BBC News

A new report says there are three trillion trees on Earth, eight times as many as the previous best estimate.

Researchers say that global efforts to cut carbon are far short of what's needed to avert dangerous climate change.

An autonomous starfish-killing robot will be ready for field trials on the Great Barrier Reef this month, researchers say.

Researchers develop a mathematical model that can help determine the surveillance effort required to detect the arrival of costly invasive pathogens.

Patches of Kielder forest are being turned into a wild laboratories, to work out the environmental triggers for common diseases.

Scientists reveal the secrets behind the trees that can resist wildfires.

This year's El Nino weather phenomenon could be one of the strongest on record according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Trophy hunting has been the subject of much media attention, but is a blanket ban really the answer?

The Buddhist country of Bhutan has won plaudits for its approach to tackling climate change, says Matt McGrath.

President Obama pushes for a global deal on cutting carbon emissions, saying it is time "to protect the one planet we've got while we still can".

Unless something is done to stem the flow of waste to the oceans, virtually every seabird will be ingesting plastic debris by 2050, say scientists.

Scientists develop a way to make ice cream smoother and less likely to melt so quickly on a hot summer day.

Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks dies of cancer aged 82

Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has a new target to aim for following its historic flyby of Pluto.

British neurologist and acclaimed author Oliver Sacks dies at the age of 82.

Turks and Caicos Islands debates marine mammal park

Scientists at Newcastle University are going in search of floods, trying to learn what causes them so they can prevent future flash flooding.

A rocket mission to put a new spacecraft in orbit for London-based Inmarsat is declared a success.

A team of Nasa recruits begins living near a barren volcano in Hawaii to simulate what life would be like on Mars.

A team of Nasa recruits begins a year-long isolation in a dome near a barren volcano in Hawaii, to simulate life on Mars.

A UK-built satellite delivered the first orbital picture to US disaster response coordinators following Hurricane Katrina. Ten years on, a British spacecraft has re-imaged the Mississippi Delta.

Pallab Ghosh assesses the evidence for the decision to extend the cull of badgers to control TB in cattle.

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".