BBC News

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.

Engineers in Yorkshire have developed a system of 3D barcodes made from tiny indentations with variable heights, which could help tackle counterfeiting of drugs, watches or automotive parts.

Prof Emmanuelle Charpentier spoke to BBC News on the potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system as a tool for research and treatment of disease.

Scientists are looking for a link between visual processing and sporting performance, and their battery of tests could help with talent spotting.

The US space agency's Dawn satellite returns its best views yet of the enigmatic bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres.

China is planning to attempt the first ever landing of a lunar probe on the far side of the Moon, an engineer has said.

Scientists say the way sperm whales learn to chit-chat indicates they are behaving in ways that at some level mirror the operation of human cultures.

Will new climate treaty be a 'nothing burger'?

How science is helping to improve surfing

Is it time to look for frozen climbers, as the ice melts?

Former science minister Lord Drayson launches a smartphone app that monitors local air quality and encourages people to choose cleaner ways to travel.

Members of the public are being given the opportunity to name storms affecting the UK and Ireland.

Archaeologists invite the public to help hunt for fossils in Africa's arid Turkana Basin, via a new online citizen science project.

The villagers taking on a copper mine over polluted water

DNA from ancient remains appears to have solved the puzzle of one of Europe's most enigmatic peoples: the Basques.

European astronaut Andreas Mogensen remotely operates a robot on Earth while flying aboard the International Space Station.

Huge stones found buried near Stonehenge were part of a ritual site built on an "extraordinary scale" and unique in the world, researchers say.

Motion capture technology is improving the biomechanical accuracy of animals, particularly horses, in films and gaming.

The world's forests face a 'decisive year' as nations prepare to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals and gather for key climate talks.

Archaeologists discover at least 100 standing stones buried at a site just a few kilometres from Stonehenge.

Archaeologists have discovered at least a hundred stone monoliths near Stonehenge, buried just a metre beneath the ground.

Revisiting the story of the divers who experimented with living at the bottom of Plymouth Sound in the Glaucus pod 50 years ago.

A ceremony has taken place in Rwanda, where 24 baby mountain gorillas have been given new names.