Into the uncanny valley: 80 robot faces ranked by creepiness
Creepy robots are neither very lifelike nor clearly fake. An online panel rated robot faces to test whether this awkward "uncanny valley" really exists
Molten metal storms rage on orphan planet that lost its star
Variations in the brightness of a planet drifting alone in space could come from clouds of molten metal passing in and out of view as it spins
The climate fact no one will admit: 2 °C warming is inevitable
The figures in a new UN report show that limiting global warming to 2 °C is now nigh on impossible
First images of Enceladus’s icy breath from closest ever fly-by
NASA's Cassini probe made the deepest dive ever through the spray erupting from Saturn's icy moon, and took some spectacular photos in the process
Self-driving cars involved in more crashes than normal vehicles
A comparison of accidents by driverless cars and normal vehicles finds a higher rate for robot drivers, despite less demanding driving conditions
Mars is ripping its beanbag moon Phobos apart
The Red Planet's gravity is slowly shredding its largest moon, which is already a rubble pile with a thin shell of dust
Breath sensor quickly warns when pilots are low on oxygen
A device developed to monitor US military pilots looks at biomarkers in breath to spot the first signs of hypoxia, allowing action to be taken earlier
Peak China: Beijing makes doomed attempt to boost birth rate
Communist Party's decision to end the one-child policy won't prevent China having the world's most rapidly ageing population
Smart glasses translate video into sound to help the blind see
A video feed encoded as sound can be intuitively understood by blind people for navigation, exploiting the way we unconsciously integrate sensory information
Warmer oceans mean some cod stocks will never fully recover
Fishing quotas are set by models that ignore the effect of global warming on cod survival, overestimating stocks by up to five times
