The arrival of more than 250,000 bats in a small town in northern Australia prompts warnings of a potentially fatal disease.

The UN's Millennium Development Goal for access to clean water has been reached, ahead of the target date of 2015.

A record number of goldfinches visited gardens in the UK and Ireland in 2011, a survey by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) suggests.

US scientists report seeing tentative evidence of the Higgs boson, at a mass similar to the hints seen at the Large Hadron Collider.

A cull of 200 Canada geese is to go ahead in the Lake District, despite more than 2,500 people signing a petition against the move.

Several thousand people march in the Amazon against tough new sanctions for illegal gold mining and the environmental damage it causes.

The bone of a large flying reptile has been found in the gut of a Velociraptor, sparking fresh discussion among palaeontologists.

A fire that killed two workers and destroyed a gas exploration rig off Nigeria's south-east coast goes out after 46 days, US oil and gas firm Chevron says.