Worried sick | Waking the dead | Saint George’s flag | Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain

The new artificial intelligence tool that can predict a person’s risk of 1,000 diseases fills me with apprehension ( Report, 17 September ). If, say, the tool forecasts that I have a 30% chance of suffering from a horrible condition within the next five years, I’m not sure whether that would be good news or bad.
Sam White
Lewes, East Sussex

• Bringing the dodo back is interesting ( Scientists claim they’ve made ‘pivotal step’ in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years, 17 September ), but perhaps futile with Homo sapiens ’ insistence on destroying the planet. Far better to resurrect Homo neanderthalensis , by all accounts a more cooperative and less aggressive hominid.
Patrick Cosgrove
Bucknell, Shropshire

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New blow to UK’s key life science sector as industry body warns country is losing ground on investment and research

US drugmaker Merck has scrapped a £1bn London research centre and is laying off 125 scientists this year, in a big blow to the country’s important life science sector.

Keir Starmer’s government has described life sciences as “one of the crown jewels of the UK economy” while the previous Conservative government had vowed to turn the country into a “global science and technology superpower” by 2030 .

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Social media platform also accused of failing to filter out obvious key usernames like ‘coke’, ‘weed’ and ‘molly’

Snapchat has been accused of leaving an “overwhelming number” of drug dealers to openly operate on Snapchat, making it easy for children to buy substances including cocaine, opioids and MDMA, by a Danish research organisation.

The social media platform has said it proactively uses technology to filter out profiles selling drugs. But research by Digitalt Ansvar (Digital Accountability), a Danish research organisation that promotes responsible digital development, has found evidence of a failure to moderate drug-related language in usernames. It also accused Snapchat of failing to respond adequately to reports of profiles openly selling drugs.

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Ellison’s shares in the technology giant Oracle are currently valued at $389bn (£287bn), just ahead of Musk’s $384bn (£283bn) fortune

US tech billionaire Larry Ellison has overtaken Elon Musk as the world’s richest person after shares in Oracle, the business he co-founded, rocketed in early trading on Wednesday.

Ellison’s wealth has surged after the company, in which he owns a stake of 41%, reported better than expected financial results.

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Instead of recognising that social media harms mental health and democracy, the former deputy PM and Meta executive repeats company talking points

Nick Clegg chooses difficult jobs. He was the UK’s deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, a position from which he was surely pulled in multiple directions as he attempted to bridge the divide between David Cameron’s Conservatives and his own Liberal Democrats. A few years later he chose another challenging role, serving as Meta’s vice-president and then president of global affairs from 2018 until January 2025, where he was responsible for bridging the very different worlds of Silicon Valley and Washington DC (as well as other governments). How to Save the Internet is Clegg’s report on how he handled that Herculean task, along with his ideas for how to make the relationships between tech companies and regulators more cooperative and effective in the future.

The main threat that Clegg addresses in the book is not one caused by the internet; it is the threat to the internet from those who would regulate it. As he puts it: “The real purpose of this book is not to defend myself or Meta or big tech. It is to raise the alarm about what I believe are the truly profound stakes for the future of the internet and for who gets to benefit from these revolutionary new technologies.”

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Nate Soares says case of US teenager Adam Raine highlights danger of unintended consequences in super-intelligent AI

The unforeseen impact of chatbots on mental health should be viewed as a warning over the existential threat posed by super-intelligent artificial intelligence systems , according to a prominent voice in AI safety.

Nate Soares, a co-author of a new book on highly advanced AI titled If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, said the example of Adam Raine, a US teenager who killed himself after months of conversations with the ChatGPT chatbot, underlined fundamental problems with controlling the technology.

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In the combat zone of the supermarket duopoly, Tennilles_deals is our protector, guiding us through each aisle with her weekly videos of sale products

Maya Angelou once said “a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people” and when she said that, I can only assume she had Australian TikToker and micro influencer Tennilles_deals in mind.

Who exactly is Tennilles_deals? Firstly, she’s the Mother Teresa of Aussie supermarkets. Secondly, I don’t know anything about her personally because this savvy queen isn’t marketing herself like your average influencer. She lets her work speak for itself.

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Thousands of workers told to stay home this week as car manufacturer deals with digital systems outage

Production at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and dozens of its suppliers is to remain on hold for at least this week, with disruption from a crippling cyber-attack at the carmaker expected to last until October.

The UK’s biggest car manufacturer, owned by India’s Tata group, halted production at the sites after discovering hackers had infiltrated its systems a week ago.

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Phones across the country play siren and vibrate in latest test of service for use during emergencies

Millions of phones across the UK played a siren and vibrated on Sunday afternoon as the government carried out a nationwide test of its emergency alert system .

The alarm, which sounded at 3pm, lasted for 10 seconds and was accompanied by a message on screen making clear it was only a test.

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