Modernist masterpiece which transforms into cosy winter den, named House of The Year

A ’smarthome’ which morphs with the changing seasons from a modern glass-roofed masterpiece into a cosy den as the nights 1) see in shut in close in come in trail in , has been named House of the Year by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Its designer, the architect Richard Murphy OBE, spent more than 10 years 2) to create creating create having created creates his dream home, which can transform into an energy-efficient retreat during the dark Scottish winter or an airy, bright greenhouse in the summer months.

"Most modern homes are very good at summer, with lots of glass and open plan, but let’s 3) see watch head remark face it, in Edinburgh it gets dark at 3.30pm and that changes people psychologically, so in the winter you want something that 4) will has be will have could have respond to the changing seasons.

The house was built in an awkward plot at the end of a conservative sandstone terrace in New Town, Edinburgh, an area which is a UNESCO world heritage site and generally considered to be an example of the best town 5) arrangement planning sighting vision seeing in the world.

Despite sitting on a plot of just 11 metres by 6, the four-storey house includes three bedrooms, three shower rooms, a split-level living, dining and kitchen area, subterranean library, garage, 6) useful utility useless unified united room and roof terrace.

The south-facing pitched roof is 7) fitted dressed sized clothed tailored with glass solar panels and underneath are two giant mechanised hinged insulated shutters, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom to let in, or shut out the light.

Rainwater is also channeled from the roof to storage tanks in the basement which 8) strain nourish cater cook feed toilet and sprinkler systems.

House of the Year judge, Philip Thorn said, "although a small property, it was deceivingly large inside due to the clever use of 9) plot spot room place space . Every room contained a surprise and the attention to detail was exceptional. The roof terrace was a real oasis of calm and I loved the long list of environmentally friendly touches. A true pleasure to visit and I 10) would shall will have did imagine a lot of fun to live in."

Visit sauna regularly to stave off dementia, 20 year study suggests

Visiting the sauna regularly could reduce the risk of dementia, a new study has found.

Scientists at the University of East Finland followed more than 2,000 middle-aged men for 20 years to find out what factors influenced cognitive problems in 11) least latest late last later life.

They found that those who used the sauna between four and seven times a week were 66 per cent less 12) possible likely seemingly possibility chance to be diagnosed with dementia, during the study period compared with those taking a sauna just once a week or less.

It is the first time that anyone 13) did find will find found to find has found a link between sauna use and dementia although previous studies have shown that regular use reduces the risk of dying from all causes and seems to improve heart health.

"It is known that cardiovascular health affects the brain 14) as when as also as well as not as so ," he said. "The sense of well-being and relaxation experience during sauna-bathing may also play a role. "

Dementia charities said saunas might work by reducing blood pressure and improving circulation.

Dr Clare Walton, Research Manager at the Alzheimer’s Society said: "With dementia now the biggest killer 15) across over through overall thorough England and Wales, finding ways to reduce the risk of developing the condition is a top priority. Saunas are thought to improve circulation and reduce blood pressure, both 16) which of which who whom of whom could go some way to reducing your risk of getting dementia. Currently the best evidence to reduce the risk of dementia is to exercise regularly, eat a healthy, balanced diet and avoid 17) to smoke smoke smoked smoking have smoked Dr Rosa Sancho, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, added: "Although sauna bathing isn’t a common hobby for men in the UK, this study suggests men who use saunas several times a week may also have a 18) lower raised higher increased least dementia risk. As this study does not look at other groups of people 19) so so as such as such as such women or people who do not use saunas, we don’t know how this risk compares to the general population and or what might be behind it."

"These kinds of studies can’t unpick cause and effect, but they are important for highlighting trends in how lifestyle 20) factors elements ways styles shows may influence our risk of dementia."

Will 2019 be the year we take drug-resistant superbugs seriously?

"I cross my fingers all the time that some epidemic like a big flu doesn’t come 21) over through circle along behind in the next 10 years," John Gates, superbug specialist, told a special edition of Radio 4’s Today programme.

"I do think we will have much better medical tools, much better response, but we are a bit vulnerable right now if something 22) walked crawled spread turned climbed very quickly like a flu that was quite fatal, that would be a tragedy and new approaches should 23) permit to us present us allow us allow to us help to us to reduce that risk a lot.” Gates said it was 24) crucial critic essentially necessarily hopeful for wealthier countries to step in to help the developing world fight disease, both for humanitarian reasons and for their own health security.

Although mistakes were made, criticism of the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the Ebola crisis in West Africa was unfair, he said, because it was not 25) ground funded found find grounded to do all the things that observers wanted it to do.

International cooperation 26) had led to lead leads will lead leading to the eradication of smallpox, and was on the verge of eradicating polio, he added. "The cooperation that we have seen, I think, needs to intensify," Gates said. "It’s the only way that global problems like epidemics will get solved. So, for all the people who are negative on WHO, the message is not that that kind of multilateral cooperative effort is doomed and the money is not well spent, 27) rather moreover despite however whatever that we actually need to broaden their capacity. We actually need to dedicate ourselves to this global cooperation."

In September the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned that antimicrobial resistance was a "fundamental threat" to global health that risked making high quality universal healthcare impossible.

It is estimated that more than 700,000 people die each year from drug-resistant infections, 28) after nevertheless even always though it could be much higher because there is no global system to monitor the figures. There have also been difficulties in tracking death tolls even in places where they are monitored, such as the US, where tens of thousands of deaths have not been attributed to superbugs, according to a Reuter’s investigation.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported in November that illnesses resistant to 29) titled so-called named headed called last-line antibiotics, drugs kept in reserve for use against pathogens that have proved resistant to all other antibiotics, were on the rise in the continent.

30) While Without Wherever Wanted Wishful these anti-biotics, some infectious diseases could become untreatable and some forms of major surgery would again become perilous.

On the hunt for illegal miners as a new gold rush hits New Zealand

The former British Army colonel, Jackie Adam has a unique job, he hunts for illegal gold miners, an increasingly large number of whom work the ground at night.

It is a job this burly Irishmen who served in Bosnia during the war never 31) imagine did imagined imagined not imagined had imagined he’d be doing, especially alone in the remote ’wild west’ of the south island, where the summer season of illegal goldmining is just beginning to heat up.

With the price of gold recently 32) fetching carrying hauling pulling trying nearly NZ$1800 (£1000) an ounce, Adams has been brought in by New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals to investigate the black market trade; mostly conducted by opportunists who 33) slid slosh sneak duck dive onto private farm land and national parks without permits to pan for gold.

The modern-day gold rush is particularly evident on the coast, with the region’s mining history and crumpling traditional employment paths attracting prospectors from around the country and the world. Using diggers, metal detectors and even the humble 34) pliers shovel hammer nail screwdriver and pan, these hopeful amateurs are willing to 35) stroll strike wallow sail wade through frigid west coast creeks in the middle of the night once awash with gold, swept down from the Southern Alps and still concealing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of the precious metal.

"A lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon, there are probably thousands mining illegally in New Zealand, and a few hundred making a full-time living off it.We’re in the 36) midst high hollow offload trial of a modern day gold rush, not just in New Zealand, but 37) widly whereas elsewhere worldly worldwide .

The original West Coast Gold Rush 38) start stop handed headed kicked off in the 1860s, and the settlements of Hokitika and Ross 39) sprung jumped leaped hopped skipped up around it. At the height of the rush, Hokitika had 72 hotels and few women; those were the days when the ’Wild West Coast’ earned its reputation as a lawless region; catnip for adventurous pioneers and eccentrics. Like today, the original miners were secretive about their claims, often laying false trails and misinformation to lure their competitors away from prosperous sites.

More than a century later, Hokitika is still home to number of 40) hoping growing starving thriving wishing gold shops and necessary tools are available to rent and buy at several places in town.

KFC China is using facial recognition tech to serve customers

Walking into the KFC restaurant in Beijing’s financial district, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a fried chicken outlet like any other. It’s only if you 41) head leg arm toe face right to the back corner of the shop that you realise you’re actually in China’s first smart restaurant.

KFC has teamed up with Baidu, the search engine company often referred to as "China’s Google», to develop facial-recognition technology that can be used to predict customers’ orders.

Explaining the idea, a spokesperson for KFC said: "The artificial intelligence-enabled system can recommend menu items based on a customer’s estimated age and mood." A press 42) iron title paper release frame from Baidu added that "a male customer in his early 20s" would be offered "a set meal of crispy chicken hamburger, roasted chicken wings and coke", 43) to after never while often a female customer in her 50s" would get a recommendation of "porridge and soybean milk for breakfast".

Despite being billed as artificial intelligence, the technology is more 44) about through to with of convenience and publicity at this stage-of development. "The digitalisation of the restaurant will also help to provide faster and easier services," said Zhao Li, general manager of Beijing KFC.

Customers, however, seem less convinced. "It’s very interesting, but most people will choose the more familiar way," said Dione Xiong, a 21-year-old KFC 45) regular patient persona character personality . She’s right, as the lunchtime 46) persons people clients population throng pours in, not one person gives the machine a second or even first glance, preferring instead to wait longer in line and order from the human attendants.

KFC and Baidu hope that they will be able to know what customers will want in future. KFC has said it wants to provide "a personalised ordering experience" by "recalling repeat customers and their orders". However, when I go back a few days later to 47) hold up pick up stand up try out carry out the machine again, though it reads the same characteristics from my face, it doesn’t remember my preferences. Instead, it offers me a variety of breakfast items, apparently 48) dressing clothing tailoring dressing sewing my recommendations to the time of day rather than to the customer. At the breakfast rush, the machine is no busier than at lunch, most customers again preferring to order at the counter.

Of course, the prospect of a company storing data about customers’ faces and fried-chicken preferences raises the 49) still always ever frequent occasional present trade-off between convenience and privacy. One woman tells me she wouldn’t use the machine for that reason, but most customers are nonplussed. "In China, you don’t have any privacy 50) even which way sometimes all anyway " said Li.

Could online tutors and artificial intelligence be the future of teaching?

Ambar presses her hand to her forehead, nose crinkled in concentration as she considers the question on her screen: how many sevens in 91? The ten-year-old has been grappling 51) to by in of with it for about a minute when she smiles: "13!"

Her tutor responds by posting a large smiley cat picture on her screen, the virtual equivalent of a 52) hit shut tip pat shake on the back. He is sitting on the other side of the world in an online tutoring centre in India.

Ambar, who attends Pakeman primary school in north London, is one of nearly 4,000 primary school children in Britain signed up for weekly one-to-one maths sessions with tutors based in India and Sri Lanka. The lessons, provided by a company called "Third Space Learning" , are 53) targeted trained sold ask sent at pupils struggling with maths, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. From next year, the platform will become one of the first examples of artificial intelligence, Al, software being used to monitor, and ideally improve, teaching.

Tom Hooper, the company’s CEO, said: "We’re 54) looking peeping glancing gleaning staring to optimise lessons based on the knowledge we gain. We’ve recorded every lesson that we’ve ever done. By using the data, we’ve been trying to introduce Al to augment the teaching". Initially, the company’s 300 tutors will receive real-time, automated interventions from the teaching software when it detects that a lesson may be 55) featuring veering riding hitting jumping off-course.

Pupils on the programme have a 45-minute session with the same tutor each week. They communicate 56) through in out up of a headset and a shared "whiteboard" .The lessons at Pakeman school are tailored to the individual, including visual rewards linked to the child’s interests.

In addition to the 57) stale old cooked raw tasty audio data, each lesson has various success metrics attached: how many problems completed, how useful the pupil found the session, how the tutor rated it. Using machine learning algorithms to sift through the dataset, the UCL team has started to look for patterns.

An early analysis found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that when tutors speak too quickly, the pupil is more likely 58) had lost have lost to lose lost losing interest. Leaving sufficient time for the child to respond or pose their own questions was also found to be a factor in the lesson’s success, according to Hooper. These observations are likely to form the basis of the initial prompts that the tutors will receive, probably in the form of messages 59 keying flashing staring lighting sparkling up on their screen.

As the technology evolves, the interventions could become more sophisticated and the software might play a more active role in teaching, raising questions about the extent to 60) where when why how which intelligent software could replace human teachers.

United Airlines defends gate decision to bar girls wearing leggings from flight

United Airlines on Sunday defended a gate agent’s decision to 61) draw sanction pub push bar two young girls from a flight because they were wearing leggings, a decision that drew a wave of high-profile criticism and customer threats to end business 62) to with out of in the airline.

The incident 63) put out took place picked up started out stood off at Denver international airport and was reported by Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun safety group Moms Demand Action, on Twitter. Watts said she saw two girls stopped from boarding a flight to Minneapolis by a gate agent. "She’s forcing them to change or put dresses on over leggings or they can’t board," Watts wrote. "Since when does United police women’s clothing?"

According to Watts, the gate agent then said "she doesn’t make the rules, just follows them". Watts said "a 10-year-old girl in grey leggings" who "looked normal and appropriate" was forced to change her 64) mask look kit material clothing before boarding.

United did not immediately respond to a phone call or email with questions. The airline’s Twitter account, however, responded directly to Watts, saying: "The passengers this morning were United pass riders who were not in 65) focus awe tune compliance line-up with our dress code policy for company benefit travel. In our contract of carriage, Rule 21, we do have the right to refuse transport for passengers. This is left to the 66) field discretion idea notion secrecy of the gate agents."

The passengers were "pass riders", the company said, defining such fliers as "United employees or eligible dependents" who fly when possible as a "company benefit". "There is a dress code for pass travelers as they are representing UA when they fly," United wrote. "67) Casual Scruffy Idle Lazy Easy attire is allowed as long as it looks neat and is in good taste for the local environment." The company’s passenger contract says that it can ban people who are "68) legless barefoot footloose feet bottomless or not properly clothed". It does not elaborate on that description.

Watts said that the company’s behavior was "sexist and sexualizes young girls. Not to 69) notice sing mention talk recount that the families were mortified and inconvenienced". She added: "Their father, who was allowed to board with no issue, was wearing shorts."

"Our 70) everytime persistent regular unusual constant passengers are not going to be denied boarding because they are wearing leggings or yoga pants," Guerin said. "But when flying as a pass traveler, we require pass travelers to follow rules, and that is one of those rules."

New Zealand anger as pristine lakes tapped for bottled water market

A plan to extract millions of litres of water out of a UNESCO world heritage site, send it by pipe to the coast and 71) water ship boat sail row it to foreign markets for bottling has ignited a campaign over water resources in New Zealand.

An export company is proposing to collect 800m litres a month of the "untapped" glacial waters of Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere, mountainous dams that are fed by 72) rainfall raining pouring leakage spillage on the Southern Alps.

The pristine water, which the company Alpine Pure calls "untouched by man" would be pumped 20km downhill through an underground pipeline to a reservoir at Jackson Bay on the West Coast, where it 73) to be be will be would be will processed. From there, it would travel through a two-kilometer pipeline laid on the seafloor to a mooring where 100,000-tonne tanker ships would be waiting to transport it in bulk to overseas markets in China, India and the Middle East.

The company already has permission to extract the water and is going through the process of getting resource consent from the Westland District Council for the pipeline.

Green groups are calling on the government to urgently 74) slip up tread on step over call in step in and protect the nation’s freshwater springs and lakes, although Alpine Pure claims it is only taking a fraction of the water that falls as rain on the Southern Alps.

"Pristine water has been falling on the Southern Alps for 75) millions million a million million of a millions years, and it would usually be wasted by flowing directly out to sea. The amount we want to take is very small." But the plan has angered environmentalists who warn New Zealand is giving away its most precious natural resource for free, at a time when domestic water supplies are increasingly subject to contamination 76) fear scares scary afraid fearful . Two weeks ago a petition signed by 15,000 people was delivered to parliament calling for an immediate halt to bottled water exports.

It comes 77) below amid around over above growing anger that multinational companies such as Coca-Cola are drawing millions of litres of water from ancient underground aquifers for next to nothing.

The company, which has an annual revenue of over $60bn, last year paid NZ$40,000 to the local council for the right to extract 78) to up up at up to at up 200 cubic metres of water a day.

Although Blue Spring is the major supplier of New Zealand’s bottled water industry, companies are now looking to more remote parts of New Zealand to access untainted water supplies, 79) chickens chicks ducks hens hence the push to access glacial water from Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere on the 80) stage wedge ledge edge bridge of the Mount Aspiring National Park.