BBC News

European industry hands over a key piece of hardware for America's next-generation astronaut capsule.

Plans to speed up the planning process to boost fracking are not going down well with some Tory MPs.

A mandarin duck has become an online and New York celebrity after mysteriously appearing in Manhattan.

Research by conservationists find that some of the most sustainable fingers are also the cheapest.

The Bank of England asks the public to nominate worthy candidates to feature on the new banknote.

The hottest days are almost 1C hotter than in previous decades and it is not getting as cold, the Met Office says.

A cattle farmer warns people about releasing balloons of remembrance after a calf tried eating one.

Some crofters have concerns about the impact the site would have on the environment and their rights.

Scientists set out to read the DNA of 1.5 million species, starting a "new chapter in biology".

Russian officials have been looking into why the rocket’s booster malfunctioned during a launch last month.

The Pacific island nation becomes the first country to impose a widespread ban on sunscreen products.

UK scientists demonstrate the practicality of identifying and counting whales from orbit.

The Earth is far more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than previously thought, a study says.

Melting Arctic sea ice may be about to open up the Northwest Passage to cargo shipping.

Nasa's Kepler telescope, which has been looking for inhabitable worlds, has run out of fuel and will look no more.

Construction had halted in 2015 amid protests from native Hawaiians who consider the land sacred.

A team of UK scientists have claimed the record for decoding the world's longest DNA sequence.

WWF blames "exploding consumption" for average losses of 60% in vertebrate populations since 1970.

The British-led mission to test techniques to clear up space junk initiates its second experiment.

America's audacious mission to "touch the Sun" has now got nearer to our star than any previous human-made object.

Brazil's highly biodiverse Cerrado is being destroyed for soybean production, conservationists say.

Experts worry this will increase demand for the animals and jeopardise efforts to protect them.

The animals have been getting fishing nets stuck to them or rings trapped on their necks.

The delights of chocolate were first discovered in the Amazon rainforest about 5,000 years ago.

A Powys captive breeding project aims to give water voles a fighting chance of a revival.

A new study shows that rising temperatures drive the disappearance of mountain-top bird species in Peru.

Urban areas need to cherish wetlands as a natural defence against flooding, experts warn.

Trains that emit pure water could be in the UK by the "early 2020s", according to the government.

The chancellor says councils in England will get an extra £420m in his Budget to fix potholes.

The transport secretary says the government will back major development on the Oxford-Cambridge arc.

"Water cooler moment" as greener cooling idea is scaled up to help chill homes and buildings.

Caroline Lucas MP says that onshore wind energy is the cheapest. What are the figures behind her claim?

Work begins to exhume thousands of skeletons to make way for HS2 construction.

Some 45,000 skeletons are being removed to make way for a new station terminus.

Climate advisors say coastal communities must "get real" about the possibility of 1m sea level rise.

When the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck Earth, it made billions of tonnes of rock move like a fluid.

Many more children woke up to a voice-based alarm than a traditional one, a study found.

A new US study says that several low-cost technologies can be deployed right now to limit global warming.

Kurtis Baute spent 15 hours in an airtight dome to raise awareness about climate change.

The New Caledonian birds have surprised scientists once again with remarkable problem-solving skills.

Plastic items such as cutlery and straws would be banned in the EU under plans approved by MEPs.

The harpoon and axes were made from red deer antler by hunter-gatherers in Highlands in the Mesolithic period.

Planners are allowing edge-of-town housing estates where car travel is only option, researchers say.

Naree was illegally smuggled to Thailand and forced to perform in a circus.

Reducing our use of sand and cement cuts down on CO2 emissions and lessens the impact on the environment.

Nasa believes it has fixed a malfunction with the Hubble telescope which threatened to limit the orbiting observatory's performance.

Nasa has released a striking photo of a rectangular iceberg floating in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica.

A Greek merchant ship dating back more than 2,400 years is found almost perfectly preserved.

Riverford vegetable box boss says more focus should be on cutting carbon, not demonising plastic.

Overgrown mice are killing millions of chicks on the remote Gough Island in the South Atlantic.