BBC News

How I survived two days on ice with three polar bears

Fresh images of Pluto from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft have captured a low-lying haze near the surface.

A Muslim boy arrested in Texas for bringing a homemade clock to school continues to receive an outpouring of support from scientists and politicians.

An Australian photographer captures a rare moment of animal communion with a shot of a seal surfing a humpback whale off the New South Wales coast.

The first woman in space has revealed that the Soviet authorities thought it was "too dangerous" to send more female cosmonauts into orbit.

The US space agency says the Orion astronaut capsule, designed to go far beyond Earth, may not actually carry people now until 2023.

A couple who survived a close encounter with a humpback whale while kayaking say they "thought [they] were going to die".

How failures at Copenhagen climate summit still haunt the process

Intelligent automation now means that a dairy herd can be fed, cared for and milked by just one or two people.

In a tiny laboratory worm, scientists directly control brain cells using sound waves for the first time.

Scientists have been illuminating the vital role played by the Arabian Peninsula in humankind's exodus from Africa.

Scientists determine that the sub-surface body of water on the Saturnian moon Enceladus must be far more extensive than first thought.

The first images acquired by a new UK-built, high-resolution, Earth-observation constellation are released.

Populations of marine mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have nearly halved since 1970 due to human activity and climate change, a report says.

Can video games make a positive difference?

Researchers develop a game for pensioners that is designed to help them sharpen their mental faculties.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announces plans to build and launch rockets from Florida’s “space coast”.

A new reconstruction captures the moment Europe's Philae probe first approached Comet 67P in November last year.

A smoothed reconstruction captures the moment the Philae probe first approached Comet 67P in November last year.

Electricity pylons are to be removed in four areas of England and Wales to reduce their visual impact on the landscape.

Critics hail Nicole Kidman as "luminous" and "compelling" in Photograph 51, her first London stage appearance since 1998.

British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson's space company says it is boosting the capability of its forthcoming satellite launcher.

How safe is artificial intelligence?

A robot ethicist launches a campaign against sex robots, saying such products demean women and reinforce stereotypes.

The US Navy agrees to limit its use of sonar that inadvertently harms whales and dolphins in waters near Hawaii and California.

Bats provide a service worth an estimated US$1bn globally by controlling pests on corn crops, a study suggests.

Research by Oxford University and accountancy firm Deloitte says many of today's jobs are at high risk of being automated in the next two decades.

Scientists in the US who lost a weather balloon carrying a camera sent to the edge of space have found it - and two years on are able to view its spectacular footage.

Ensuring the fastest car runs on the flattest track

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin thinks humans can not only land on Mars by 2019, but also colonise the red planet.

Rarely-seen letters shed light on Victorian tech visionary

The next two years could be the hottest on record globally, says research from the UK's Met Office.

An El Nino climate event is under way that could potentially become one of the strongest since 1950.

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka returns to Earth after setting a new record for for the most time spent in space.

How the public are helping scientists understand and stem the decline of British bees through the Buzz Club.

A newly published study on components for flexible electronics was co-authored by a sixth-form student in Surrey.

Scientists in the Netherlands have built a vast new machine that can create the world's largest artificial wave to put flood defences to the test.

Scientists at the Deltares Research Institute in the Netherlands have built a machine that creates the world's largest artificial wave.

New pictures are released from the New Horizons flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto, as the probe starts its big data dump to Earth.

Australia's immigration minister Peter Dutton has come under fire for making light of rising sea levels affecting Pacific Island nations.

Europe continues the roll-out of its Galileo sat-nav system with the launch of a further two spacecraft from French Guiana.

How evil and clever will real robots become?

The widespread flooding in north-east Japan is just the latest in a recent run of natural disasters to affect Japan.

A group of 20 UK researchers decides to compose a message to aliens - but they are split over whether such a message should be sent into space.

Scientists say secretions from tiny ocean plants could play a significant role in the formation of ice in clouds.

The earliest known case of rickets in the UK has been identified in a 5,000-year-old skeleton found in Scotland.

Scientists have discovered a new human-like species in a cave in South Africa.

Scientists in South Africa have discovered a new human-like species, which could change ideas about our early relatives.

It is "essential" that the genetic modification of human embryos is allowed, according to a global group of scientists, ethicists and policy experts.

Environmentalists should keep cool heads over fracking, says Bryony Worthington - Friends of the Earth's former climate campaigner and now Labour shadow energy minister.