this week, how a digital dolphin can help restore body and brain. i never imagined intense rehab to be games. up the reds! and then the blues, and the greens — omar's using light therapy to sharpen his shooting. 0h! that was legit. i'm sure it was, i'm sure it was. and the tiktoker astronaut asking the big questions from the final frontier. what would the moon taste like? maybe the moon would taste like almonds. hey, welcome, welcome, i hope you are well. now it's often said we don't appreciate our health until we lose it. and if someone suffers a life changing injury, it might be necessary for them to retrain their brain to learn how to use their body again, maybe in a different way than before.

there's a new idea called neuro—animation, which is like gaming for brain repair. it's an immersive, emotional, and we are told enjoyable style of therapy, that can have a real impact. what's it say? baby babbles. quack, quack, quack. ruby was 2a years old when she lost her leg. a simple trip to the supermarket resulting in a life changing injury. i was going shopping to buy stuff for the baby, you know, weaning process, buying him veggies and avocados and that. but yeah, i was in the car park and i was run down by a car. at the time of the accident, ruby had been carrying five—month—old son leon, instinctively throwing him to safety. but the crash left her, a nurse on maternity leave at the time, facing a series of operations and intensive rehabilitation. the first three weeks in hospital, it'sjust a blur.

i don't remember waking up, i don't remember who told me i'd had my leg amputated. in my head ijust thought, i'lljust learn how to walk again, i'll get a fake leg, a prosthetic leg, and then that would be that. i didn't realise how hard it was actually going to be. now at a live—in rehab centre called steps, she is receiving a variety of conventional treatments as well as a new video game inspired therapy called mindpod. it looks amazing. yeah, it is. the painting is beautiful as well, isn't it? it is, lovely. mindpod is a form of what's known as neuro—animation. it gamifies treatment by using motion sensors and cameras to track the patient�*s movements as they direct this dolphin. i'm just learning how to balance my body.

along with traditional methods like physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, it aims to help improve the physical and cognitive functions of people who have experienced a serious injury. did you ever imagine at the start of your recovery that you would be using games? no, i had no idea, especially when i first came to steps, i never imagined intense rehab to be games. were you a gamer before? no, no, i wasn't into gaming before the accident. how much do you feel that you're just instinctively moving and not thinking about it? yeah, because you're so into the game. and being in that room, with the lighting and colours, it takes you away. so it's helping balance and co—ordination, stability, core stability. it reflects on, say if i was in the kitchen,

reaching for things up in the cupboard, down below. and ruby's commitment, combined with access to the technology, has accelerated her progress. wow, that was great. how do you feel at the end of a session? tired. laughs. tired, you don't realise how much you have actually worked out, on my arms, my balance. evenjust standing. yeah. and you didn't really think about the fact that you were... crosstalk. ..you're just into the game. already some studies have shown that mindpod can be twice as effective as traditional rehab treatments. and there are more studies under way. whether it is for chronic post stroke symptoms, parkinson's, ms or ptsd, the team behind this neuro—animation hope they will soon understand the full range of illnesses it can treat. this type of experience

is really a digital therapeutic approach, and digital therapeutic means you can prescribe as a doctor, software as a pill. so there is this intricate mapping between your movements and the dolphin�*s movements that you have to learn and perfect and become more skilled at. it creates a feedback loop of learning, and enables exploration, very much in a way a child learns to move their arms about early in their infancy. there are lots of digital therapies out there, and at strathclyde university, some of them are being put to the test. the figure moves to the right, or to the left...so he plays a little game. dr andrew kerr runs a community focused biomedical rehab clinic. it offers people who have had strokes the chance to try robotic and gaming type equipment for their injuries. are you ready? i was born ready, andy.

ultimately, what we are trying to do is create technologies that are not just for people who can really afford it, but they can have it in their local leisure centres, they can have it in their own home, so we're trying to use these experiences to make the technology more widely accessible. that is the ultimate mission for us. and an example of this is the university's 3d motion capture system. the positional data we get from this, combined with the acceleration data we have from this, gives you a more complete biomechanical model of your walk, and we can use that to provide you with more effective visual feedback. so you can see how you're walking and you can see areas that we can help you improve upon. all around the room, cameras and sensors are tracking the movement of the patients using the equipment.

all that data is then being stored and built into an ai system, which should eventually be able to partly play the part of physiotherapist. it'll react in real time to what they are doing, so they can be guided to get the best out of their therapy. it could take months or years until tech like this makes it into the community though. my goal is, my long—term goal that i want to achieve, is to be able to pick the baby up, my baby up from the floor. and hopefully ruby's access to digital therapeutics will play its part in making that a reality sooner rather than later. oh my gosh, what a story, and how incredible is ruby! i know, she was an absolute joy and so grateful for all the positives, really a lesson for all of us. and good news, she is recovering well — she managed to go home for a weekend, and in about a month

or two, she's going to have the cage off her leg. 0h, fantastic. did you try the mindpod yourself? i did, i had a go off—camera and it's actually a lot harder than it looks. it takes a lot of concentration, which makes you stop thinking about how your body is moving, which is part of the idea. yeah, how brilliant is that! we're learning so much more about how technology can be used in rehabilitation. and omar mehtab has been looking into a new form of light therapy which it's hoped in the future could be used for rehabilitation, but for the moment is being used to hone the performance of athletes. response time, that is the key metric, isn't it ? how fast you can react, with some games being won by split—second decisions. but it's easier to train other areas of your game. like run more to increase your speed. # oh, yeah... strength, lift weights. but how do you increase your reaction speeds, apart from just playing more?

well, there's this. this is okkulo, a system that retrains sports players by using unique light levels, where the speed of visual processing is slower than at normal light levels. each stage offers a varying degree of difficulty, signified with a different colour — from blue, to green, to red, and finally near black. i will be honest, at first glance i was quite sceptical of this — it's just changing lights after all. but after checking out sunderland's own luke o'nien, oof, and he clearly performed better when the lights were turned back on. i've been in here pretty much every day of every hour, every second. i think when i first came in here, even with the lights on at a0 miles an hour, the balls were just bouncing off my shins. slowly i have adjusted, my body is moving quicker and i'm dealing with faster speeds in this.

it is a big part of the modern game, isn't it, how we can implement all the technology and data we have at the highest level of football to make marginal gains. and if that's on the analytics side or the data side, biometrics, whatever it may be, technology is here to stay and it is the future of the game. the good thing about this is it's very similar to the game if not pretty much identical in terms of the ball coming at you at speed, you've got to be able to deal with that and execute. and football is not the only sport it is useful for. up to now we've done cricket, baseball, table tennis, boxing and soccer. all sports are ideal because it's hand—eye co—ordination. every time we get somebody in, that's the first thought — oh well, i'm just changing the light levels, or this that and the other, i can just switch the light off. it is the complete opposite to that. there is a whole biological process here we're working on. but how does it actually work? it is to do with the colour and how the colours interact with the eye and the photoreceptors in the eye. but it is also to do

with the level of darkness. if you lower the light levels, your visual system slows down. so in sport, you are predicting what is going to happen 200 milliseconds into the future. at low light levels, you have to predict what's happening 250 milliseconds into the future because the speed of processing is slowed down. so if you're interacting with the ball under those conditions, you have to increase your responses to interact with it successfully. so when you go into the light it seems like you have more time to respond. in order to see how effective the system is, first i'm going to have to set a benchmark. my touch is as heavy as me! should take my time, i am getting flustered. sorry, sorry! sorry jack. 0k, time to see if okkulo makes a difference.

0h! that was legit! it's a bit tougher. i don't know what it is, i am backing away, because of the light. it's messing with me a bit. and now we turn the lights back on — so let's see if there's a difference. i am taking it in my stride, my breathing has calmed down, i am waiting for it to come to me, i am assessing the speed, i got better as it went along. ok, so there is a bit of difference. not as much as the pros felt, but still noticeable. after going through the system, the effects are supposed to last around two weeks. but also it's said to help people with a degree of cognitive issues such as adhd or brain trauma. but okkulo are still researching this area. when we are working with the athletes, we get

to see all of these effects outside of sport, we're seeing really intense focus. we are linking up with two universities to make sure we fully understand what is going on there. but there is a clear pattern of significant importance in and around what we're doing with these light levels. so maybe it is not about advanced robots or fancy tech, it is something as simple as light that can unlock the next level in players. maybe i'll carry on playing for a bit after they turn off the lights at the five—a—side. that's the most i've moved in six months. time for a look at this week's tech news. the days of trying to find the right charging cable could soon be over for — some of us. the european union has provisionally agreed that new portable devices like phones and tablets must use the same usb—c connector within the next two years. the uk government says it isn't currently considering the same rule though.

uber is working with the united nations in ukraine by helping it deliver food and water supplies. it has built the aid organisation a version of the software it uses to coordinate delivery services, and is being trialled in the city of dnipro. people have got to get food immediately, you can't go a few weeks without food. and so using their technology, using their distribution and dispatch systems, it really is a great success story. apple has been showing off its new operating system. on ios i6, users will be able to pay for purchases in shops in instalments using apple pay, and there is also going to be more options for customising your lock screen. these are part of a raft of apple features and products announced at its week—long developer conference. and buoy oh buoy, here is a cool bit of tech for protecting whales. collisions with boats is one of the biggest killers of the mammals, and these water buoys are being fitted with recording devices which can listen out for whalesong and alert nearby

ships to their presence in real—time. in the next few years, the aviation industry is going to change. it needs to be greener, ww all need to do our bit on cutting emissions, because aircraft obviously are emitting pollutants at altitude. the target of net zero emissions by 2050 is a challenging one for an industry that by its very nature burns fuel. here at the whittle lab at the university of cambridge, work is under way to introduce radical change to help lower aircraft carbon emissions and create more environmentally friendly ways of flying. this includes exploring prototype aircraft with more fuel—efficient shapes, and new types of fuel such as hydrogen for long haul, and electrically powered aircraft for short journeys.

this issue is incredibly urgent. what we are talking about is a transformation in the global economy to take place in 30 years, it's a generation. it is really urgent that we both start working now on identifying the solutions, getting them out and getting them up to scale as quickly as possible. key to making those quick changes is ensuring industrial and government decision—making is aligned. someone who has played a role in bringing these groups together at the whittle lab is prince charles. the prince is famously interested in green issues and recently visited cambridge to learn about progress in the field of sustainable aviation. that's been a personal passion of his, bringing together business leaders, policymakers, technical experts to really advance the conversation around sustainability. most of the work here focuses on a fossil fuel—free future for aviation. trying to achieve net zero carbon emissions for aircraft

by 2050. but the labs latest project is concerned with more than engines, fuel and aircraft in general. it is taking a much bigger look at a much bigger picture. to help plan future changes to air travel and aircraft, the team here have created a computer simulation tool called the journey impact simulator. the resources that we need for zero—carbon flight are very significant. we will need lots of electricity, we will need potentially lots of land to produce the electricity. so the decisions we make in the aviation sector in how we decarbonise flight, will affect the entire world. this computer simulation gives us an idea of the environmental impact of aviation — the amount of c02 generated by flying. we see that using hydrogen or synthetic aviation fuel drastically reduces the amount of c02 generated by aviation.

it's down by 55%. however, the amount of electricity required to make all of those flights is really, really massive. it's equivalent to 20% of the electricity generated in the whole world. the simulation draws on data generated by consulting aviation experts in industry and academia from across the globe. communication of these ideas and the scales of the problems involved is key. because if people from different fields, from politicians, heads of industry, or people at home are going to feel that what these, the size and scale of these problems, and understand the complexity of the problem, it is all through communication of the data, visualisation. thejourney impact simulator has been designed initially for use by the aviation industry and government decision—makers. however there is a plan to make the simulator available for members of the public to use themselves online in the not—too—distant future.

but if we are going to achieve carbon emissions targets, then there is a need for tough decisions — especially from governments. are we just going to have to fly a lot less if we're going to reach those net zero goals? no, i don't think so. i think technology here is all about trying to reduce emissions, all about trying to get people to fly so they can emit less, and we can use technology to actually drive aviation. tools like the simulator paint a stark picture of the urgent need for change, if flying in the future is going to be truly sustainable. that was marc, who i think is about there? maybe. let's say he is, yeah. from the sky, to space — it is quite a view from up here, isn't it? it is beautiful, and someone who is getting this view for real — spoiler alert, we are not really in space, we're at the glasgow science centre, is astronaut samantha cristoforetti. yes, samantha hasjustjoined

the international space station for a six—month mission. and part of that is looking at ways of sustaining life in space. she is also keeping us entertained back down here on earth, because she is space's first tiktoker, and shiona mccallum caught up with her before blastoff. this is european space agency astronaut _ samantha cristoforetti, your friendly astronaut on tiktok, taking you to the final frontier. one of the big focuses on the space station right now is to develop and mature technologies that have to do with life—support, keeping human beings alive in the environment of space. we have of course legacy equipment that has been up there on the space station and functioning fairly well for a couple of decades now, but there is also a drive to develop the next generation of such equipment that needs to be more compact and more efficient, more robust and need less maintenance, less spare parts and all of that.

follow me to boldly go where no tiktoker has gone before. and what kind of advice would you give to women and girls who, you know, fancy a career in space? and it is still a male dominated industry, isn't it? it's probably better than some other tech industries, i would say, i wouldn't say it is like an environment that is in any way hostile to women. so it is reallyjust about finding a path, you know, studying the right thing, it's usually a good idea to study a stem subject like science, technology, engineering, maths, even medicine, and then finding a way into the industry. # this rainy day is temporary... i think we astronauts really all feel like we are quite privileged, right?

certainly you can argue that we worked hard in our life, studying and then in our initial professions to make sure that we are qualified as candidates, but then we also realise that it takes so much good luck. what would the moon taste like? maybe the moon would taste like almonds, a source of iron and calcium. last time you took espresso, and this time you are taking olive oil. what do you plan to use the olive oil for? laughs. so as an italian, olive oil goes on everything of course. laughs. so the only question is then will we have enough supplies? and will it taste the same? i think it will. sometimes astronauts report that their taste changes in weightlessness, i think it has more to do with them maybe being a little bit congested, maybe they have some allergies orjust the fluid shifting of the body creates sometimes

a bit of congestion. i didn't have that issue on my first flight, and i think that is also why i didn't notice any change in my taste. it's been amazing being up here again in space. i really look forward to experiencing this a second time, because i feel the second time you are just so much more aware, and you perceive and take note of so many more details. i am looking forward to go up there again and fill the gaps. oh, wow, that must be so incredible to see that for real, don't you think? absolutely. good luck to samantha and the rest of the team with the mission. now if you don't mind, we're going to sit here and enjoy our little view for a while. so thanks for watching and we'll see you soon. bye bye.

we could see some of the as temperatures of the summer so far. they could be some outbreaks of rain. most of it patchy. sunday, this area of low pressure starting to pull away. winds are easing compared to saturday. the rain has eased. sunny spells and scattered showers, mostly to scotland, northern ireland, northern england. further south, a little more sunshine and warmth coming through. winds will be lighter generally across the country. temperatures

peaking, 13 celsius in the north, 22 celsius in the south. into monday, high—pressure dominating across england and wales. weather fronts trying to topple in a cross that high. still the risk of some cloud and rain. albeit slight and patchy. drizzle across west facing coast of scotland and northern ireland. the sun is strong at this time of year, i am sure it will punch a few holes through the cloud. 22 celsius not out of the question. tuesday, a similar pattern. high pressure across england and wales. this low pressure just threatening into the far north—west. 0nce pressure just threatening into the far north—west. once again, that is with the cloud is going to be, we are at the risk of any rain, light and showery, will be. more sunshine,

more warmth, wind direction coming from the south—west. 2a celsius. wednesday, we will start to see things quieten down. that weather fronts clears away during thursday. high pressure is going to build. that will drag in more warmth from the near continent. we have been seeing some extreme heat recently across portugal and spain and we will tap into a little bit of that. yes, that front on wednesday. that will produce more significant rain across scotland before easing away. elsewhere, more sunshine, temperatures peaking at 70 is —— peaking at 25 celsius. thursday, high—pressure. light winds. it will feel quite warm indeed. and quite human —— and quite humid also. it

should state largely dry for all. temperatures will start to respond. generally temperatures into the mid 20s. towards the weekend, we will start to see some changes by the end of the week. high pressure may ease away, another france could push its weight further south and east. a lot to play for —— and other front. detail uncertain at the moment. if you are desperate for rain, you might see more in the way of rain for the weekend, but once that eases away, wind direction changes, it will get pressure. —— thresher.

—— fresher.

good afternoon. a leading business group has told the bbc that households have been cutting back on spending because of the cost of living crisis, and will go into their own recession this year. tony danker, the director general of the confederation of british industry, says the government needs to take action. meanwhile, the competition regulator has promised to look into government concerns that the 5p cut in fuel duty is not being passed on in full to customers. 0ur political reporter peter saul has this report.