Next year, the prize-winning immunologist behind the cervical cancer vaccine will scrutinise clinical data to determine whether his vaccine...

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Necessity is the mother of these inventions

Nicky Phillips STEER-BY-WIRE

Prehistoric fish the first to grow a set of teeth

Nicky Phillips Scientists have found fossil evidence of the first animal to grow a set of pearly whites - a prehistoric fish that lived more than 380 million years ago.

Need a filling? Stone Age dentists knew their beeswax

Nicky Phillips AUSTRALIAN scientists have helped date what may be the world's oldest dental filling – in a tooth crowned with beeswax in a 6500-year-old human jaw.

Solar day 2: Curiosity starts to rock

Nicky Phillips After an eventful landing, Curiosity's first day on the red planet was a little more subdued.

Life on Mars: here's what it looks like

Nicky Phillips This is about as good a view of Mars most people will ever see.

Bayside fossil an ancient sea bird

Nicky Phillips A fossil uncovered on a Melbourne beach belonged to a giant prehistoric bird with a five-metre wing span and serrated beak, scientists report.

Starlight express; nebula's babies just grow up so quickly

Nicky Phillips LIFE can be tough for child stars; there's always a newer, younger, brighter one vying for the spotlight.

Big boys win big games and these boys are seriously big

Nicky Phillips PROFESSIONAL rugby is Darwinism at its best. The Wallabies who take to the field for the semi-final against New Zealand will be some of the biggest and strongest in the sport's history.

Demographic destiny: poor and young then rich and old

Nicky Phillips The number and location of children born each day can, by and large, be mapped by the state of development of a particular country or region.

Pull your socks up - a spider smells blood

Nicky Phillips SCIENCE NOW there is another reason to put your dirty socks in the washing basket - their pungent smell could be attracting spiders.