B.1.640.2 was discovered in a traveler returning from Cameroon and has a high number of mutations. And a first "flurona" case has been confirmed in Israel.

Africa urgently needs to guarantee its own health security.

The island nation struggles to keep the lights on but has inoculated 90% of its population with home-developed vaccines

Ancient Greeks have been credited with the invention of trigonometry, but a mathematician reveals Babylonians used it about a thousand years earlier.

For 75 days straight, Costa Rica ran on 100% renewable electricity.

A report shows that a $50 trillion redistribution of income to benefit the richest has made America less healthy, resilient, and secure.

In December 2019 the WHO was told of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. These charts show how Covid-19 has spread across the world since then

These are some of the fun science stories from this year.

A look back at 2021 through the Sustainable Development Goals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a significant blow to EU R&D investment growth, according to data published in the 2021 edition of European Commission's industrial R&D scoreboard.

The extraordinary vaccination of more than four billion people, and the lack of access for many others, were major forces this year - while Omicron's arrival complicated things further.

The EU's proposed artificial intelligence act fails to fully take into account the recent rise of an ultra-powerful new type of AI, meaning the legislation will rapidly become obsolete as the technology is deployed in novel and unexpected ways. Foundation models trained on gargantuan amounts of data by the world's biggest tech companies, and then adapted to a wide range of tasks, are poised to become the infrastructure on which other applications are built.

Microplastics from Africa and North America found airborne in French Pyrenees, 2,877 metres above sea level

The European Medicines Agency has approved the Novavax coronavirus vaccine. The protein-based vaccine may be a real alternative, both for bringing forward the global vaccination campaign, and for vaccination skeptics.

At least 66m-year-old fossil discovered in southern China reveals posture previously unseen in dinosaurs

Experience in grant-writing, data analysis and presentation will serve researchers well - even when they move away from academia.

Research has stalled, funds have evaporated and many scientists are still struggling to get out.

A row between the European Parliament and the Council over whether unspent money in the previous Horizon 2020 EU research and innovation programme should be rolled into the 2022 Horizon Europe budget remains unresolved - and could repeat itself again next year. 

Analysis: scientists are only starting to understand new COVID mutation but there is encouraging news from the laboratory, South Africa and on antiviral drugs.