Author: admin@primenews

A man with advanced Parkinson’s disease has been helped to walk again with a special implant that stimulates nerves in his spine. Marc Gauthier, 63, from Bordeaux, France, the first person to try out the device, says it has given him a second chance in life. He can now walk for miles, when previously he was often housebound and had several falls a day. The medical team treating him describe the advance in Nature Medicine journal. Before the implant, navigating steps or going into a lift posed extra problems for Marc. The treatment appears to have stopped the shuffling and “freezing” or…

Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya says she is “not going to be ashamed” of being “different”, and will “fight for what is right” amid her ongoing dispute with athletics authorities. Semenya, 32, was born with differences of sexual development (DSD) and cannot compete in female track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs. The South African wants to hold World Athletics to account for what she says is discrimination against athletes with hyperandrogenism and recently said she is turning her attention to “winning battles against the authorities” rather than collecting medals, with competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics no longer a goal. In a…

Letters confiscated by Britain’s Royal Navy before they reached French sailors during the Seven Years’ War have been opened for the first time. Written in 1757-8, they were sent by loved ones for crew onboard a French warship, but never reached them. Prof Renaud Morieux, who discovered the letters, said they were about “universal human experiences”. The Seven Years’ War was a battle mainly between Britain and France about control of North America and India. It ended with the Treaty of Paris, which gave the UK considerable gains. Prof Morieux, a University of Cambridge academic, unearthed the collection of 104…

Gaza is “becoming a graveyard for children,” the United Nations chief warned on Monday as the death toll rises and calls grow around the world for a ceasefire, one month into Israel’s assault on Hamas, the militant group that runs the enclave. “The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters in New York, adding that the need for a ceasefire is becoming “more urgent with every passing hour.” “The parties to the conflict – and, indeed, the international community – face an immediate and fundamental responsibility: to stop…

Stellantis’ new Ramcharger pickup, expected to go on sale late next year, will be an “electric” truck, the company says. But really, it’ll be a hybrid, with a gasoline engine under the hood, the company announced Tuesday. It will be sold alongside the Ram REV, the company’s actual fully-electric truck, expected to go on sale around the same time. Tim Kuniskis, the head of Stellantis’ Ram truck brand, insisted during a press conference that the Ram 1500 Ramcharger is not a plug-in hybrid. The main distinction, he said, is that the Ramcharger’s 3.6 liter 6-cylinder engine is not connected, in…

Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna has called a deepfake video of herself, which has gone viral on social media, “extremely scary”. Ms Mandanna’s face was morphed onto an Instagram video posted by a British-Indian woman named Zara Patel. India’s information technology minister has called such deepfake videos a more “damaging form of misinformation”. The 27-year-old actress has worked mostly in Telugu and Kannada films and won a number of awards for her roles. She will be next seen with actor Ranbir Kapoor in the Bollywood film Animal, which is due for release on 1 December. Abhishek Kumar, a journalist who works…

Chinese people have expressed alarm online after another gymnasium collapsed in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, the second in months. The cave-in on Monday night killed three people and came after days of unseasonably cold weather and snowfall. The victims’ details are still to be disclosed but children were reported to be inside the gym at the time. Video online showed rescuers scrabbling through snow-covered concrete rubble on a basketball court to find survivors. Another video shared widely on Chinese social media showed a woman in an icy street, running towards the building while yelling: “My son! My son is…

South Korean authorities are working to contain bedbug infestations that have caused concern across the country. At least 17 outbreaks have been reported in the capital of Seoul and in the cities of Busan and Incheon as of 5 November, local media report. Seoul has set aside 500 million won ($383,000; £310,000) and put up a response team against the bedbugs. Before South Korea, bedbugs have also been sighted in France and the UK. causing panic in some communities. Bedbug infestations in South Korea were reported as early as September, at a university in Daegu city in the southwest. The blood-sucking insects were…

A robotic capsule to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station is to be developed under a competition run by the European Space Agency. It’s anticipated the vehicle will make its maiden voyage in 2028. The initiative marks a big shift in the way Esa has traditionally run its projects. The competition’s winner will receive some funding and technical support from the agency, but it must operate the capsule on a commercial basis. It will have to part-fund the development and then “sell” the re-supply “service” to Esa, who will become the “anchor customer”. If the endeavour is…

The maker of the popular video game Fortnite has begun its legal battle with Google in a San Francisco court. The firm accused Google of acting as a monopoly – charging 30% commission on in-app purchases on Google Play store. Epic Games accused Google of turning its back on its “Don’t be Evil” motto, which the company coined when it was founded in 1998. Google however argued that there were plenty of other ways to download apps on Android phones. The company has long said that it competes with Apple – and rejects the idea Google Play is monopolistic. The…