BBC News

Heidelberg researchers are following vehicles through city streets, sampling their exhaust plumes to get a real-world perspective on emissions.

Scientists think they can now tie the disruption that hit Mayan civilisation in the 6th Century to an eruption of the El Chichon volcano.

Baboons form a queue and wait their turn for access to a patch of food, according to researchers.

China is due to announce more details about a mission to Mars.

European scientists are meeting in Paris to consider their best option for exploring Europa, the moon of Jupiter widely regarded as the most likely place beyond Earth to support microbial life.

A duck from the US state of Wisconsin which lost both feet to frostbite has been fitted with a new pair made on a 3D printer.

Being in the European Union benefits environmental protection in the UK, a committee of MPs says although a leading Conservative member says its arguments are flawed.

The dinosaurs were already in decline 50 million years before the asteroid strike that finally wiped them out, a study suggests.

Natural disasters around the globe have resulted in economic losses of roughly $7 trillion since 1900, according to a new calculation from scientists.

An activist's undercover work to shed light on illegal logging in Cambodia's forests has been recognised by the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

A European Space Agency effort to try to detect gravitational waves in space is not only technically feasible but compelling, a new report finds.

The French government is "completely committed" to building the UK's Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, France's economy minister tells the BBC.

An experimental inflatable module has been attached to the International Space Station remotely by a Nasa ground control team.

The zero-fuel aircraft Solar Impulse is ready to resume its round-the-world challenge following repairs in Hawaii.

Scientists in Japan say they have developed ultra-thin electronic "skin" that can measure oxygen levels when stuck to the body.

The English school that unearthed a Soviet space secret

Poster competition to raise awareness about wildlife conservation gains 300 entries from around the world with winners coming from the UK, China and Africa.

The UK steel industry is doomed unless it embraces cutting-edge technology, a Cambridge professor warns.

Scientists in the United States say they have solved one of nature's great navigation mysteries, how Monarch butterflies migrate all the way from Canada to Mexico.

Scientists solve the navigation mystery of one of nature's most famous journeys - the migration of monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico.

Rising temperatures and longer summers have helped the iconic Alaskan moose conquer vast new stretches of the frozen tundra.

England's only resident golden eagle is feared to have died, Lake District wildlife chiefs say.

Schools in the UK are to receive seeds that British astronaut Tim Peake has sent back from the International Space Station.

Scientists have put together the biggest known library of bat sounds in an effort to identify and conserve rare species in Mexico.

Thousands of schools in the UK will be receiving seeds that have been in space with British astronaut Tim Peake.

Bed bugs might be developing thicker "skins" to help them survive exposure to common insecticides.

In a world first, a quadriplegic man can once again move his own fingers after a chip was implanted in his brain.

What's it going to be like to drive at 1,000mph?

A South African lion, who escaped a national park, will be rehoused with two females rather than put down - and encouraged to become an alpha male.

A tracking study shows that a small, nocturnal songbird crosses the Sahara in a single 40-60 hour flight during its spring and autumn migrations.

A natural flood management scheme saved the North Yorkshire town of Pickering from floods at Christmas, a report says.

Global sea-level rise since the 1970s has been predominantly driven by greenhouse gas emissions and not natural climate variability, a study suggests.

Professor Stephen Hawking backs a project to send spaceships to another solar system within a generation

Astronomers have defined a class of planet that have had their atmospheres stripped away by their host stars.

A python estimated to be 8m (26ft) long has died three days after being captured on the Malaysian island of Penang, officials say.

UK astronaut Tim Peake successfully captures and berths the latest cargo ship to visit the International Space Station.

The estimated number of wild tigers in the world has risen for the first time in more than a century, say conservationists.

The number of wild tigers has gone up for the first time in a century, according to new figures released by the World Wildlife Fund.

Astrophysicists outline what Planet Nine might be like - if indeed it exists.

The private space company SpaceX successfully lands a rocket on a barge floating off the Florida coast.

The US aerospace company SpaceX successfully lands a reusable rocket on an ocean platform, after four previous attempts failed.

Tata Steel is refusing to comment on claims it has made £700m windfall profits from a policy designed to protect the climate.

Experiments show how ribose - an important sugar for life - can form when a simple icy mixture is hit by UV light.

An online competition to become the "chief wombat cuddler" of a baby wombat in Tasmania, has made the tiny marsupial something of a celebrity.

Incompatibilities in the DNA of Neanderthals and modern humans may have limited the extent of interbreeding between the two groups.

While reporting from the Antarctic, the BBC's Victoria Gill takes a dip in the near-freezing sea.

Reducing food waste and changing the way people consume calories will help deliver a sustainable food system and reduce emissions, a study suggests.

British scientists who have set up a network of penguin-monitoring cameras in Antarctica are asking the public to help them carry out their research.

How a newly launched Antarctic citizen science project allows young amateur explorers to adopt and monitor their own penguin colony.

Two studies confirm that multiple supernovae have showered the Earth with radiation within the last few million years.