Science & Tech News

The ammonite was spotted and pried loose of surrounding rock by university students Jack Wonfor, 19,(left) and Theo Vickers, 21, at Chale Bay. Ammonites are extinct sea creatures and part of the mollusc family, like sea snails, with Mr Wonfor and Mr Vickers calling their specimen an 'amazing example'. After ten hours of work, the ancient shelled creature (right) was pulled free of its tomb at Chale Bay on the Isle of Wight and scrutinised. The fossil hunters took the ammonite away (inset) and will chip away any remaining dirt and preserve the fossil.

Jaw-dropping footage of the giant squid was captured by eye witnesses and it shows the amazing scale of the 440lb sea monster as its tentacles spread out across the beach. Giant squid can grow up to 43 feet long, and their terrifying size is thought to have inspired belief in the existence of the kraken, a mythological sea monster. That makes the group, including Adéle Grosse who filmed the footage, extremely lucky to have such a close encounter with the giant sea beast.

An international team of researchers from analysed the large and well-preserved fossil tracks (left and bottom right), which were found at the Sacheon Jahye-ri dig site in South Korea. Initially, experts thought that the trace fossils must have been created by another ancient reptile - a pterosaur - that could fly but would have walked on two legs. Further analysis, however, revealed that the footprints were made with heel-to-toe impressions, which must have been made by a creature walking on the flat of its feet (top right).

Researchers from the University of Manchester found that the three stellar objects were pulled together by gravity at the same pace - as Einstein predicted. This is the strong equivalence principle - that says any two objects in the same gravitational field will fall with the same acceleration regardless of their mass.

The development by researchers from the University of Cambridge will allow experts to study the so-called 'black box' period of human development. Scientists are unable to directly observe this time in human development in the laboratory as a result of legal constraints on embryonic research - but the new models (pictured left and top right, and at different stages of development, bottom right) may provide an alternative window into this period

A Polish website called PimEyes uses facial recognition to search the internet for pictures of a person based on a single image. A free service shows photos it believes to be the same person, and rates the 'match' out of five stars. There is also a premium service for £9.79 a day where customers can see exactly where the photo exists and set up alerts. An online security expert speaking to MailOnline branded the developers of the technology naive and slammed the technology as posing 'very serious privacy implications' for users. The system works on non-famous people (top) and celebrities (bottom).

Excavations at a site in Whitechapel in central London yielded convincing evidence that the Red Lion has been discovered. The Red Lion site is one of many from the late-16th and early-17th centuries, the dawn of Elizabethan theatre and synonymous with William Shakespeare. The dig also uncovered what the archaeologists think were beer cellars. A range of beakers, drinking glasses and cups, bottles and tankards have also been found at the site. One complete late-17th century tavern mug has a royalist medallion of Charles II (top right), and other tankards feature tavern or landlord names. Archaeologists have not released an artist's impression for the Red Lion when it was built around 1567 as there is insufficient evidence to accurately recreate it. They have however, released a 3D visualisation of the excavation site (bottom right). Pictured left, Shakespearean-era playhouses in London.

The rare parrot (top right) was presumed extinct for more than a century until the corpse of one that had been hit by a truck was found by an Australian roadside in 1990. Researchers used a CT (computed tomography) scan (left) of this specimen (bottom right) to study the bird's visual system - which would give it surprisingly poor eyesight.

Archaeologists have used advanced technology to map out the entire ancient city of Falerii Novi, located near Rome, buried deep underground without any digging. Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Ghent found temples, shops, marketplaces and took a detailed look at the built-up areas home to the working class. The city was abandoned around 700AD as the empire fell into decline.

The artworks (left and top right)- thought to date back to around 1524-1821 AD - were first uncovered in 2003 during renovations of the property (bottom right), which lies in the town of Chajul. Wall art from this period is normally found adorning churches - and depicting Christian-themed subjects - which the Spanish used to affirm their presence. Accordingly, the blend of styles in the Chajul paintings may represent a resurgence of local culture as the imperial power's religious and political influence waned.

Called Amal, meaning hope, the mission will take off from a remote Japanese island called Tanegashima on July 15. It will be seven months before it is reaches orbit around Mars and starts orbiting the planet. The 3,000-pound (1,350kg) craft will complete one orbit every 55 hours for a total of one martian year - 687 Earth days.

The 60 satellites launched (left, bottom right) atop the firm's Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 8:55pm EDT on June 3 (1:55am BST June 4). It is hoped the Starlink project will beam internet down to all of Earth's inhabitants and this launch takes the current total of Starlink satellites in orbit to 482 and the company says it will be able to offer a 'moderate' service when it reaches 800. The project has received widespread criticism from astronomers for tainting the natural view of the night sky as the satellites are highly reflective. As a result, SpaceX has included an experimental craft with an inbuilt sun visor in this batch (bottom right).

Former NASA astronaut and geologist Kathy Sullivan has become the first woman to dive to lowest point on Earth, known as Challenger Deep. Sullivan, 68, emerged from the submersible DSV Limiting Factor (LF, left) at the weekend, which performed a successful expedition at more than 35,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Having safely returned to the LF's mothership, the Pressure Drop (bottom right), Sullivan and her pilot Victor Vescovo (top right) made a phone call to the International Space Station. ISS operates in an environment of zero pressure in the vacuum of space, while LF has the equivalent of 2,200 tonnes of pressure pressing down on its hatch. In 1984, Dr Sullivan, a veteran of three space shuttle flights, became the first American woman to walk in space (inset).

The waist-mounted robotic arm has three degrees of freedom, moves nine feet per second and picks up objects weighing up to 11 pounds. The robot was created by researchers at Université de Sherbrooke in Canada and is known as a 'supernumerary robotic arm,' which is a wearable robot that provides a human with an additional limb. It has been shown to paint, wash windows, hand tools to a human worker and play badminton, along with smashing through a wall on a construction site.