Robots that interact with people should stop always putting efficiency first and learn that with humans a little courtesy goes a long wayimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/a8f5836/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Innovation%3A+Teaching+robots+some+mannerslink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn18913-innovation-teaching-robots-some-manners.html%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Innovation%3A+Teaching+robots+some+mannerslink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn18913-innovation-teaching-robots-some-manners.html%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096108191/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177166390/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096108191/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177166390/a2.img" border="0"//a

Our bee colonies are collapsing - but what's behind it?

Two valuable new books explore the technological options for fixing climate change and introduce the colourful characters behind themimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/a8f3a52/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Where+we%27re+at+with+geoengineeringlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Fblogs%2Fculturelab%2F2010%2F05%2Fwhere-were-at-with-geoengineering.php%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Where+we%27re+at+with+geoengineeringlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Fblogs%2Fculturelab%2F2010%2F05%2Fwhere-were-at-with-geoengineering.php%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096012844/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177158738/kg/42-43/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096012844/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177158738/kg/42-43/a2.img" border="0"//a

The UK's new science minister will be pressured to cherry-pick research that has short-term benefits for the economy. He should resist, says Bob Wardimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/a8e69ff/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=We+need+to+protect+blue-sky+researchlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Fblogs%2Fthesword%2F2010%2F05%2Fwe-need-to-protect-blue-sky-re.html%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=We+need+to+protect+blue-sky+researchlink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Fblogs%2Fthesword%2F2010%2F05%2Fwe-need-to-protect-blue-sky-re.html%3FDCMP%3DOTC-rss%26nsref%3Donline-news" target="_blank"img src="http://res3.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096100505/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177105407/kg/38-67/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/70096100505/u/60/f/10897/c/749/s/177105407/kg/38-67/a2.img" border="0"//a

Moths and bats are "in crisis", say conservationists.

A new non-invasive way to see into a live honeybee colony.

The US says the success of a move by BP to curb a leak in the Gulf of Mexico is "not clear" and the technique is "no solution".

Fire destroys a leading collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions at a research centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

BP says its latest attempt to siphon oil from its leaking Gulf Coast well to a surface tanker is "working extremely well".