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Until 18:00, Basel is all business. It’s not somewhere you can waltz into a meeting five minutes late – not in this Swiss city whose major industries, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, are all about precision and control.

The Inka empire (1400-1532 CE) is one of few ancient civilisations that speaks to us in multiple dimensions. Instead of words or pictograms, the Inkas used khipus – knotted string devices – to communicate extraordinarily complex mathematical and narrative information.

Nestled among Kansas cornfields in a landscape devoid of any noticeable natural topography, a verdant mound can be seen from a dirt road. Surrounded by a military-grade chain fence and in the shadow of a large wind turbine, a security guard in camouflage paces the fence line with an assault rifle.

A hiker who got lost on a remote part of the Appalachian Trail in the US sent text messages appealing for help and kept a journal for 26 days before she died, newly released papers show.Geraldine Largay, 66, went missing in 2013.

The Pico Simón Bolívar is one of the highest mountains in Colombia. Near the top, there is only half as much oxygen as at sea level, a dizzying 5,500m (18,000 feet) below.

Japanese researchers have succeeded in fertilising pear trees using pollen carried on the thin film of a soap bubble. They've been searching for alternative approaches to pollination, because of the decline in the number of bees worldwide.

Charity picture book series Remembering Wildlife has announced the 10 winners of its cheetah photography competition. The winners were picked from more than 2,400 entrants, with the winning images showing cheetahs in Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania and South Africa.

Elon Musk has perhaps the most exciting portfolio of businesses on the planet. There's SpaceX with its mission to Mars, and Tesla with its super-fast hi-tech electric cars.

US company Quaker Oats has announced it will rename its Aunt Jemima line of syrups and foods, acknowledging the brand was based on a racial stereotype.

Scientists have identified a green light in the atmosphere of Mars. The glow comes from oxygen atoms when they're excited by sunlight.

For billions of people around the world, life at home has taken on a new significance this year. Flats and houses have become workplaces, gyms, schools and living spaces all rolled into one by national lockdowns.

Are you a parent who dreads having to help with maths homework? In a restaurant, do you hate having to calculate the tip on a bill? Does understanding your mortgage interest payments seem like an unsurmountable task? If so, you’re definitely not alone.

Academics are sorry that apology research is floundering. New discoveries on apologies rarely appear because the studies are challenging to design, not unlike determining whether woodpeckers get headaches, or boiling the ocean.

One is a town surrounded by tropical forest and beaches popular with surfers, two are craggy islands in the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean, the fourth is at the tail of the Japanese archipelago, while the last is a small city in California whose name means “beautiful hill”.

As parts of the world begin to ease their lockdowns, some people are looking back and finding the time in isolation seems to have gone surprisingly fast.

The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say. The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

Europe's Solar Orbiter (SolO) probe makes its first close pass of the Sun on Monday, tracking by at a distance of just over 77 million km. SolO was launched in February and is on a mission to understand what drives our star's dynamic behaviour.

Holy water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy or a religious figure. The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions, from Christianity to Sikhism.

Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans. Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town".