Peru's oceanographic agency says it will investigate the deaths of hundreds of pelicans on northern beaches where nearly 900 dolphins were recently found dead.

Claude Miller didn't do lightweight. His best-known film, Garde à vue, an adaptation of the novel Brainwash by the British crime writer John Wainwright, is a dark thriller revolving around the police interrogation of a lawyer accused of raping and murdering two little girls. The viewer is never quite sure whether the inspector, played by Lino Ventura, should pin the ghastly crimes on the suspect, the wonderfully ambiguous Michel Serrault, who knows the law inside out but appears almost too willing to dig himself into a hole.

Emperor penguins, lots and lots of them – and now we know just how many. Antarctica contains more than half a million – nearly double the number previously thought, a satellite survey has revealed. In the first comprehensive census of a species taken from space, high-resolution photos of 44 colonies around the Antarctic continent showed there were 595,000 birds – the previous estimate was 350,000.

Philip Pullman, the celebrated author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, is to publish new adaptations of 50 of his favourite Grimm’s Fairy Tales this autumn, 200 years after the works were first published.

The populations of almost half of the world's seabirds are thought to be in decline, according to a study published in Bird Conservation International.

Veteran crooner Engelbert Humperdinck, whose last top 10 hit was 42 years ago has been chosen as the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

A giant penguin more than 4ft (1.2m) tall roamed New Zealand about 27 million years ago, according to paleontologists who have reconstructed it from fossil remains.

What do mermaids, anchors, sea horses and shells have in common? Apart from their watery heritage, they all feature large on fashion collections for spring/summer 2012.

New Zealand braced for a new oil spill last night after a storm broke up a cargo ship that has caused the country's worst maritime environmental disaster.

Scientists link eerie avian suicides of 1961, which inspired cinema classic, to poison in the food chain

Anna Calvi, Ghostpoet and Leslie Feist all made great albums this year. Here, they and others pick the music that rocked their year

Katherine Parkinson stars in a Dickens spoof over Christmas, then takes on Ayckbourn. Cosy comedy's not for this cerebral soul, as Alice Jones discovers

Parkinson stars in a Dickens spoof over Christmas, then takes on Ayckbourn.

When Jim Carrey inherits six penguins – don't ask – his children adore the flatulent little critters, so Carrey agrees to keep them, even if that means filling his swanky apartment with ice, snow and bird droppings.