China's richest and most populous province has asked the central government to relax the law that restricts most families to one child.

Genetically identical forest trees raised in different areas and environments react differently when exposed to drought conditions, a study reveals.

A woman returned to her Cumbrian home to find a near perfect imprint of an owl on her window.

Oil and gas exploration in the Russian Far East continues to threaten whales, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting hears.

A catalogue of the sources of the most energetic light in nature - the sites of the Universe's most violent processes - gets an update.

A rare dual-sex butterfly impresses visitors at London's Natural History Museum with its odd wings.

Urban vegetation, especially large trees, make a major contribution towards removing carbon from the atmosphere, a study suggests.

The last spacewalk of the shuttle era began at 1422BST in a bid to remove a faulty pump and install a new experment on the ISS.