BBC News

The badger cull is to be extended into Dorset following pilots in Gloucestershire and Somerset, the government announces.

Inmarsat, which provides mobile telecommunications, is attempting to put up the third spacecraft in its next-generation global network.

Scientists say they can now explain what happened to Knut, the famous polar bear that drowned at Berlin Zoo in 2011.

The writer and environmentalist George Monbiot cooks dead squirrel in the Newsnight studio as he discusses the outraged reaction he got on social media after revealing he had cooked and eaten a "road kill" squirrel.

The government says it plans to significantly reduce subsidies paid to small scale green power installations.

Scientists say Knut, the famous polar bear that drowned at Berlin Zoo in 2011, had a type of autoimmune inflammation of the brain that is also recognised in humans.

Thailand has been carrying out health checks on 14 orangutans, in preparation for their repatriation to Indonesia.

Why Cajun culture is being washed away

An invasive caterpillar that feeds on hedges is starting to spread from its established base in London across the UK.

Black holes preserve information about the things that fall into them, according to Prof Stephen Hawking.

Scientists identify the condition aphantasia, in which people cannot create images in their head

A team of marine life rescuers spend two days in freezing Icelandic waters to free a whale that had become entangled in fishing gear.

This could be how to solve the mystery of mass bee deaths

The vast majority of carbon credits generated by Russia and Ukraine do not represent cuts in emissions, according to a new study.

A budget-priced 3D-printed robotic hand for amputees is the UK winner of 2015's James Dyson Award for engineering design.

Scientists are studying a big mass of ice that has broken off the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland.

Wildlife in the British countryside has been exhaustively catalogued, but the same is not true for wildlife off the coast.

The Met Office has lost its weather forecasting contract with the BBC after providing the service for nearly a century, it confirms.

As the Met Office loses the contract to provide data for the BBC it has held since 1922, we look back at the art of delivering the weather forecast.

A giant panda at Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC gives birth to twin cubs.

Armed conflict and civil disturbance in the Middle East since 2010 have had the unintended consequence of making the air cleaner.

The appearance of the five grey wolf pups and two adults could signal a return of the animals, which haven't been found in the state since 1924.

A message in a bottle that washed up more than 108 years after it was thrown into the sea may be the world's oldest, a marine association says.

It's the first music video Niall, Liam, Louis and Harry have released without Zayn.

The Cassini probe to Saturn returns its final close-up images of the Dione moon as it begins its "long goodbye".

US researchers say it has become "virtually impossible" to plant genetically modified trees in any part of the world.

A new study confirms humans' status as a unique super predator, and points to ways our impacts on other species could be lessened.

July was the hottest month on Earth since records began in 1880, according to US scientists.

British troops are on their way to Gabon on the west coast of Africa to tackle an increase in ivory poaching.

The US space agency has issued another of the "selfie" portraits acquired by its Curiosity rover on Mars, but this one is taken from a much lower angle.

Chemists discover a way to take carbon dioxide from the air and make carbon nanofibres, a valuable manufacturing material.

Ten years of public sightings show that large marine mammals are regularly found in the River Thames.

A blue whale emerges from the ocean, just as a BBC presenter is explaining how hard they are to find.

A new probe sticks to blood clots so they "light up" in a PET scan, and could eventually save time during treatment of stroke and related conditions.

Japan has successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.

Software that helps Prof Stephen Hawking to speak via a computer has been published online by Intel, the company that created it.

Confusion over the types of coal being burned in China's power stations means its carbon emissions have been overestimated, say researchers.

New lab results show how collisions between comets and planets can make the molecules that are the essential building blocks of life.

Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that the first people to resettle Britain after the Ice Age were more sophisticated than we could have imagined.

Chemists isolate the pleasantly perfumed active chemicals in sweetgrass - a plant used by Native Americans to fend off mosquitoes.

Is it worth treating everyone who could get infected?

Researchers at Glasgow University develop a new way to protect farmed salmon from sea lice.

The World Health Organization is calling for "intensified action" to protect health workers treating people in crisis and conflict zones.

The Oil and Gas Authority has announced 27 more locations in England where licences to frack for shale oil and gas will be offered.

Antibiotics really are wonder drugs - but we misuse them at our peril

Islamic environmental and religious leaders have called on rich and oil producing nations to rapidly embrace renewable energy.

Scientists, universities and farming leaders write to Scotland's rural affairs secretary raising concerns about a ban on growing GM crops.

Scientists in the US have come up with a book which can be used to filter contaminated drinking water.