Former president takes stand in New York Trump Organization trial as judge asks lawyer to control your client'

The first patient to receive a spinal implant to treat advanced Parkinson's disease has described experiencing 'a rebirth' after the treatment allowed him to walk again without falling over. Marc, 63, from Bordeaux, France, was diagnosed with the degenerative disease more than 20 years ago and had developed severe mobility problems, including balance impairments and freezing of gait. After receiving the implant, which aims to restore normal signalling to the leg muscles from the spine, he has been able to walk more normally and regained his independence.

Marc, 63, had freezing of gait before becoming first with advanced Parkinson's to be fitted with device restoring normal signallingThe first patient to receive a spinal implant to treat advanced Parkinson's disease has described experiencing a rebirth" after the treatment allowed him to walk again without falling over.Marc, 63, from Bordeaux, France, was diagnosed with the degenerative disease more than 20 years ago and had developed severe mobility problems, including balance impairments and freezing of gait. After receiving the implant, which aims to restore normal signalling to the leg muscles from the spine, he has been able to walk more normally and regained his independence. Continue reading...

Bronze coins dating from fourth century are in exceptional state of preservation, Italy's culture ministry saysAn Italian diver's sighting of something metallic near the coast of Sardinia has led to the discovery of tens of thousands of Roman bronze coins, Italy's culture ministry has said.After the man alerted the authorities, divers from an art protection squad and the ministry's undersea archaeology department were sent to investigate. The coins, which date back to the first half of the fourth century, were found among sea grass not far from the north-east shore of the Mediterranean island. Continue reading...

The sun is expected to reach solar maximum' between January and October 2024, bringing spectacular aurora displaysThis winter is likely to be a blockbuster year for seeing the Northern Lights as scientists predict the best displays in 20 years, which have already been seen in southern England.The sun is predicted to reach the peak of its approximately 11-year activity cycle - known as solar maximum" - between January and October 2024, bringing with it spectacular aurora displays both in lower polar regions and further south in Europe. Continue reading...

We focus on friendships, but encounters with those we hardly know are vital tooThe stranger struck up conversation on a delayed flight between Florida and New York. We were both struggling to entertain our toddlers, and we commiserated awhile. After the children fell asleep, he told me he'd recently left the Mormon church. He said he missed the community and the certainty he once felt. He was still figuring out how to raise a child without faith: for example, would I say there was a heaven if my daughter asked, even if I didn't fully believe it?Maybe it feels more natural to speak intimately with a stranger on a flight, when you are both uprooted and disoriented, not quite sure if it's night or day or where the sun should hang in the sky. Maybe it's more natural for your mind to turn to existential questions when you're hurtling through the atmosphere at great speed, held up by forces you can't fully understand. For a few hours we talked about fear and loss, and I later thought that while this kind of intensity is discouraged, maybe such subjects are actually best explored with someone completely unfamiliar to you, who sees the world quite differently. Continue reading...

Measures including healthy sleep and regular exercise may slow pace of body's biological ageingScientists have named eight health measures that can slow the body's ageing process by six years.Keeping body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure in check while maintaining healthy sleep and eating regimes, doing regular physical activity and not smoking may slow the ageing process by around six years, US experts say.Eat a healthy dietBe more activeQuit smokingGet healthy sleepMaintain a healthy weightControl cholesterolWatch blood sugarManage blood pressure Continue reading...

Daye's product doubles as PCR test for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and other common infectionsA tampon is being repurposed to screen for sexually transmitted infections, with the at-home test aiming to encourage more women to seek treatment.The gynaecological health startup Daye has launched an STI diagnostic tampon, which uses a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to check for chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomonas, mycoplasma and ureaplasma, with the tampon used in place of a swab or speculum. Continue reading...

Researchers designing lateral flow test that patients could use at home and avoid six-month wait for MRI scanScientists are developing the world's first finger-prick test to spot brain tumours. More than 300,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with brain cancer each year, and while treatments have improved over the last few decades, recurrence remains a risk.The unpredictable timing of tumours coming back makes them difficult to detect early. Researchers are designing a lateral flow test to pick up signs of recurrence that could be used by patients at home. Continue reading...

The UK excels at longevity research'. Could it become part of an industry that fascinates the wealthiest people in the world?About a decade ago, 125 amateur cyclists from all over the UK filed into the laboratories at King's College London. Aged between 55 and 79, they were there to participate in a long-term study examining how regular physical activity affects the ageing process.Janet Lord, professor of immune cell biology at Birmingham University, who conducted the study in collaboration with King's professor Steve Harridge, said the team were surprised by some findings when they examined the cyclists' bodies and took blood samples over several years. Continue reading...

Some scientists say the rules must be changed so plants and animals are not tagged with objectionable' namesIn 1937, a brown, eyeless beetle was found in a few caves in Slovenia. The new species was unexceptional apart from one feature. Its discoverer decided to name it after Adolf Hitler.Anophthalmus hitleri has an objectionable sound to modern ears. Nor is it alone. Many species' names recall individuals or ideas that offend: the butterfly Hypopta mussolinii, for example, while several hundred plant species carry names based on the word caffra which is derived from a racial slur once used in Africa. Similarly Hibbertia, a genus of flowering plants, honours George Hibbert, an English slave owner. Continue reading...

Women form just 16% of the nominees for next year's award, but Nobel laureate Prof Frances Arnold says gender balance will come through girls working in science from a young ageAs a Nobel laureate, Prof Frances Arnold is not short of accolades. Yet being the only woman to so far win the Millennium Technology Prize - the Nobel equivalent for engineers - is one of the least appealing.Nominations for the 1m 2024 prize closed last week, and the organisers have revealed that women formed just 16.3% of nominees, the highest of any year since the biennial award's launch in 2004, apart from the 28.1% put forward in 2022. Continue reading...

In the NSW southern highlands, Horse Aid is working to un-soldier' former defence personnel and un-race' thoroughbreds

An imaginary starship trip beyond the solar system to the edge of the Milky Way offers new perspectives on the wonders of spaceAstronomy and cosmology can feel detached from everyday reality. But what if we could take a 23rd-century starship tour through the Milky Way and experience the cosmos like an Earth-bound tourist visiting exotic destinations? What would we see from our window?Although physicists enjoy speculating about warp drives, or using wormholes to jump between locations, there is no way to travel faster than light at present. So we're assuming a fictional ability to do this - but beyond that, everything we will encounter on our voyage is based on best current theories. Continue reading...

Helen MacNamara painted a picture of a homogenous, unpleasant top table. Experts says this lack of diversity can matter beyond the workplace itselfHelen MacNamara, the UK's second-most senior official at the height of the Covid pandemic, lifted a lid this week on a toxic environment" at the heart of Downing Street, in which female civil servants became invisible overnight" and were routinely spoken over or ignored. A picture emerges of an unpleasant and unequal workplace, but experts say that the apparent exclusion of women from decision-making is also likely to have impaired the UK's response to the pandemic.At the most basic level, a lack of representation at the table excludes gender-related insights and expertise. MacNamara highlighted specific issues that were overlooked including the lack of provision for domestic abuse victims during the first lockdown, concerns about oversized PPE not fitting and endangering female frontline staff and unnecessarily restrictive rules around pregnancy care and childbirth. She said the WhatsApp group for her children's school - typically the domain of mothers - provided a barometer of public sentiment from which leadership appeared disconnected. Continue reading...

Dinkinesh - Amharic for you are marvelous' - lies beyond orbit of Mars and has its own dinky sidekick barely 220 metres acrossYou could call it a mini moon".In one of the smallest, but still exciting, discoveries by Nasa in recent years, a spacecraft visiting a minor asteroid way out in the solar system has discovered that the chunk of space rock has its own tiny sidekick. Continue reading...

I told Chris Whitty at the time that scientists were providing cover for weak leaders taking harmful decisions

Reanalysis of skeletal remains in Spain suggests conflicts took place about 5,000 years ago in neolithic period, say researchersThe earliest period of warfare in Europe might have occurred more than 1,000 years before what was previously thought to be the first large-scale conflict in the region, researchers have suggested.Reanalysis of more than 300 sets of skeletal remains uncovered in Spain - radiocarbon dated to between 5,400 and 5,000 years ago - indicates that conflicts took place long before powerful states formed in the region. Continue reading...

Scientists say that like humans the rodents can navigate through a space using only their thoughtsWhether dreaming of a white Christmas or simply pondering how best to rearrange the furniture, humans are able to conjure up myriad situations that are not in front of us. Now it seems rats may be able to do something similar.Researchers have found that rats can navigate their way through a space they have previously explored using their thoughts alone, suggesting the rodents have some sort of imagination. Continue reading...

Discovery of hidden transmission of disease formerly know as monkeypox leads to calls for improved surveillanceThe disease formerly known as monkeypox, which spread around the world in an unprecedented outbreak in 2022, was circulating in humans for more than five years before the explosion of cases triggered a global public health emergency, researchers say.The discovery of longstanding, hidden transmission between humans has led to calls for improved global surveillance of the MPXV virus to eliminate the disease, renamed mpox last year, from humans and prevent it from re-emerging. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak sought to reassure workers on Thursday during a speech at an AI safety summit at Bletchley Park in which he said AI would be a 'co-pilot' and not something that would 'replace someone's job'. Sunak said the labour market and available jobs would change, but that the government would invest in helping people retrain

Research finds primates seek high ground to ascertain size and proximity of other groups before advancing or retreatingThe tactic is so effective when the enemy is near that Sun Tzu recommends it in The Art of War: He who occupies the high ground," the Chinese general declared in the ancient military treatise, will fight to advantage".But soldiers are not alone in having hit on the idea. Troops of chimpanzees in Ivory Coast have taken up the same strategy, researchers say, scaling hilltops for recce missions and advancing if the enemy is distant or outnumbered. Continue reading...

Besides the swearing, toxic workplace culture and misogyny, what have we learned from the Covid inquiry? Gaby Hinsliff talks to the Guardian's political editor, Pippa Crerar. And our political correspondent Kiran Stacey tells us how significant the government's first artificial intelligence summit will bePlease note, strong language used throughout. Continue reading...

As the UK hosts the first global AI safety summit, Guardian science editor Ian Sample joins Madeleine Finlay to look on the bright side and consider some of the huge benefits AI could bring to science. Madeleine also hears from Prof Mihaela van der Schaar, an expert in machine learning in medicine, about how she predicts AI will transform patient careClips: BBC Radio 4, the Telegraph, Channel 4 Continue reading...

Study delivers dire warning although rate of increase is debated by some scientists amid a record-breaking year of heatGlobal heating is accelerating faster than is currently understood and will result in a key temperature threshold being breached as soon as this decade, according to research led by James Hansen, the US scientist who first alerted the world to the greenhouse effect.The Earth's climate is more sensitive to human-caused changes than scientists have realized until now, meaning that a dangerous" burst of heating will be unleashed that will push the world to be 1.5C hotter than it was, on average, in pre-industrial times within the 2020s and 2C hotter by 2050, the paper published on Thursday predicts. Continue reading...

Rapid rollout of anticoagulant drugs to people with atrial fibrillation saved 4,000 lives since January 2022, says NHS chiefThousands of lives have been saved by giving blood-thinning drugs to people with a heart condition that puts them at risk of a stroke, according to the head of the NHS.Since January 2022, about 460,000 people in England who suffer from atrial fibrillation (AF) - a dangerously irregular heart rate - have begun taking one of four anticoagulant drugs that are proven to reduce stroke risk. Continue reading...

UK study finds cognitive function and working memory in older adults declined even if they were not infected with virus

Everything you need to know about cognitive decline and how to maintain a healthy brain

Move signals US government slowly opening up about what it knows, or doesn't, about unidentified anomalous phenomenaThe Pentagon has launched an online reporting tool for certain encounters with unidentified anomalous phenomena, formerly known as UFOs, in an expansion of its effort to be more transparent about its exploration of the unknown.Only current or former federal employees, or those with direct knowledge of US government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945" are so far eligible to use the secure form, which went live on Tuesday on the website of the defense department's somewhat blandly named All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (Aaro). Continue reading...

Shropshire county council narrowly approves road handing death sentence to tree Darwin may have climbed as a boyAs an eight-year-old, Charles Darwin may have sat in the shade beneath its boughs and climbed its branches. Two hundred years later, Darwin's oak" has been handed a death sentence to make way for a new road to bypass Shrewsbury.Along with eight other veteran trees, the 550-year-old, open-grown oak tree, which has a girth of 7 metres (23ft), stands in the path of the planned Shrewsbury North West Relief Road (NWRR), an 80m bypass linking the northern and western parts of the town. Continue reading...

Lawrence Faucette, who had terminal heart disease, received a pig heart genetically altered to be compatible with humansThe world's second recipient of a pig heart transplant died this week, nearly six weeks after the procedure.Lawrence Faucette, 58, was suffering from terminal heart disease and received a heart transplant from a genetically altered pig on 20 September. He died on 30 October. Continue reading...

US vice-president Kamala Harris rejected what she called the 'false choice' between advancing AI innovation and stopping its progress for public safety on Wednesday, calling for AI safety and reaffirming the US's commitment to work with partners to promote better AI safety frameworks globally. In a speech in London at the Global Summit on AI Safety, Harris acknowledged existential threats posed by AI but added that it was a moment of 'profound opportunity' and this was a chance to 'seize the moment'

New research proposes that impact melted most of both worlds and led to the formation of the moonMysterious blobs that lurk more than 1,000 miles underground may be remnants of a Mars-sized planet which slammed into Earth in the early solar system and produced a shower of debris that formed the moon, researchers say.According to scientists' leading theory, the moon was created about 4.5bn years ago when an ancient protoplanet named Theia thumped into the fledgling Earth. At the time, our home planet was still an infant and only about 85% of its size today. Continue reading...

Declassified spy images point to 396 undiscovered forts in Syria and Iraq, shifting understanding of Roman frontierDeclassified cold-war spy satellite images have thrown new light on the workings of the Roman empire by revealing hundreds of previously undiscovered forts, with dramatic implications for our understanding, experts have said.Archaeologists examining aerial photographs taken in the 1960s and 70s said they reveal 396 sites of unknown Roman forts in Syria and Iraq across the Syrian steppe. Continue reading...

Festival of Neolithic Ideas takes fresh look at how Stonehenge was built and the lives of neolithic peopleIt is often thought of as something not of this world, a magical, mystical place. But the Festival of Neolithic Ideas at Stonehenge will take a more scientific look at the great circle and the landscape it sits within.Academics, engineers and craftspeople are among the dozens of experts who will give an insight into the science that ancient people used to create the monument and also explain the modern techniques that give a glimpse to modern humankind of what was going on there in prehistoric times. Continue reading...

Researchers in UK say new tool could help ensure patients at high risk are identified promptlyArtificial intelligence is almost twice as accurate as a biopsy at judging the aggressiveness of some cancers, according to research that experts say could save the lives of thousands of patients.Cancer kills 10 million people globally every year, according to the World Health Organization. For millions more patients, the disease can be thwarted if detected promptly and dealt with quickly. A key challenge for health workers is to find patients with high-risk tumours and treat them early. Continue reading...

Researchers find the plants don't use conventional processes to follow the sun across the skyWith their bright yellow manes and sturdy stems, sunflowers might seem like a simple summer delight. But researchers say the plants are surprisingly enigmatic after discovering they don't use conventional processes to track the sun across the sky.Over the course of a day, sunflowers follow the path of the sun overhead - a process known as heliotropism - with their heads tilting progressively westwards as a result of cells elongating on the east side of the stem. Continue reading...

London tube game Metro Memory is a surprise hit, with geography books also finding favour with readersIn a world where we get from A to B by following the shortest route on our phones or satnavs, are cartographers mapping their way back into our national psyche?Rather than ignoring what is around us, we appear to be increasingly fascinated with locations and their significance, whether it is through a viral tube map game, YouTube videos or books about geopolitics. Continue reading...

Proper English', received pronunciation, the king's English: whatever you call it, the accent is under threat - just like cockneyName: The king's English.Age: The first citation dates back to 1553. Continue reading...

Study urges Australia to research new drugs as it warns rate of mutated infections much worse than anticipated'

Lee Cain says team were exhausted' by prime minister dallying and changing his mind

The prime minister wants progress on this tech to be his legacy, but in truth he is failing to equip us for the challenges it bringsThe UK's AI safety summit opens at Bletchley Park this week, and is the passion project of Rishi Sunak: a prime minister desperate for a good news story as his government looks down the barrel of a crushing election defeat.Sunak appears to want progress on AI to become his lasting legacy. Last week, he delivered a speech about the risks of AI if weaponised by terrorists and cybercriminals, and published a series of documents on frontier AI", an industry term for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. He even unveiled a UK AI safety institute.Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of How AI Ate the World, to be published in May 2024 Continue reading...

Seeing a bright light, floating above your body, being guided by an angel. All of these are common elements of reported near-death experiences, but what's really going on? Ian Sample meets Sam Parnia, an intensive care doctor and associate professor at NYU Grossman school of medicine in New York City who has spent his career exploring the boundary between life and death. He tells Ian how he believes these experiences can be explained and what medicine can learn from them Continue reading...

The answers to today's puzzlesEarlier today I set you three Worzle" puzzles. The name is a portmanteau of Wordle + puzzle, and is essentially a combination of Wordle and Sudoku. It was devised by reader Alf Smith. Here are the puzzles again with their solutions.If you have been living under a rock for the last two years and are not familiar with Wordle, the puzzle will be very confusing! If, however, you have played Wordle at least once, then Worzle should be straightforward. Continue reading...

Texas A&M University researchers say findings suggest using negative emotions as tools can be effectiveThey say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But when it comes to tackling a tricky task, researchers have found that getting angry can also be a powerful motivator.The experiments suggest people who are angry perform better on a set of challenging tasks than those who are emotionally neutral. Continue reading...

Researchers ran simulations to explore the killing mechanisms' that wiped out 75% of speciesIn the end it was the dust that did it for the dinosaurs. At least that is the finding of computer simulations of the aftermath of the asteroid impact that reshaped life on Earth 66m years ago.The cataclysmic impact in what is now Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula wiped out 75% of species on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs. But the precise nature of the deadly blow has kept scientists busy for decades, with soot-spewing wildfires, volcanic eruptions and vast quantities of sulphur all considered culprits. Continue reading...

In his latest brief but dazzling journey to the edges of understanding, the theoretical physicist takes us into the heart of a black hole and out the other sideI read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time more than 30 years ago. It woke me up to the wonders of the universe in a way that nothing before ever had. And while I'm not sure I fully understood it then, or now, it certainly felt like an adventure. Carlo Rovelli's new book is a kind of non-linear sequel in which he introduces his theory of white holes", how they might form and why we have such trouble seeing them in the universe today.Black holes form from stars so massive that when they reach the end of their lives and all their fuel is spent, they collapse to form bizarre objects from which nothing can escape, not even light itself. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted their existence: entities within which space and time had to come to an end. Continue reading...

An exclusive new puzzleUPDATE: Read the solutions hereHappy birthday Wordle, two years old this month!Reader Alf Smith, a retired software engineer from Herefordshire, has devised what he calls Worzle", a portmanteau of Wordle + puzzle. You are shown a solved game of Wordle, with some letters hidden, and must fill in the missing letters. Continue reading...

This comparatively modern constellation can be found between Cassiopeia and Cygnus from this weekWe began the month with the faint constellation of Cepheus, and end the month with the even fainter constellation of Lacerta, the Lizard.Whereas Cepheus was one of the original 48 constellations defined by Ptolemy in the second century AD, Lacerta is comparatively modern, having been defined in 1687 by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Both constellations are now part of the International Astronomical Union's 88 modern constellations. Continue reading...

The ISS is destined to be sent spiralling into the Pacific Ocean in 2031, yet the controversy over the 120bn behemoth continuesThe International Space Station is about to pass a remarkable milestone. In November, the giant spacecraft will have been in orbit around our planet for a quarter of a century.For the past 25 years, hundreds of astronauts have made temporary homes there while other visitors have included frogs, worms, shellfish and butterflies: each has been the subject of experiments aimed at uncovering the effects of weightlessness, radiation and other extraterrestrial phenomena on living creatures. In addition, astronauts have carried out studies of dark matter, cosmic rays and Earth's ozone layers. Continue reading...