The parcelcopter (pictured) flies at up to 40mph (65km/h). It will deliver medication and other urgent goods to the island of Juist, off Germany's northern coast.

EXCLUSIVE: The test was created for Tesco’s Blinkbox Books service. It asks participants to read a sample text before asking questions about it.

Ecuador is about to be hit by eastward-moving waves of warm water, resurrecting theories that El Niño (depicted in red and yellow) may be on its way, according to Nasa.

California-based Netflix has revealed a website (pictured) that shows people spoilers. Called 'Living with spoilers' users can click through various scenes to reveal major plot points.

Images of the Atlas moth were taken by UK wildlife photographer, Brian Bevan, 64. The tips of its wings (pictured inset) bear a resemblance to the shape of a cobra (pictured main).

The thread, (illustrated) created by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, is made of a long, thin strand of carbon atoms arranged in the same way as the inside of a diamond.

Google chairman, Eric Schmidt (pictured), said the California-based company had made a mistake in funding the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Pest controllers in the UK have warned people who were away on their summer holidays could have unwittingly brought bed bugs (pictured) back in suitcases and travel bags.

Michigan-based Michael Chou's 'Midnight Scoop' has a curved handle for extra force. It's taken two years and 38 redesigns to come to fruition, 117 years after the scoop was first invented.

The mice, launched as part of a project by Houston-based Nasa, lack a gene that normal mice have, called Muscle Ring Finger 1 (MuRF-1), which causes muscles to deteriorate.

The Crescent Bay virtual reality headset (pictured) was unveiled at Oculus Connect in Hollywood at the weekend. It is lighter than its predecessor and features 360-degree tracking.

Esa scientists in Paris say the Harvard team failed to use dust data compiled by Planck satellite, which had mapped the sky at many more frequencies than other satellites.

Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets (pictured) went on sale in 11 countries on Friday, including the UK, US and Australia. The devices will launch in 20 more countries this week.

The £100 ($160) Pikon is able to produce images with a quality equal to telescopes that cost ten times as much, according to its designers at Sheffield University.

MIT's skintight, pressurized suit would not only support the astronaut, but would give them much more freedom to move around a planet such as Mars.

The California-based tech giant released iOS 8 (pictured) worldwide on Wednesday. The update files themselves take up less than 1GB, but the software needs around 5GB of storage to install.

A company in Virginia has designed a device to detect drivers who text. The Sniffer Sleuth II (shown), made by ComSonics, can apparently discern what a phone is being used for.

Chinese online retailer Alibaba smashed records with the largest public offering in US history and is now more valuable as Facebook at $230bn after earning $22bn in just one day on Wall Street.

The Pocket Flyer, developed in Massachusetts, will carry a panoramic camera that provides a 360-degree view from the drone. 

Amazon has come out fighting in its battle with Apple and Google by revealing six new tablets.

The skulls, unearthed in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, belonged to the Pazyryk nomadic tribe and showed clear signs of recovery after brain surgery.

Researchers at Sydney University taught dogs to associate sounds with milk or water. Dogs who responded to many tones were optimistic because they assumed good things would happen.

Scientists at Sydney University have created computer models which show how early continents could have placed major stress on the surrounding plates.

Research led by the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway suggests the age of the Sahara desert (shown) is double previous estimates.

Boeing's proposal to develop a so-called space taxi for NASA astronauts includes a seat for paying tourists to fly to the International Space Station, it has been revealed. 

The California-based firm’s chief executive said Apple has changed the way encryption works in iOS 8 (pictured) and as a result the company can no longer bypass a user’s passcode.

Harvard researchers say the sleep-promoting circuit located deep in the primitive brainstem is key to determining whether we get a good night's sleep.

The free UnlockYourBrain Android app, (pictured) created by German-based developers, also teaches languages, history, and other subjects, that can be customised online.

Chicago researchers found 'no significant difference' in the number or quality of moral and immoral deeds made by religious and non-religious participants.

Researchers from the University of Winnipeg found wild deer (pictured) respond to the cries of humans, fur seals and cats, when they were played at similar pitches to her own fawn.

The supermassive black hole, (pictured) discovered at the centre of galaxy M60-UCD1, is said to have a mass equivalent to 21 million suns. It was spotted by Gemini North telescope, Hawaii.

California-based Internet Live Stats records every website, blog post and tweet that appears online, and the site claims the figure surpassed a billion earlier this month.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota studied 18 chimp and bonobo communities. There were 152 chimpanzee killings, and the majority of violent attackers were male.

The 34-year-old Canadian's brain patterns resembled that of healthy participants while watching 'Bang! You're Dead', according to scientists at the University of Western Ontario.

Data by Houston-based Nasa revealed that August 2014 experienced global highs 0.70°C above the 1951-1980 temperature average. This is the hottest since records began 130 years ago.

The chin strap, (setup pictured) created by researchers from Canada, is made from a material known as PFC that creates charge when it stretches.

After the impact, fast-growing seasonal species of plants began to take over from evergreens. This is according to a study of 1,000 fossilised plant leaves in North Dakota by the University of Arizona.

Astronomers have found a strange hybrid star using a telescope in Chile. The so-called Thorne-Żytkow object consists of a neutron star (illustration shown) swallowed by a larger red supergiant.

Researchers at University of California at Berkeley compared DNA from around the world. They found genetic regions controlling facial features were more varied than in any other part of the body.

Nasa's effort to identify potentially dangerous space rocks has taken a hit from inspectors.

The flaw was originally discovered by German security expert Benjamin Mussler in October and fixed in December. But, when Amazon redesigned its Kindle page, the flaw was reintroduced.

In addition to the egg case (pictured) several horseshoe crabs and previously unrecorded seed pods were unearthed in the disused Yorkshire Main Colliery, Edlington.

Barclaycard is trialling contactless payment wristbands (shown) in London. Called bPay the band lets anyone of any bank make payments without cards.

The trend has been driven by 25-44 year old women downloading free puzzle and trivia game apps on smartphones, according to a recent report by the London-based Internet Advertising Bureau UK.

The Californian tech giant has created a dedicated page that lets users remove the album (pictured) from their iCloud account by signing in with their Apple ID.

Students at the University of Buffalo were sent a fake friend request, followed by a phishing message. The majority of users added the fake friend, but only habitual users were duped by the scam.

California researchers analysed the capabilities in mice after spotting a human subject who was able to regrow part of a rib.

Jaggermeryx naida - an extinct swamp-dwelling creature - lived 19 million years ago in Africa and has now been named in honour of the Rolling Stones rock star.

Three handsets (pictured) are available in India, with prices starting at 6,299 Indian Rupee ($105 or £63). The phones run Android 4.4, have 5MP cameras and 4GB of storage.

A scientist at the University of Michigan has carried out 'sonification'. This involved turning spacecraft data into audible sounds (illustration shown).

Scientists at Manchester University say Graphene can be combined with oxygen to create graphene oxide and then applied as paint (stock image shown).

Steve Job's office on the fourth floor of Apple headquarters in Cupertino still has his name on the door, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Charlie Rose during a recent interview for PBS.

Yale University in New Haven says deforestation over the last 150 years has reduced emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), which can warm the climate.

Winners of a competition run by the Central West Astronomical Society have been announced. The categories ranged from images of the moon to the best photos of deep space (shown).

Yale University researchers surveyed 492 people in 180 households with ground-fed water wells in southwestern Pennsylvania, where natural gas extraction activity is significant.

Leicester scientists have given blow-by-blow details of King Richard III's death at the Battle of Bosworth more than 500 years ago.

North Carolina researchers say two genes – Period and Cryptochrome – keep the circadian clocks in all human cells in time and in proper rhythm with the 24-hour day, as well as the seasons. 

Apple’s chief executive (pictured) made the claims on the Charlie Rose Show in the US. He said TV is a product the firm ‘has great interest in’, but added the concept is ‘stuck in the seventies’.

The study, led by the University of New South Wales, Australia, also found that regular teen cannabis users (stock image) are eight times much more likely to use other drugs.

The study, by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, claims the first vertebrate skeleton 'evolved from muscle', and its origins are older than first thought.

Destiny (screenshot is pictured) was developed by Washington-based studio Bungie, maker of the Halo franchise, and published by Activision, which is behind the Call of Duty series.

Japanese developers have created a model with a pair of breasts. The model features pressure sensors and connects with an Oculus Rift headset (pictured).

The California-based firm is reportedly testing the app among employees. It is unknown if the app will be released more widely. It is a alternative to the audience selector used on the main site (pictured).

Chief Executive Evan Spiegel and Chief Technology Officer Robert Murphy of Los Angles based start-up, said Frank Reginald Brown IV, was integral to the birth of Snapchat.

The UK designer will be part of senior vice president of design Jonathan Ive's team, and is believed to have already worked on some Apple projects - including the iWatch.

Cambridge University says the coral trout can now join chimpanzees as the only non-human species that choose the right partner in teamwork situations.

The rise in CO2 levels is outpacing fossil fuel use, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey have created a machine that uses quantum mechanics to make photons behave like crystal particles.

On March 28 this year Dr Michel Berg and his faraway counterpart Dr Alejandro Riera would attempt something that had only previously occurred in the exotic realms of science fiction.

Research by Dr Lisa Williams, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Australia, suggests that people are more likely to be friends with those who say 'thank you'.

The fossils, found in Liaoning Province, China, suggest mammals have been around for more than 200 million years, according to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Mexican researchers found mushrooms feed on cellulose, an ingredient in diapers, and ground up diapers to create a fertiliser.

EXCLUSIVE: Created by Switzerland-based Nestle, the series explores the hidden beauty in the food we consume, and attempts to convey the science behind making better products.

A video from the American Chemical Society explains how the ion-strengthened glass on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (pictured) is stronger than regular glass, because it's placed into a hot potassium bath.

Brown University scientists in Providence found that pre-human extinction rate was 10 times lower than scientists had believed, which means that the current level is 10 times worse.

Astronomers led by Southern Connecticut State University say that half of all planets in the universe may have two suns (illustration shown) like the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars.

Engineers at Arizona State University have created a prototype jetpack (pictured) which they say already shaves seconds off volunteers' best running times and saves them energy.

Researchers at Barcelona’s Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya have designed a prototype structure that can change shape (shown).

The South Korean firm has created six adverts (screengrab pictured) mocking Apple’s latest announcements. Videos poke fun at the live stream, the watch, battery life and the lack of a stylus.

New Zealand scientists have examined a unique colossal squid weighing 350 kilograms (770 pounds), and as long as a minibus.

Cincinnati-based electrical engineer Lee Hite put the theories to the test by bouncing good and bad batteries through a tube (pictured). He then opened them to discover how they differed inside.

Cornell researchers found that TV viewers ate more while watching action flicks than when watching an interview.

The genuine 1950s spacesuit will be up for auction in Berlin on September 13 and is believed to have been worn by space dogs Belka and Strelka during training sessions.

Researchers in South Korea say finger ratios on the right hand of males (shown) is an indicator of the size of their testicles. Men with larger testes were found to have longer ring than index fingers.

South Korean-based Samsung has surprisingly revealed a curved phablet (shown). It beats Apple to the punch, who are apparently also planning curved devices.

Don Anderson, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, says the narrow jets – called mantle plumes - don't exist, and he claims basic physics can back up his findings.

A researcher in France says bodies of liquid on Titan may be fed by underground springs (illustrated). The finding was made when studying how methane rain interacts with lakes.

The articles reveal details about child abuser Josef Fritzl, Tory justice minister, Jonathan Djanogly, former Tory justice minister and Prince William's friend Edward Stanbury.

Scientists at Imperial College London have found a way to use the gut bacteria E.coli - often behind attacks of diarrhoea - to help generate propane gas.

Aaron Stutz, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory's Oxford College in Georgia created a new model of demographic and archaeological data to show when humans thrived.

Scientist at Auckland University have designed a virtual baby that learns. Called BabyX (shown) the computer programme can recognise words and images.

The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art.

Wolf whistles. Car alarms. Mobile phones. Lawn mowers. Birds will try anything that takes their fancy. It can be very annoying.