With 1.5% of Australia's land mass burnt in disastrous bushfires - an area bigger than Scotland - and 1.25 billion animals lost, we revisit an in-depth interview we did in 2016 with leading climatologist Professor David Karoly. He spoke about human-induced climate change, its impacts and implications for the planet.

There are mounting fears about foreign-made apps hoovering up sensitive personal data. The proposed National Security and Personal Data Protection Act would try to stop foreign app owners from collecting any more data from American users than is necessary to provide their service.

Fossilised Antarctic seashells show the planet was unstable, warmed by intense volcanism, long before it was smashed by the notorious space rock impact 66 million years ago.

New measurement methods show that pieces of plastic smaller than 5 mm in diameter are scarily common. Microplastics are entering all parts of the marine ecosystem. If we eat any kind of fish, we are likely ingesting toxic microscopic plastic. Things must change.

Library Genesis and Sci-Huh have evolved into very popular and massive repositories of pirated scientific papers. Now there are moves to formalise and protect the "pirate bays" of science.

Metallosphaera sedula is a single-celled organism and hails from some of the earliest life forms on Earth. Now scientists think this metal-eating extremophile could help extract minerals from space rock or even find signs of life on Mars.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk successfully fended off a monster US$190 million defamation lawsuit brought by UK cave diver Vernon Unsworth. In a far-reaching decision, an LA court found that tweets are merely casual conversation and opinions, and should not be taken too seriously.

After serving a lengthy jail term, a German criminal wants Der Spiegel Online to remove his name from archived references on its website.

When you buy a smart phone in China, your face will be imaged and the biometric data kept by the government.

Though Google search, thanks to its sheer size, offers the best search available on the Net, users must accept that it will store their IP addresses and user information. They must also accept tracking, tailored ads and suggestions to use Google products like Maps and YouTube. For most purposes, Duck Duck Go provides an acceptable search alternative, albeit without the tracking.