Science

A realistic robot with a sassy sense of humour pitted her wits against one of America's top TV personalities but audiences may be divided in their feelings about her appearance.

Uber's two new updates go into effect globally today, and aim to make the system fairer. Riders' ratings will be more accessible, and drivers won't be penalized for some factors in Pool trips.

Striking images, taken in Washington, D.C. between 1905 and 1945, capture a trio of divers testing out underwater breathing devicesand a dentist using a dental X-ray machine.

Online grooming on certain sites is a 'well-known international fact' warned Inspector Jon Rouse, who runs a specialist branch to fight online child exploitation in Queensland.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales found images selected by strangers conveyed a much more favourable first impression than images people selected for themselves.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) compiled a report with the Met Office and Reading University which found climate change would have a big impact on UK gardening (stock image).

Twitter shares shot higher Wednesday after its quarterly update showed improving growth in user numbers, offsetting concerns over a decline in revenue and...

Nearly half of the world's most valuable natural sites, such as the Galapagos Islands (pictured) are threatened by the illegal wildlife trade, according to a damning new report.

Jason Sylvain, 41, stands accused of being a robocidal maniac after assaulting the conical droid as it patrolled a parking lot, according to cops in the Mountain View area of San Francisco.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison studied the brain activity of people who were dreaming and found a region called the posterior cortical 'hotzone' is key to dreams (stock image).

Neil Cook, 47, was on a ghost hunt at North East Land, Sea and Air Museum in Sunderland when he caught the face and hat of an apparition on camera.

The 25ft monster (pictured) was seen floating upside down near the rocks at Chapel Point in Mevagissey. Experts believe it to be a basking shark, the largest fish found in British waters.

Facebook says it has fixed a glitch which locked people out of their accounts for 72 hours, but users worldwide are still coming forward to report that they are unable to access their accounts.

Seed-breeding company Mikado Kyowa, based in Chiba, Japan, have developed new breeds of carrots. One breed called 'Christine' grows in the shape of a perfect cylinder.

A study led by researchers at University College London suggests that areas of the brain are organised by functions rather than individual body parts.

The 'concept robot' was designed as part of Ford's innovation challenge by Itzel Cortés, a designer from Mexico City.

Wealthfront, an investment service firm based in Redwood City, California, is offering the robo-adviser service to clients with at least $100,000 (£78,000) in a taxable account.

Conservationists in South Africa have blamed 'pervasive poaching' for the dramatic reduction in numbers across 73 designated areas spanning 21 African countries.

A new study, from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, has discovered that umbilical cord blood could be the key to reversing the effects of age-associated mental declines.

The terrifying video was created by the New Zealand Fire Service, in the hopes of raising awareness of the dangers of house fires.

Google is working on a global recruitment tool, named 'Google Hire'. Rumours that users may only be able to access it using their personal Google accounts has sparked fear online.

Near-Earth object was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope located on the summit of the Haleakalā volcano on Maui, Hawaii. It came within 202,000 miles (325,087km) of Earth.

The conceptual designs for the building, dubbed 'Pod Vending Machine,' were created by Mr Haseef Rafiei, an architecture student at the University of Manchester.

Images captured from below the aircraft as they flew over a photographer's house in South London show sunlight catching millions of ice crystals trailing behind passenger airliners.

The Ooho! balloon was created by a trio of London-based engineers. The spheres are created using gelification, a technique used in cooking, and the squishy skin is made from algae.

Nasa has released a stunning video showing cascades of charged particles spilling from a hole in the sun's atmosphere, which could cause a geomagnetic storm on Earth today.

Scărișoara Ice Cave is among the most important scientific sites in Europe.

Madeleine McCann vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3, 2007, when she was just three years old.

In the new study, an international team of researchers found that, once the prey is captured, any contact with the Venus flytrap's sensory ‘hairs’ will trigger an electrical signal.

The wannabe inventors are students at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The children's tricycle is powered by a 33c chainsaw engine with a modified clutch.

New product vSculp combines light energy with thermal heat and sonic vibration. Manufacturers claim it regenerates vaginal tissue and rebuilds collagen.

Researchers from the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain found that wax worms can do serious damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.

Mysterious footage has emerged from a national park in the Netherlands, where tourists say they may have found a Bigfoot-like creature lurking in the forest, which was seen peering out at them.

Lee Tada claims her driver was travelling at 45mph (72km/h) on a motorway in Guangzhou, China before the vehicle crashed into a concrete siderail. The car then flipped over and crashed into a Ford Focus.

Hundreds of families in Phoenix, Arizona, are being invited to take part in a trial run of the 500 Chrysler minivans purchased by Alphabet Inc for their first public road tests.

Researchers from the University of Florida and Arizona State University studied the courtship habits of four species of jumping spiders in the genus Habronattus who live near Phoenix.

Abyss Creations, based in California, has unveiled 'Harmony AI', an app that gives its silicone Realdolls a 'brain' capable of forming relationships with humans.

Called the CityHawk, the five seater could be ferrying four passengers using giant jet fuel powered fans. It is based on the Cormorant, a military craft set to ferry wounded soldiers.

The Cassini probe, which has been investigating Saturn and its moons since 2004, captured the extraordinary photo on April 12 at a distance of 870 million miles (1,400km) from Earth.

From a vacuum Martian airship to an artificial gravity chamber, NASA has revealed a host of new proposals that could push human and robotic exploration of space even further.

It has emerged that the NSA used a specially modified blimp to spy on Long Island, New York, in 2004. Leaked documents suggest the blimp was used to spy on shipping in the area.

Researchers at Stanford University in California stimulated two different types of neuron to join up and work together as they would do in a real human forebrain.

The fascinating images show astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin Jr walking on the moon as they made 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'.

Villagers in the abandoned medieval village of Wharram Percy, north Yorkshire hacked up the corpses of dead people to prevent them returning as zombies, shocking new research has found.

YouTube channel SecureTeam10 explores the origins of a mysterious rock found in Roswell, New Mexico, that conspiracy theorists say is evidence of aliens visiting the planet.

Sometimes technology can be tricky to get to grips with, and now one mother has become an unlikely internet sensation after her son revealed she photocopies recipes direct from her tablet.

Human funerary practices mean nutrients are being concentrated unnaturally in cemeteries instead of being dispersed evenly throughout nature, according to new research in Prague.

Teardowns of the Samsung Galaxy S8 have revealed a bizarre icon on the battery – a ‘no dogs allowed’ sticker. The label warns users not to let their pets use the battery as a chew toy.

Fallout from a Soviet nuclear weapons test at Semipalatinsk in August 1956 resulted in more than 600 people ending up in hospital with radiation sickness, four times the amount from Chernobyl.

A gold locket engraved with 'VC' tells a story of love and loss aboard the Titanic. It belonged to Virginia Estelle McDowell Clark who survived, but was forced to leave her husband behind.

Social media has gone crazy for the latest pet fad: trapping cats in squares made of tape stuck to the floor. The reason for the kitty quirk is unknown, but as these pictures show, it's certainly real.

A British-led team has discovered another 'Great Spot' on Jupiter that is is 15,000 mi across and 7,500 mi wide. Unlike its surroundings, this system is much colder - earning it the name Great Cold Spot.

The pictures, dating from 1870 to 1920, show restored images of jobs in Britain such as courier, nurse and a school teacher. They took Irish artist Matt Loughrey six days to colourise.

It's easy to spot the sheep in this pastoral scene - but they aren't the only animals on the farm. The latest optical illusion from Playbuzz challenges players to find four more hidden creatures.

The Internet Archive has created 40 emulators of programs released from 1984 to 1989 for you to use inside your browser. This includes programs such as MacWrite and Space Invaders.

Apple today unveiled a host of new products after it today shut its global store leaving only a mysterious message reading: 'We've got something special in store for you.'

The 'spy' hooks can be bought online by anyone globally for as little as ($25). They contain miniature cameras which film tiny a small hole at the top of the plastic.

In a recent visit to the village of San Juan de Collata, University of St Andrews anthropologist Dr Sabine Hyland identified what are now the only known Andean phonetic khipus.

The company has got city approval for the project, which begins construction next month and will take about two years to complete. It boasts petal-like canopy structure on the roof.

Most optical illusions don't leave viewers shrieking in horror in addition to scratching their heads, but the illustration 'Blue Plate Special' by Jeff Lee Johnson packs tons of horrifying details.

Spot is one of many lifelike robots being developed by Boston Dynamics, a branch of Google. The canine-like machine has started bringing parcels in Boston.

Contestants score an average of six out of ten on the quiz. The results show that Glaswegian is the UK's most recognisable dialect, while the Birmingham accent is the trickiest to guess.

The triangular complex, painted in the red, white and blue of the Russia's tricolor flag, has been built in remote Alexandra Land in the Franz Josef Archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

It's been two years in the making, but Will Strathmann has finished a stunning timelapse of a Pennsylvania farm that was taken by a drone from spring of 2015 to January 2017.

E-Volo has unveiled ts revamped Volocopter VC200, an electric flying taxi. Called the Volocopter 2X, the craft is set to begin testing in commercial airways in 2018 and will be used in pilot projects.

Festo has unveiled an unnerving octopus-inspired device equipped with a flexible robotic tentacle. The gripper is made up of soft silicone lined with two rows of suction cups.

The pyramid from the 13th dynasty was found in Dahshur's royal necropolis, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Cairo. Excavations are still in their early stages, and the size of the pyramid remains unknown.

Alien hunters claim to have found evidence in an image snapped by the Curiosity rover that suggests Mars may have been lush with vegetation – 'the petrified remnants of a Martian tree'.

Southern Africa is known for its collection of ancient rock art, but experts had yet to directly date them - until now. The artwork was found to be 5,000 years old - much older than previously believed.

Russia is planning to commission new Shtorm class carriers, also known as Project 23E000E, for 2030, with state media saying the new craft will be the 'biggest in the world'.

Researchers from Australian National University used the Molonglo radio telescope, which is near Canberra, to find the likely locations of fast radio emissions.

Ray Kurzweil a futurist who works on Google's machine learning project predicted that singularity would happen in the next twelve years at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas .

Researchers from the University of St Andrews filmed a chimpanzee in Zambia called Noel cleaning the teeth of her dead son. The footage may shed light on how humans evolved mortuary practices.

A California-based firm's new robot dispenses measured quantities of ingredients for ready-to-eat salads Named Sally, it also uses proprietary technology to provide precises caloric counts.

A scientist based in Montreal has designed a hybrid bike-bus vehicle called The Siroco, which could carry up to twelve passengers at once.

The machine, created by an amateur Norwegian engineer in his garage in Bergen, Norway, runs using 18 different motors that give the robot exceptional flexibility.

The 437-year-old book, called the 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum', was the first attempt to pull together all the maps of the known world. It will go under the hammer at Sotehby's in London next month.

Researchers from the University of California in Berkeley trained an AI to turn masterpieces into realistic-looking photos by teaching it to analyse the 'special characteristics' of images.

California is now in the midst of a 'superbloom' after drought-relieving rains. Satellite images show the dramatic changes over the past few months as the vegetation comes back to life.

The rocket engine was cut in half and placed in a transparent case so it could be filmed in slow motion at 1,500 and 4,000 frames per second using a high-speed camera, showing the rocket blazing.

The site was investigated by archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology, who were the first people in the world to have the chance to examine such a vast WWI training ground.

Matt Horan, pictured, whose Poole company C3IA Solutions works with GCHQ, wants to help Britons beat scams that now cost consumers £5billion every year.

Uber has announced that its zero-emissions take off and land vertically flying taxis will hit be deployed in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and Dubai by 2020 - a year ahead of schedule.

The strange swirling patterns on the planet are caused by 'megawinds' among the fastest in the solar system that can reach 1,100mph.

The website Clarifai, which was created by New York-based computer scientist Matthew Zeiler, uses facial recognition software to identify famous faces.

The social network's founder took to the stage at the firm's annual F8 developer conference at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center to show off new AR software.

Along with the successful completion of flight tests, Lilium has also revealed it is working on a larger, five-seater version that the firm says could soon be used for ride-sharing services.

The chance of getting a puncture has always been a headache for cyclists. But now the problem could be about to become a whole lot more serious – as US boffins have invented a blow-up bike.

Disney Research has developed a projection system that can track the actor's facial movements and change expressions so that the face can be painted with light, rather than physical makeup.

The Shetland and Orkney islands have the highest proportion of Viking descendants in the UK. People with names ending in 'son', such as actress Emma Watson (pictured), could be related to Vikings.

Nearly half of an airline's revenue derives from those flying first-and business-class – and firms are searching for futuristic designs to ensure the one percent travels in style and comfort.

Combining measurements from Cassini, two Voyager spacecraft, and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, researchers found that our solar system may be enveloped by a spherical sheath.

The device has successfully been tested on foetal lambs equivalent in age to 23-week-old human infants, according to researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The Stanford University engineering lecturer and artist creates the infinite effect by spinning the 3-D printed sculpture and photographing it with a camera with a fast shutter speed.

Researchers based at the University of Utah and other universities discovered the giant shipworm after it was tapped out of a huge shell. The worm lives in shallow mud bays in the Phillipines.