Science pictures

An onshore pipeline ruptured along the California coast, spewing crude oil onto pristine beaches.

Up to 300 people, many of them foreigners, are believed to have been buried by an avalanche in Langtang.

Getty Images photographers Chris McGrath and David Ramos capture people trying to rebuild their lives in the rubble of Kathmandu.

People in remote regions of Nepal have had to walk 20 miles or more over mountainous paths to get help.

A teenager has been rescued from the rubble of a hotel in Kathmandu, five days after the earthquake.

Entire villages have been reduced to piles of stone and splintered wood.

Calbuco volcano erupts, with lightning crackling in a dark sky turned reddish orange by the explosion.

IBTimesUK celebrates Hubble's quarter-century with 25 of the best images captured by the space telescope.

Young trees are pruned and trained as they grow over moulds to create beautiful furniture.

Reuters photojournalist Lucy Nicholson flew over southern California to see the effects of the historic drought.

Huge tanks under Tokyo form the world's largest underground flood diversion facility.

Malnourished sea lion pups are getting stranded on California beaches in record numbers.

The heaviest rainfall in 80 years has caused flooding in the Atacama region of Chile and landslides in Peru.

In this gallery, IBTimesUK looks at sinkholes and craters that have opened up around the world.

People who have plentiful access to water are encouraged to try not turning on their taps all day.

Radioactive rubbish sits in blue and black plastic sacks in Fukushima four years after the tsunami.

Artists and designers in China have begun responding to Beijing's dangerous levels of air pollution.

Manhattan is surrounded by ice, while Central Park looks like a polar ice cap.

A heavy winter storm has dumped snow on Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.

A snow storm in Istanbul grounds planes, halts traffic, and forces closure of Bosphorus Strait.

A chemical explosion at a warehouse spread a large orange toxic cloud over five towns in Catalonia.

The US government has taken a tentative step towards allowing commercial development of the moon.

The second major snow storm in less than a week pummels Chicago, Detroit and Boston.

Lone individuals made their way across quiet city streets in the aftermath of 'Snowpocalypse'.

In his State of the Union speech, Obama advised astronaut Scott Kelly to Instagram everything.

All 15 years from 2000 were in top 20 warmest. The odds of that are 1.5 million billion to one.

Much of Britain has been turned into a winter wonderland, with roads and fields blanketed with snow.