‘I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face,’ says Kyle Mulinder

A kayaker paddling in the waters around New Zealand has been given an unusually close look at its marine life when a seal appeared to throw an octopus at him.

The bombs used by Allied forces during World War II were so large, they weakened the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

A swarm of bees flew into the engine of a Mango Airlines plane, forcing a delay in flights at the main airport in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban.

Bee experts were called in and they safely removed the estimated 20,000 bees from the engine, the low-budget airline said.

Iraq’s biggest university has entered the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the first time.

The University of Baghdad, emerging from Iraq’s conflicts, has appeared in the rankings of the top 1,250 research universities around the world.

What could cause a freshly sliced orange to suddenly turn purple?

Australian health authorities say they have solved a mystery that prompted much speculation earlier this month.

Extra 259GW capacity from coal in pipeline despite Beijing’s restrictions on plants

Chinese coal-fired power plants, thought to have been cancelled because of government edicts, are still being built and are threatening to “seriously undermine” global climate goals, researchers have warned.

Satellite photos taken in 2018 of locations in China reveal cooling towers and new buildings that were not present a year earlier at plants that were meant to stop operations or be postponed by orders from Beijing.

Poorest countries have little protection against Trump’s trade wars and growth slump

An “explosion” in corporate and household debt across the developing world since the financial crisis has left some of the world’s poorest countries with little protection against Donald Trump’s trade wars and a slowdown in global growth.

Canada’s Barrick Gold is buying Randgold Resources, creating the world’s biggest gold miner with a value of about $18bn (£14bn).

France’s government spokesman says that the country is seeking a solution with other EU members after humanitarian groups operating a rescue ship with 58 migrants aboard want to be allowed to disembark in the French southern port of Marseille.

Archaeologists have found a 400-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Portugal, in what one specialist called the “discovery of a decade”.

Spices, ceramics and cannons engraved with Portugal’s coat of arms all lie around the wreck, found near Cascais, close to the capital Lisbon.