BBC News

Some of the winning images from this year's competition.

Arctic ice cover in 2016 reached the second lowest minimum on record, tied with 2007.

Scientists have recreated the colour patterns of a dinosaur, revealing a camouflage used by animals today.

A large item of debris found off the coast of Tanzania belongs to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Australian investigators confirm.

Nearly 500 horseshoe crabs wash up dead on Japan's southern beaches, near Kitakyushu City, mystifying experts.

China launches a second experimental space station, Tiangong 2, as it looks to have a crewed outpost by around 2022.

The company set up to manufacture Europe's next-generation rocket - the Ariane 6 - says it is open to orders.

Conservationists seek public help to protect the famously inquisitive birds.

Tesla has been criticised by a former business partner for "pushing the envelope" on car safety with its Autopilot technology.

Analysis of rocks in the Western Isles has provided "a tantalising clue" that Mars may contain habitats which can potentially support life.

Diego the tortoise, 100, has fathered around 800 offspring on his native Galapagos Archipelago.

A crow that survives only in captivity has been found to adapt and use tools to find food, according to scientists.

A crow that survives only in captivity has been found to adapt and use tools to find food, according to scientists.

Astronomers have discovered signs of a baby planet developing around another star.

The European Space Agency has released details of the position and brightness of more than a billion stars.

The health of the countryside varies depending on how it is measured.

The opening of data sources in agricultural research is needed to deliver the global goal of delivering zero hunger by 2030, say campaigners.

Europe's Gaia space telescope releases its first batch of data as it builds the most precise map ever made of the night sky.

One of Japan's most active volcanoes, Sakurajima, is due for a major eruption within the next 30 years, according to researchers examining new data.

Insights into the data behind the football industry, both real and simulated, from the brains behind Football Manager.

More than 50 conservation groups say the "policy-driven" intensification of farming is a significant driver of nature loss in the UK.

An astrophysics professor and contemporary music producers have teamed up to create a special remix of some of the observatory's historic archive recordings.

A UK company has come up with a new technique to remove leaf residue from railway lines. The new microwave technology is being trialled.

Forester Peter Wohlleben thinks trees talk to each other through their roots and fungal networks.

The gravitational forces responsible for high tides may also play a role in triggering major earthquakes, a study suggests.

A project led by adventurer David Hempleman-Adams that aimed to sail the Arctic’s North East and North West passages in a single season has completed its quest.

Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel admits one of its industrial plants is responsible for turning an Arctic river blood-red.

An engineer arrives in the UK in his solar-powered tuk-tuk seven months after setting off from India on a 6,200 mile (9,978 km) journey.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos says the big, re-usable rocket he has been developing inside his Blue Origin space company will be called New Glenn, after John Glenn.

An Olympic-style delivery agency could ensure the costs of implementing carbon capture and storage technology are kept to a minimum, says a parliamentary report

The US government blocks the building of an oil pipeline in North Dakota opposed by Native Americans, shortly after a district judge rules it can go ahead.

Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Now his reputation lies in tatters.

Researchers discover that during sleep the thoughts you care about are more likely to enter your memory.

Written in the sediments of north-west England's lakes is a record of extreme flood events - information that can inform future flood preparedness.

Star Trek has had an “inspirational relationship” with the space programme, says Robert Picardo, who played the medical hologram in Star Trek Voyager.

An investigation into how a SpaceX rocket exploded on the launchpad is uncovering 'the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years' says founder Elon Musk.

Virgin Galactic has flown its new rocket plane for the first time in a “captive-carry test” above California.

A probe called Osiris-Rex will sample the asteroid, which is on Nasa's list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.

The world's wilderness is vanishing at an "alarming" rate, say conservationists.

Specially designed tags that act as 'daily diaries' are revealing previously unknown animal behaviours.

Britain's native dormouse has declined by more than a third since the year 2000 according to a new report by wildlife charity, the People's Trust for Endangered Species.

Lion hunting in South Africa is a big business, but some groups seem are shooting "canned meat" - animals bred in captivity just to be hunted, the BBC's Alastair Leithead reports.

Nasa launches its Osiris-Rex probe, which will try to grab a sample of rock from an asteroid and return it to Earth.

A study into the DNA of giraffes reveals they are not one species, but four.

A British student has invented a mobile fridge to transport vaccines on long journeys at the right temperature.

UK researchers launch a global effort to source photos of threatened or destroyed cultural landmarks and compile them into 3D reconstructions, housed within an online map.

It is a famous, gentle giant of the African savannah, but the giraffe's genetics have only just revealed that there is not one species, but four.

As many as 530 key infrastructure sites across England are vulnerable to flooding, according to a government review.

Astronomers at St Andrews university have observed tantalising glimpses of how our own planet may have been born

DNA testing has for the first time confirmed the identity of the bacteria behind the Great Plague of London.