A routine boat journey between two islands in the Federated States of Micronesia turned into a months-long ordeal after a storm swept nine people off course in the Pacific Ocean. Nearly three months after they disappeared, five of them, including two children, were found alive by villagers on a remote island in Kiribati, around 5,400…

Filipino engineer wins £30,000 award for sensor detecting hidden earthquake damage in buildings. A Filipino structural engineer who developed a sensor to detect hidden damage in buildings after earthquakes has won the 2026 James Dyson Award’s Global Sustainability prize. Aldrei Ong, a graduate of De La Salle University in the Philippines, received the recognition for…

NASA’s 3,200-pound Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has plunged back to Earth after nearly 22 years in orbit, bringing an end to a mission that transformed scientists’ understanding of some of the universe’s most powerful explosions. The space telescope re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on November 4, 2026, after a failed attempt to save…

Farmland, roads and new settlements are spreading across the world, and wildlife is left to find its way through landscapes that people have reshaped. In northeastern Thailand, a study of king cobras, among the largest venomous snakes on Earth, shows what that looks like up close. Seven cobras tracked at the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve moved…