BBC News

After nearly 19 hours of pain, determination, and unwavering support from strangers, Paul McDougal finally crossed the finish line at St James Metro station in Newcastle — completing his mission to run the entire length of the Tyne and Wear Metro system.

The 35-year-old, originally from Cramlington but now living in Vietnam, covered 73.5 miles (118 km) in 18 hours and 40 minutes on Sunday. His goal? Raise £12,000 for the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, a UK charity that supports children growing up with parents struggling with addiction.

“I’m relieved and so pleased that I managed to get to the end of this run,” McDougal told BBC Radio Newcastle. “I'm looking forward to a nice sit down now.”

The route, mapped to follow the Metro's yellow and green lines, began at South Hylton station in Sunderland and snaked its way through Pelaw, South Shields, Gateshead, Newcastle, the airport, and then around the coastal loop through North Tyneside before ending at St James. McDougal tracked the line using nearby paths and roads, turning the regional rail network into a grueling ultramarathon.

The hardest stretch, he said, came in the dead of night around mile 35, between South Gosforth and Newcastle Airport. “My knees were on fire… I was in so much pain I thought I was going to vomit,” he recalled.

What got him through it was support — not just from family and friends, but from total strangers who showed up at Metro stations with food, cheers, and handmade banners. “If it wasn’t for them, I would have never got the job done,” McDougal said. “When I came up with this stupid idea about nine months ago, I was going to do it completely alone. That would have been ridiculous.”

Now that it’s over, McDougal says he’s humbled by the response and proud of what the money will mean for others. “It’ll be amazing for so many children,” he said.

Lynne Dickinson, station delivery manager at Nexus, called the effort an “incredible feat of endurance” and said the transport team was thrilled to see him complete the challenge in under a day.

After a monumental run that covered nearly every corner of the Metro network, McDougal has earned exactly what he’s looking forward to next: a long, well-deserved rest.

This Runner Tackled an Entire Metro Network on Foot, and Raised £12K for Children’s Charity

Science Alert

It may sound like a prehistoric predator, but Tyrannoroter heberti had more in common with a salad bar than a meat locker.

This newly described species lived about 307 million years ago and was among the first known land animals to try out a mostly plant-based diet. At just 25 centimetres long, Tyrannoroter wasn't terrorizing other creatures — unless you were a fern.

“This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies,” said Arjan Mann, an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and co-lead author of the study, published in Systematic Palaeontology. “It shows that experimentation with herbivory goes all the way back to the earliest terrestrial tetrapods — the ancient relatives of all land vertebrates, including us.”

The fossil was discovered inside a tree stump in Nova Scotia, Canada. Using high-resolution micro-CT scans, researchers examined its skull and found something unexpected: an extra set of grinding plates — called dental batteries — hidden inside its mouth. These bony structures, located on the roof of the mouth and lower jaw, were similar to those seen in later herbivorous animals, including some dinosaurs.

“We were most excited to see what was hidden inside the mouth of this animal once it was scanned — a mouth jam-packed with a whole additional set of teeth for crushing and grinding food, like plants,” said Hillary Maddin, a paleontologist at Carleton University and senior author of the study.

Despite its strong lean toward leafy greens, Tyrannoroter was probably an opportunistic omnivore, happy to snack on insects or other arthropods when it could. But its dental structure suggests it was making an evolutionary leap into a new kind of diet — one that tapped into the abundant plant life that had already been thriving on land for over 100 million years.

It may not have been the first tetrapod to chew on a leaf, either. Once researchers identified the herbivorous traits in Tyrannoroter, they went back and looked at other specimens from the same group of early animals, known as pantylids. They found similar features in fossils as old as 318 million years — pushing the origins of herbivory further back than previously thought.

“The pantylids are from the second phase of terrestriality, when animals became permanently adapted to life on dry land,” said Mann.

There’s even a theory about how these plant-based diets evolved. Early tetrapods may have started by eating insects, whose tough exoskeletons required heavy-duty teeth. Over time, those same crushing tools proved just as effective on fibrous plants — and the insects may have passed along the gut microbes needed to digest them.

So while Tyrannoroter heberti may not have been a fearsome hunter, it was a pioneer in its own right — quietly reshaping the food chain one chewed leaf at a time.

Meet Tyrannoroter heberti, a 307-Million-Year-Old Veggie-Lover With a Ferocious Name

The Guardian

In Nepal, where nearly one in five people over 40 has type 2 diabetes, doctors are looking to the past for a way forward — and finding surprising success in the country's own traditional foods.

A return to lentils and rice, or dal bhat, may be one of the most effective tools in reversing the spread of type 2 diabetes in Nepal, a country where medication is often out of reach and complications like kidney failure, limb loss, and blindness are common among untreated patients.

“For many families, diabetes is not just a medical condition, but a long-term social and economic burden,” said Dr Ashish Tamang, a resident doctor in Kathmandu.

A pilot study based in the capital showed that 43 percent of participants with long-standing diabetes went into remission after switching to a calorie-controlled traditional diet. A larger, ongoing trial with 120 participants in surrounding villages is showing similar results: nearly half were free from diabetes after just four months, despite only modest weight loss.

“It is very early days but around half are free from diabetes at four months, with an average weight loss of only 4–5kg,” said Professor Mike Lean, a diabetes and human nutrition expert from the University of Glasgow and lead researcher on the project.

The diet program — a collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Dhulikhel Hospital — is designed specifically for low-income communities and relies on local, affordable ingredients. Participants are guided through a weight-loss phase of around 850 calories a day for eight weeks, usually starting the day with yoghurt and fruit, followed by meals of dal bhat. Once the target weight is achieved, they shift to a maintenance version of the same diet.

The program emphasizes consistency, portion control, and avoiding highly processed snacks — a sharp contrast to the increasingly common western junk food now found in Nepal’s shops. A recent study found 87 percent of packaged foods in Kathmandu exceeded World Health Organization recommendations for sugar, salt, or fat content.

Lean, who helped lead the UK's groundbreaking DiRECT trial on diet-based diabetes remission, believes the Nepal program could have an even bigger impact than similar efforts in the West. People of South Asian descent, he explained, are more genetically predisposed to diabetes and tend to develop it at lower body weights — but also need to lose less to reverse it.

“In Nepal it’s around half [the weight loss needed compared to UK patients],” he said. “It makes the task a fair bit easier.”

To make the program accessible, screening camps provided simple tools — measuring cups, food scales, and diet plans — to help participants stick to proper portion sizes. Local support groups, led by female health volunteers rather than doctors, have become the backbone of the program’s success.

The program also encourages switching from highly refined white rice to brown rice, which retains more nutrients, including Vitamin B1 — essential for carbohydrate metabolism.

“This is not rocket science,” said Lean. “But it’s way more effective than any drug or medicine, and traditional medicines that don’t do anything.”

Originally funded by the UK government, the program nearly stalled due to budget cuts. A £1.78 million donation from the Howard Foundation has since secured its continuation, along with the creation of educational materials about the drivers of diabetes.

Lean is clear on where he believes the crisis began. As he describes it, Nepal's diabetes epidemic began with a bicycle — the first one to arrive in a remote village, loaded with sweets and soft drinks. With better roads came motorcycles, then vans, all bringing processed food to areas that had long thrived on simple, nutrient-rich diets and physically active lifestyles.

Now, less physical labour and constant access to high-calorie packaged food have combined to accelerate the problem.

Officials from other South Asian countries are watching closely. “They all said: ‘If this works in Nepal, it will work for us,’” Lean said.

As Junk Food is Fueling a Crisis in Nepal, People are Turning to Traditional Diets to Fight Diabetes

At Nike’s world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, buildings are named after legends like Serena Williams and Jerry Rice. But the company’s latest innovation isn’t just for elite athletes. It’s for anyone with a body, says Nike.

Enter Project Amplify — a futuristic footwear system designed to give everyday people a boost in speed, endurance, and confidence. Think of it as “an e-bike for your feet,” said Mike Yonker, who leads the team behind the project.

Set for commercial release in 2028, Project Amplify merges sneaker design with wearable tech. The prototype, tested recently at Nike’s campus, includes standard-looking trainers with carbon fiber plates embedded in the soles. But the magic happens behind the heel: sleek, battery-powered titanium leg shells that strap around the calves.

These 3D-printed exoshells house sensors, motors, and circuits that read your stride and adapt to your gait. “It’s learning how your ankles are moving, how long your steps are,” said Alison Sheets-Singer, lead scientist on the project. “So that when it turns on, it feels natural and smooth.”

A smartphone app powers the system and lets users toggle between “walk” and “run” modes. Once activated, the leg shells help lift the wearer’s heels and drive the foot forward, adding propulsion with every step.

The goal, Nike says, isn’t just to push personal bests but to expand what people feel capable of — especially as mobility becomes a growing issue.

“We’ve described a phenomenon called ‘personal range anxiety,’” said Luke Mooney, CEO of Dephy, a startup that collaborated with Nike on Project Amplify. “People are making decisions based on: ‘Will I be comfortable? Will I be in pain? Will I be able to keep up with my friends and family?’”

That’s where bionic footwear could change the game. The battery is designed to last for about a 10-kilometer run, and users can swap in a fresh pack to go further. The system is still light enough to feel like a natural extension of the body — and powerful enough to make a noticeable difference.

Nike’s idea isn’t entirely new. Companies have long experimented with ways to help people move faster. From 1600s bone skates to 1970s nylon sneakers and 1980s step-counting trainers, history is packed with attempts to speed up the human foot.

But until recently, one thing held innovators back: power. The energy needed to propel a person forward just couldn’t be packed into a shoe-sized device — until now.

Because of that constraint, most high-tech mobility systems today, including Ascentiz’s H+K exoskeleton, use leg attachments rather than just shoes. Sidekick, Dephy’s own standalone product, takes a similar approach to Amplify, wrapping the lower leg in lightweight motorized hardware.

Bionic footwear made a splash at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where over a dozen companies showcased motor-assisted walking systems. Some target athletes, but many are designed for older adults or people with disabilities — helping them reduce fatigue, regain independence, or rejoin activities they’ve had to give up.

“E-bikes have changed the landscape of mountain biking for people that maybe didn’t have the ability or were getting older,” said Mark Oleson, a footwear innovation veteran and now CEO of Avoli. “There’s a huge opportunity here.”

Nike believes the future of sport includes broader definitions of who gets to be called an athlete — and how technology can help level the playing field.

“Amplify is designed for that everyday athlete,” said Yonker. “To go further, to go faster, with greater levels of confidence.”

Nike’s Bionic Sneaker Project Aims to Change How We Move by 2028

ESPN

At one end of the rink, Rasmus Wranå pumped his fists. At the other, his sister Isabella jumped in the air, broom in hand, glasses slightly askew, and a stunned look on her face.

The Swedish siblings made history Tuesday night, winning gold in mixed doubles curling at the Winter Olympics — Sweden’s first-ever medal in the event and the first time a sibling team has stood atop the podium.

Their 6-5 win over the U.S. team of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin came down to the very last stone. With the score tied and the pressure on, Isabella delivered the final shot. She crouched low, eyes locked on the target, while Rasmus swept furiously down the ice. Their red stone nudged the Americans' yellow rock just enough to secure the victory.

The Wranås celebrated quietly, their small Swedish fan group cheering from the stands, while the largely American crowd roared in appreciation of a nailbiter finish.

For the U.S., the silver medal was a historic moment of its own. Thiesse and Dropkin became the first American team to ever medal in Olympic mixed doubles curling — and Thiesse is now the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic curling medal.

The two, who both live in Duluth, Minnesota, are more than just curling partners. They were college classmates, and after a failed attempt to qualify for the Beijing Games in 2022, Dropkin invited Thiesse to team up. They went on to win the world title in 2023.

By day, they lead regular lives. Thiesse is a lab technician; Dropkin works in real estate. He's engaged. She's married.

The Swedish siblings also have a long history together — one that began on home ice. Coached by their father, Mats Wranå, Isabella and Rasmus started as rivals. In 2024, they became world champions in mixed doubles. Still, their Olympic campaign didn’t start smoothly. Sweden lost three straight games in the round robin, prompting headlines back home dubbing the effort a “Curlingfiasko.”

But the Wranås fought their way back, winning most of their remaining games and eventually clawing their way to the final.

The gold medal match was intense from start to finish. The Americans thrived off the energy of a raucous crowd, with Dropkin rallying fans throughout the night. At one point, a teammate in the rafters shouted, “Show me your biceps!” and Dropkin flexed.

But in the end, it was Sweden’s quiet, focused persistence that won the night — and the gold.

For the Wranås, it was more than a victory. It was the culmination of years of family training, sibling competition, and shared dreams. And for Thiesse and Dropkin, it was the end of a remarkable run that redefined what’s possible for U.S. curling.

Sibling Duo from Sweden Wins Olympic Gold in Mixed Doubles Curling

Damien Walters has thrown himself off buildings, flipped over cars, and faced explosions on film sets across the world. Now, the Derby-born stuntman is taking on a new challenge — turning a derelict Victorian foundry into a £13 million stunt academy and film studio.

“It’s incredible,” said Walters, known for his work on Skyfall, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Jurassic World. “It took a long time to buy, it took a long time to convince people of what we’re trying to do. But once we started, it was a foot to the floor really.”

His company, Damien Walters Ltd, bought the 80,000-square-foot former Aida Bliss factory in 2023 from Derby City Council. After years exposed to the elements, the site is finally taking shape.

The western building has been cleaned, sealed, and fitted with a mezzanine structure that will hold multiple performance studios. A themed café, a large gym, and office space are all part of the plan, with a target opening date of September 2026.

Next door, the project’s second phase is already attracting industry attention. Marv Studios, the production company behind the Kingsman films, has filmed scenes there for an upcoming movie. The space will eventually house a fully-equipped filming studio and interactive theatres aimed at blending artificial intelligence with physical performance.

“We want to make next door a very creative hub — the magnet to bring anybody in the creative industries into this area,” Walters said.

He’s currently seeking funding to install a massive 133-metre roof on the eastern building to make it watertight, describing it as essential to unlocking the site’s full potential.

Derby may seem an unlikely location for a global stunt centre, but Walters says it’s exactly the right place. “We have a Spiderman stunt double here, a Doctor Strange, a Captain America, a James Bond, a Lara Croft — the amount of stunt professionals that come from Derby is incredible,” he said.

The facility won’t just serve Hollywood productions. Walters wants it to be a launchpad for local talent. The new stunt academy will also become the home of Derby City Gymnastics Club, and will offer training in parkour, martial arts, dance, trampolining, preschool gymnastics, and more.

“I could develop a system where we can take children from the grass roots, go all the way through and steer a lot of the children into a creative industry,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re seven or 77, we want there to be a place for you in this place.”

It’s a bold plan with a clear mission: turn Derby into the beating heart of stunt performance in the UK — and possibly the world.

This Hollywood Stuntman Transformed a Victorian Foundry Into a Multi-Million Dollar Stunt Academy

In a lab filled with hand-sized golden orb-web spiders, Dr Alex Woods is working on something that sounds like science fiction — using spider silk to help humans heal.

The NHS trauma and orthopaedic surgeon has co-founded a startup, Newrotex, aiming to transform nerve surgery by developing silk-based implants. These implants act like scaffolds, guiding damaged nerves to regrow — something the body struggles to do on its own.

“It acts like a scaffold for nerves to grow along like a rose on a trellis,” Woods explained. The natural scaffolding the body produces after a nerve injury only lasts about 10 days, while nerves typically grow at around 1 millimetre per day. That means if the gap between severed nerves is more than 1 centimetre, the body often fails to bridge it.

But golden orb-web spiders — native to southern and eastern Africa — produce a special type of drag-line silk that lasts up to 150 days. That extra time, researchers believe, could allow nerves to grow further and repair more completely.

The silk is inserted into a vein or a hollow tube, which is then implanted at the injury site. Over time, the silk degrades harmlessly into the body.

“These are huge problems, which are nerve injuries which, right now, struggle to be treated,” said Woods. He believes the silk-based approach could be used not just for trauma cases but also for nerve injuries that happen during cancer surgeries like mastectomies or prostate removals.

The team at Newrotex keeps the spiders in individual terrariums to avoid conflict — they’re territorial — and maintains high humidity to mimic the spiders’ native environment. While the spiders may look intimidating, Woods says they’re harmless to humans. What matters is their silk, which is both strong and biologically compatible.

The potential impact isn’t just medical — it could also reduce healthcare costs. “It’s an extra operation site that has associated harm and that has a cost you won’t need if you have a device you can take and repair the nerve straight away,” he said.

Currently, patients like Helen Hide-Wright can require a second surgery to harvest nerves from another part of the body. After surviving a devastating car crash in 2022, she had nerves taken from behind her foot to repair her arm, leaving her without sensation there. “The surgery was brilliant, but what Alex is offering would appear to be far more beneficial,” she said. “A very exciting opportunity.”

The device is now undergoing its first human trial at a hospital in Panama. The goal is to prove the implant is safe before moving into larger studies in the UK and the US.

Still, Woods acknowledges the hurdles ahead. “Seeing all the steps you need to get through and the cost and the evidence you need to produce to bring that to patients has been really eye-opening, but there’s still a risk it’ll never see the light of day.”

Even so, he remains confident. “I’m convinced that if my nerve was lacerated tomorrow I would have our implant put in.”

Spider Silk Could Offer a Breakthrough Hope for Nerve Repair

Two American skiers were rescued after dark on February 10 after losing their way in the mountains near Livigno, one of the venues for the Winter Olympics.

Italy’s national fire and rescue service said the two young tourists raised the alarm, and were able to provide rescuers with their coordinates. Drones were then used to find them, in an operation involving the fire service and the CNSAS alpine rescue corps.

According to Italian news reports, the two skiers were in Italy for the Olympics, and got stuck off-piste.

Freestyle skiing and snowboard events are being held in Livigno.

📸 Vigili del Fuoco via Storyful

American Skiers Rescued After Getting Lost Near Winter Olympics Venue

For the first time in over 50 years, cows are coming back to graze on fields in southwest London — part of a sweeping urban rewilding project that aims to bring nature back into the city.

Three Sussex cattle will be released onto Tolworth Court Farm Fields as part of the Wild Tolworth project, a joint initiative between Kingston Council, environmental group Citizen Zoo, and community organization The Community Brain.

The 42-hectare site, once home to birds like skylarks, lapwings, and bullfinches, has been undergoing restoration to encourage wildlife to return to the Hogsmill River corridor. The reintroduction of cattle marks a major milestone in that effort.

“It’s about building resilience to a changing climate, reconnecting people with the living world, and creating something local communities can feel proud of every time they pass by,” Citizen Zoo said in a statement.

The cattle will be free to roam, a move that supporters say mirrors how grazing livestock once helped shape and maintain healthy ecosystems. In modern conservation, managed grazing is often used to encourage plant diversity, improve soil health, and restore habitats for birds and insects.

The return of cattle is just one part of the transformation. Wetlands have already been reestablished on the site, drawing back a variety of birdlife and helping to naturally manage flood risk.

“What was just a dream five years ago is now becoming a reality,” said The Community Brain. “The new wetlands are already demonstrating their massive impact and now cattle [are] coming onto the site.”

Tolworth Court Farm Fields sits on the edge of a densely built-up part of Kingston, making this one of the most significant urban rewilding efforts in the region. The project leaders hope it will inspire similar projects across London and beyond, proving that biodiversity and city life don’t have to be at odds.

Cows are Returning to London Fields in an Ambitious Urban Rewilding Effort

euronews

Along a major road just outside Copenhagen, the night now glows red. Not from brake lights or neon signs, but from a new kind of streetlight designed with wildlife in mind.

In Gladsaxe, a northern suburb of the Danish capital, city planners have swapped traditional white lights for red LEDs in an effort to protect local bat populations. The change is part of a growing movement across Europe to reduce light pollution and its harmful effects on nocturnal animals.

The project, led by AFRY Architects, has outfitted a stretch of road and a cycle superhighway with 31 low red-lit bollards, each about a metre tall. The lights are spaced wide enough to allow light-sensitive bats to cross safely without feeling exposed, while still keeping the road visible for drivers and cyclists.

The science behind the decision is compelling. A long-term study by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology found that bats avoid white and green artificial light, but remain just as active in red light as they do in complete darkness. “We’ve found these bats to be equally active in red light and in darkness,” said lead researcher Kamiel Spoelstra. “White and green light, on the other hand, substantially reduce the bats’ level of activity.”

That’s especially important for species like Natterer’s bat and the brown long-eared bat, which prefer dark conditions to avoid being spotted by predators like owls. These slower, more cautious fliers depend on darkness to safely hunt insects. By contrast, more agile bats such as pipistrelles actually benefit from white light, which draws insects into concentrated areas. Larger bats like the serotine or lesser noctule, which fly high above street level, aren’t affected much either way.

The red-light approach is designed to support the more vulnerable species. According to Spoelstra, it’s a practical compromise. “It’s entirely suitable for use on country roads,” he said, adding that red lights offer a way to meet human safety needs while protecting animal habitats.

The Danish project joins a growing list of bat-friendly lighting schemes in Europe. In 2018, Zuidhoek-Nieuwkoop in the Netherlands became the first town to install red streetlights specifically for wildlife. A year later, the UK added its first “bat crossing” near Worcester, with 60 metres of red lighting along the A4440 motorway next to Warndon Woodlands nature reserve.

As urban areas expand, so does the challenge of balancing development with biodiversity. The Gladsaxe lights mark a step toward what some hope could become a broader shift in how cities think about illumination — not just for humans, but for the creatures that share the night with us.

There’s an added bonus too: the LED lights use less energy and require less maintenance than traditional systems, making them both environmentally and economically sound.

Red may not be a common colour for street lighting, but for the bats of Denmark and beyond, it’s a lifeline — and a small reminder that cities can be designed with nature in mind.

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