Over the past decade water quality and the health of our streams, lakes and rivers has become a major deal for many New Zealanders, and as the recent election campaign showed it's become a political issue that wins and loses votes too. So how can you tell if the water quality of your local stream or river is improving or not? Grant Muir is a farmer and fisherman living in the Wairarapa and saw first hand the impact that poor water quality had on his local stream. So he developed a solar-powered, portable water tester called the Riverwatch that measures the health of your water and how it changes over time.

The fight against antibiotic resistance is a fight against evolution, and sadly it's not a war we're ever going to win. Our approach so far has been to kill the bad bugs, waging a war on pathogens with antimicrobials, like vaccines, antivirals and antibiotics as our major weapons. So could there be a better way for managing pathogens, a way in which we can tolerate them better, and actually promote and induce tolerance in those that have been affected? Biologist Janelle Ayres of The Salk Institue in California is working on this alternative approach.

Nearly 300 species of fish and invertebrates have crossed the Pacific Ocean on floating debris since the 2011 earthquake.

The world is getting sweeter, as rising CO2 levels change not only our climate but our plants. Key crops like rice, wheat, barley and potatoes now contain more sugars and less protein than ever before.

An American startup is charging US$8,000 for a transfusion of blood from a donor under 25. The company's founder and a biology of ageing specialist talk about the potential effects.

Thousands of resourceful Venezuelans have started mining the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to survive the economic crisis facing the country. Rene Chun covered the story for The Atlantic.

George Block from consumer.org.nz has been reviewing shower domes – the plastic shower covers designed to keep the moisture inside your shower and your bathroom dry.

The average kitchen sponge harbours more than 300 species of bacteria in concentrations as high as human faeces, a German study has found. But rigorously cleaning it isn't the answer – that seems to encourage more 'bad' bacteria to grow.

Gene therapy could potentially stop the progression of MS or multiple sclerosis; and a new study shows that a decent-sized eel can deliver an electric shock ten times more powerful than a TASER.

Can a transfusion of young blood stop ageing? Venezuela's Bitcoin miners, shower domes, dirty dish cloths and a potential gene therapy for MS.