By Vitaly Shevchenko BBC Monitoring Drones have had a profound effect on the war in Ukraine, used in great quantities by both sides. China’s move to place restrictions on exports, however, has led to concerns that there could be a problem with supplies. Many of them are commercially made in China and bought off the…

Extraterrestrial life could really be out there among the stars – here is some of what we have learned thanks to science. Through the years, BBC Future has covered a wide range of stories about what life from other worlds might look like and the implications of what discovering extraterrestrials would be. As we kick…

By Tom Gerken Technology reporter What’s better, Mario or Sonic? People of a certain age will remember growing up with this debate dominating conversations at school in the ’90s. Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog led the gaming charts back then, and ultimately became two of the most recognisable faces in the industry, spanning countless…

By Chloe Kim BBC News Ed Currie eats, sleeps and breathes peppers. He calls it his “obsession”. He starts “every morning with what is essentially pepper oil” in his coffee. After taste-testing peppers and hot sauces all day for his South Carolina company, PuckerButt Pepper Company, he will add peppers or hot sauce to his…

By Mark Savage BBC Music Correspondent In 1991, Prince was at a crossroads. His commercial power had waned. A sequel to Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge, had bombed at the box office. Hip-hop, a genre he’d disparaged as “tone deaf”, had dethroned R&B as the sound of urban America. “He was the greatest live performer alive…

From hiking along Tai Long Wan’s sandy beaches to stand up paddle boarding at Green Egg Island, athlete and water sports coach Edmund Lai shares his favourite spots. Hong Kong is famously one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with an average of 6,700 people per square kilometre, rising to an eye-watering 57,000 in…

By Justin Rowlatt Climate editor, BBC News Could the ebb and flow of the UK’s tides help us to rely less on fossil fuels? Great progress has been made exploiting wind and solar technology, but if we are going to switch to more renewable power, we need all the energy we can get. Tidal power…

By Raja Lumbanrau and Astudestra Ajengrastri BBC World Service When Sariah went to fetch water in a pit near her home in Bangka Island, Indonesia, last September, she was unaware that a 3m-long saltwater crocodile had been resting in the crater, watching as she filled one of her buckets. “The water was calm and there…

A group of UN agencies have called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as conditions worsen in the territory. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) were among five agencies who described the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic” in a joint statement. The UN’s plea for a de-escalation of the conflict…

By Thomas Mackintosh BBC News Six people have been killed and a further 14 injured after a missile hit a postal distribution centre in eastern Ukraine late on Saturday night. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram the Nova Poshta sorting office was struck in Kharkiv. Pictures from the scene posted on President Zelensky’s account…