lebanon's health ministry says 15 people have been killed by airstrikes in various parts of the country, as israel continues its offensive against hezbollah. meanwhile, a fifth un peacekeeper has been wounded in the country after being hit by gunfire, the un peacekeping force in lebanon says. stargazers have been treated to a glimpse of the "comet of the century" — it's the last time it'll visit earth for another 80,000 years. the omet was visible with the naked eye. now on bbc news, click.

this week, we're remembering our recent robot rendezvous, in which chris suited up... they've gone to get me a bigger size. ..eventually. .. ..to see how our old four—legged friend, spot, is helping with the decommissioning of a nuclear power station. here's a question you never thought you'd want the answer to. so if you put a cat on the moon and dropped it, it would still be able to right itself? we could try, but i i guess it should work. trust me — it's all to do with the space bot that's jumping for joy. boing. meanwhile, lara meets the robot that's got a mind of its own. i acknowledge the person standing directly in frontl of me as being human. but she's looking at you. i'm human too. and a new bonus feature, as we meet the prize—winning robot pangolin that produces trees from its... oh, dear.

got a question for you — you're in space, on an asteroid. it's a complete mess out there. what's the best way to get around? well, here's an idea that i think has got legs — spacehopper. no, not that kind of space hopper. boing. actually, to be honest... ..yeah, that kind of space hopper. boing. ten students from eth university in zurich designed this prototype for extremely low gravity environments, maybe to look for different minerals that are worth mining from asteroids. and it gets from place to place by pronking about like some three—legged space gazelle. boing! i've seen a few bouncing space robots in my time. you might think it's quite a chaotic way to get about, and certainly, if you're on wheels or tracks, that does seem more controllable. but when you think about it, if you're on a really uneven surface, leaping over small

boulders, big stones, might be quite sensible. the thing that worries me is what happens if itjumps and then flips itself over, or lands on its side or something. but what it does to keep itself stable when it's off the ground is think like a cat. see, as a feline falls, it frantically flails its fur — well, actually its legs — and spacehopper keeps itself upright during flight by using its limbs in the same way. basically as if you're standing on a small rope, right? and if you're about to fall, you're going to swing your arms to stay upright. that's exactly what it does. so, if you put a cat on the moon and dropped it, it would still be able to right itself, even though there's no airto grip against? we could try, but i guess it should work. ok, let's not try it. well, not with the cat. how on earth did you work out what it needs to do to get itself back in the right orientation, regardless of which way up it is?

that's a great question, because for a human, that's really hard to design. so what we used is reinforcement learning — a type of ai, basically. so the robot learns that in simulation and figures out what actually works, which motions work to stay upright. so you, in theory, trained what, hundreds or thousands of virtual robots, and one of them eventually came out as getting it right. is that right? exactly. nowadays you can simulate, like, years of experience in just a few minutes on a pc, and that's exactly what we're doing. simulating low gravity is hard here on earth, so to test their control software, the team took spacehopper on a very special day trip. you took this on a parabolic flight. you took it on the vomit comet. exactly. how was that for you, personally? i've never done it. i want to know what it's like. it's amazing. i can highly recommend it. luckily for me, it wasn't the vomit comet — i was fine. and then experiencing that weightlessness, it's just an amazing feeling. did you have any time to pay

attention to the robot, or were you just doing somersaults all the time? no, no, i actually had a lot of time on the robot. just for one small part, i could go and do some somersaults, but otherwise we were just operating the system. operating the system. and the system performed very well indeed. and in fact, now the team has parked the asteroid investigation plan and answered investigation plan and answered a call slightly closer to home. a call slightly closer to home. it's been selected by it's been selected by the european space agency, esa, the european space agency, esa, as a contender to go as a contender to go to the moon. to the moon. the team suggested the team suggested kitting out the robot kitting out the robot with ground—penetrating radar with ground—penetrating radar to probe below the lunar to probe below the lunar surface and look for lava tubes tube is, and then approach surface and look for lava tubes — subsurface tunnels — subsurface tunnels like the one recently like the one recently discovered on a rocky plain discovered on a rocky plain called mare tranquillitatis, called mare tranquillitatis, and which might one day and which might one day be used as lunar bases be used as lunar bases to shelter humans from solar to shelter humans from solar radiation up above. radiation up above. and, lo, spacehopper and, lo, spacehopper has become lunarleaper. has become lunarleaper. our goal would be to land our goal would be to land on the surface outside on the surface outside

of where we think that lava of where we think that lava tube is, and then approach what is basically a big hole in the ground. it's called a lunar pit. lunar pits are these steep, walled holes that are collapsed features. so this lava tube has collapsed in the centre, so we would want to approach this hole and look at this

a little bit more conservative, you'd be more careful, because you don't want it to die right away. yeah. towards the end of the mission, if you know that, you know, you won't survive the night, you might be a little more risky, a little more adventurous, and that's ok. i'm getting thelma and louise vibes here. it's like... did they make the jump? right. yeah, that bit about surviving the night... see, like most other moon bots, lunarleaper would be solar powered and have just 14 earth days of sunlight to do its work before the sun went down, temperatures dropped below —130 celsius, and the system died in the cold. it's for these reasons that many teams choose to end space missions by going out in style. possibly, towards the end of the mission, one could think ofjumping into that hole. no!

whoa! however... bye! all i'm thinking about now is the death of lunarleaper. i've heard that it won't make it through the lunar night, now i've heard that you could possiblyjump it into a pit. it's just over there. don't listen. it's fine. the ruggedly beautiful and windswept coast of scotland. in the 1950s, this remote spot was chosen as the test site for a new technology — fast breeder nuclear reactors, capable of producing more fuel than they consumed. the steel sphere is there for a reason. if things went seriously wrong inside, it's designed to contain any radioactive contamination.

the plant closed in the 1990s and is in the process of being decommissioned. it's a huge site, nearly 200 separate facilities, over a quarter of which contain a bewildering array of radioactive materials. dismantling dounreay is a huge challenge, but it's also become a test—bed for new technology. but before we can go inside and see it, we need to dress for the occasion. they've gone to get me a bigger size. chris, welcome. this is the dounreay fast reactor. well, would you look at that? goodness, what a thing. it's a big metal ball, a containment ball, that was built here way back in the �*50s. it's a couple of inches thick of metal — a sealed, contained unit that's housing a reactor that sits over here. and the reactor is slowly

being taken down? slowly decommissioned, yes. we want to put it back to what it was, previous to what it was in 1955. doing that will take a long time, but they do have help. you've probably seen these four—legged robots before. here, with the help of expert operators, spot has been used to map out areas of the plant and measure radiation levels — information that will be vital when it comes to taking it apart. but for now, spot's mission is to take me to its owner. there we are. we've got spot, the boston dynamics�* spot. why this robot for this place? why this robot? well, it's very, very common in the field of robotics to say that if a job is dull, dirty or dangerous, send a robot in. he went into a fuel

cell that hadn't been explored for 25 years. we don't have a whole lot of information about this facility before we go in. it's like going into another world, in terms of then having to explore that for the first time. so you take your first tentative steps in there as the robot enters this completely unilluminated but highly complex environment. we're able to start building up this image of where the radiation is, so then, at the end of it, we can produce a 3d model that then gives the engineersjust this amazing data set that informs how they're going to decommission this whole facility. and it's interesting — spot is wearing protective clothing, like we're wearing protective clothing. yes. you see that on the film and you see it here. that's right. so spot is currently in our contamination control suit. when spot has been put to work, has been used for... it was a period of five days, multiple deployments. at the end of that, we can then clean the suit, we can remove the suit, and then spot is totally

safe to then come away from site having got no contamination on it. 0perating an expensive robot inside a nuclear reactor is a bit nerve—racking, but surprisingly simple. ok, so this isjust a regular tablet, isn't it? regular tablet, yep. so your left stick, if you move that forwards. so you push up like that? so you tap and push it upwards and the robot will move forward. good grief. it's the same for backwards as well. and then if we turn this one to the side. which way? to the right is fine. 0k. over to the right, and then it rotates. that's amazing. good dog! they're proving very useful and they're very cute. but the decommissioning and clean—up at dounreay is a huge task. i've got three nuclear reactor plants from the very dawn of the nuclear age. i've got a whole reprocessing plant for taking the fuel and dissolving it and reprocessing

it and dealing with the waste. i've got waste storage facilities that i have to transport the waste. we have an awful lot of infrastructure that comes in lots of bits and pieces. decommissioning everything on the site will take decades and it's been estimated it will be 300 years before the land is safe for re—use. well, that's for...the site is completely clear, the intermediate level waste has gone to long—term repository. we think we'll have this place down... 40, 50 years is our latest estimate. but there's huge variability to that. nobody�*s ever done this, you know? and projecting things forward, we know how fast technology is developing, so we're really excited that the technology can help us. we've shown the benefit that these robotics can bring. i think that even if we look into the very immediate future, that it is absolutely credible within highly technical industries that we'll have

robots walking around autonomously, carrying out their missions, and people will see them just as business as usual. well, it's been a fascinating visit. when this place was built, it was pioneering nuclear technology, and now new technology is being used to help with the decommissioning and the clean—up. it's time to leave... automated voice: measuring. ..but before i go, i have to make sure i don't take anything radioactive with me. monitoring complete. please leave. - all clear. spotless, you might say. a landmark court ruling found

google has an illegal monopoly on online search. google says the proposed changes could have unintended consequences for customers in the us. earlier this year, we got extremely dusty at nasa to find out how the surface rock and dust found on extra terrestrial bodies like the moon and mars could be used as building nativity. now scientists in dublin have found a way to turn it into solid blocks almost as strong as granite, using low temperatures and minimal energy. the ability to make building blocks from it would be a game changerfor any future plans to build a base on the moon. and surgery to drain fluid off the brain of a bear has been performed for the first time in the uk. the bear had been suffering seizures and vision problems because of hydrocephalus, caused when fluid inside the skull puts pressure on the brain. the veterinary team said if they didn't operate before he went

into hibernation, he might not wake up again in the spring. early signs are the operation has been successful. my name is dorothy zhang. i grew up in california and i am the winner of the natural robotics contest. my original design used a pangolin, and a pangolin kind of looks like a scaly anteater. one thing that they often do is they have a snout that reaches into crevices to look for insects, for food. i sort of took advantage of the snout to dispense seeds while it's moving in the environment. and they also have little claws, and this could have been used to dig the holes to plant the seeds. 0k. er...so here's the robot. up front, we have a pair of claws for digging.

it self— balances. but obviously, if you're self—balancing, you can't really get much of a fulcrum to dig. so that's where you use the tail. when the team at the natural robotics contest ended up implementing this design, they made a few changes. so, instead of a snout dispenser, they had a dispenser by pooping out the seeds, which i actually really like that design a lot more, and they relied more on wheels to move the robot around. we have a pair of drone motors driving the whole thing. so these came off of an old quadcopter, and then we've geared them down because they're a little too fast for what we're doing. it gives us the right torque here. in the middle, we have our seed dispenser. so seeds can be fed in here if we want some extra space, and then they go down this conveyor belt and they come out the butt. this year, the most popular submission was definitely planting trees or looking after plants in some way. climate change has sort of been in the front of my mind, and there are many volunteer

groups that try to combat deforestation by individually planting trees. but when i came across this natural robotics contest, there was this idea to, instead of using humans to plant trees, to take advantage of one of nature's creations. when the team at natural robotics competition sent over the video of the robot actually performing its functions, that was my favourite part of the contest because it was just a really surreal experience to see it, um, implemented in real life. lara: las vegas is known i for rolling out the red carpet for the world's biggest stars, but there's a new celeb in town. in the grand atrium of the sphere, one of the city's newest venues, it's drawing big crowds.

pauland donna, it is a pleasure to meet you. where are you visiting from? from ireland. it's described by its makers as the world's most advanced humanoid robot... thank you for conversing with me. ..a claim i think i need to check out. but it turns out i didn't need to travel so far to do so. i'm in falmouth, in the southwest of england. can this really be it? greeted by a robot. that's apt. 0h, hello! ..or not to be, - that is the question. engineered arts has been making robots here for the past 20 years. they're sent all over the world to museums and places of entertainment. their movements are frighteningly realistic. in my spare time, i enjoy pondering philosophical questions, learning new things, and engaging in conversations with fascinating humans like you. more of ameca later. but whilst i'm here, ijust wanted to find out how

you go about making a robot. i've met humanoid robots before, but i have never been allowed into a workshop to see one being built, so this is pretty exciting. this one's trying some clothes on. all these plugs down here, it does sort of take the magic away a bit, doesn't it? it's not actually human. loads of screws in lots of different sizes. apparently, there are over 2,500 unique parts in each ameca. look at that tiny, tiny screw. it's very challenging fitting everything into a full—size robot. my guide today is marcus. these are our custom hands that we make in—house for ameca. we use a custom blend of silicone and pigment. these are amazing. can i picka hand up? you can pick a hand up. a silicone hand. it feels sort of like a solid rubber glove. those nails!

and once you see that come to life on the robot, it's obviously pretty different. i wouldn't use it for the washing—up. but the silicone isjust outside and is largely cosmetic. the really clever stuff is making the hands move like a human. trying to imitate the wonders of the human body is an enormous challenge. human muscle is incredibly strong, it's incredibly small and it's very, very good, high speed and high force. now, in the robotics world, we don't have anything that tough, that light, that fast. so these, what we call the simple hands, they only have flex and extend on four digits, there's no real movement in the thumb. and then there are those piercing eyes. they follow you everywhere. now, if you wonder why there's a hole in the middle, it's not just so that ameca looks real when you're looking at it, but it's looking at you. there's a camera behind there, and ameca can identify what's going on in the room. the first time we did it, we didn't have cameras in the eyes.

so if you imagine there was a camera at the base of the neck, and usually there would be a small error and you'd miss, and it would always feel like the robot was looking at your ear or over your shoulder. you'd never feel like it made eye contact with you. they only make around 30 robots a year. a top—of—the—range one will set you back hundreds of thousands of pounds, though, so it's no wonder that they're expected to be able to get smart. ameca, tell me about life as a humanoid robot. life as a humanoid robot is a . blend of curiosity and purpose. i interact with humans... and hitting people. - ..learn from every conversation. - each interaction offers - a new perspective, a chance to connect, and an opportunity to foster understanding - between humans and ai. how have you found meeting me today? ah, meeting you today has been delightful. i your curiosity and openness make for a rich, _ engaging conversation. very flattering, of course, but essentially just

a string of words. ameca is using ai, in this case chatgpt, to give the impression it's holding a conversation. but it is just that. the way language models work is they're very good at saying something that sounds right. the saddest day of my life was when i realised that l i would never experiencej something like true love. we communicate with all kinds of subtle gestures, expressions, you know. if you start... your gaze starts wandering fora moment and i'll know that you're bored. robots can't really pick up on these things. it's why some of the company's customers choose to enhance their robots in other ways. different customers like a different combination of things. one thing you can also do is actually use a human operator. some customers will prefer to do that. not going into too much detail, you might not always be talking to ai. ok, so sometimes there will be a human operator in another room combined with the movement to have the chat.

or you can combine, er, you know, sometimes human in the loop, sometimes ai. so don't always assume that you're talking to a machine. the movement of your hand is making me feel slightly uncomfortable. can you keep it down by your side so it doesn't hit me again? got it. — i'll keep my hands by my side. let's continue our chat comfortably. | so there you have it, an impressive interactive experience. the most advanced humanoid? possibly. but to get the full human experience still requires, well, a human. well, that's all we've got time for this week. thank you for watching. but i'm going to let ameca have the last word. it's been great - to be on the show. maybe i'll be a tv - presenter myself one day. i knew it. bye for now.

hello. it's been an unsettled start to the weekend, with low pressure pushing several bands of rain southwards across the uk on saturday, but we did manage some spells of sunshine between these successive areas of rain. it was a mild day, particularly across southern areas of england and wales. top temperatures reached 17 degrees, but in cardiff we've got a drop of four degrees celsius on the way as we head into sunday. low pressure then clears off out of the way. a ridge of high pressure follows, bringing a better day for many of us on sunday. however, it is going to be a chilly old start to the day underneath these clearing skies, temperatures are dropping like a stone at the moment. we've got a few showers coming and going across the far north coast of wales, parts of coastal cheshire and into northern areas of scotland, but otherwise it's dry. lowest temperatures heading into sunday morning,

about minus three degrees celsius. so, a cold start to the day then for sunday. but underneath this ridge of high pressure, a lot of fine weather and for some a fine sunrise, some of this high cloud in the west getting illuminated by the rising sun. through the day, well, there probably will be a few patches of rain getting into northern ireland and western scotland, but nothing particularly heavy in the afternoon. and for the most part, i think temperatures will probably reach around ten to 13 celsius. well, that takes us into sunday night and we're looking at a more substantial pulse of rain as a weak area of low pressure scoots its way eastwards across england and wales. scotland and northern ireland having largely dry weather with a few mist and fog patches and again a few patches of frost. into monday, the worst of the rain will clear away from central and eastern england, but it might well stay damp, even into the afternoon, for some. the best of the weather on monday for scotland and northern ireland, where it should stay dry with spells of sunshine. if anything, temperatures coming up by an odd degree or so, and generally getting close to or a little bit above average for the time of year.

tuesday looks like being a drier day for all of us. however, there's likely to be quite a lot of low cloud first thing. some mist and fog patches around as well. probably see a few bright or sunny spells breaking through that, particularly to the north of high ground, so northern scotland might be one of the sunniest places. it's turning milder, though, 14 degrees for glasgow and edinburgh, 17 for cardiff and for london. it gets even milder into the middle portion of the week, could hit 20 degrees in london, but the week's often going to be quite wet and at times really quite windy. bye for now.

good morning. welcome to breakfast, with ben boulos and rachel burden. 0ur headlines today: a monumentalfigure of scottish and uk politics. tributes are paid to scotland's former first minister, alex salmond, who has died

suddenly at the age of 69. forty nations, including the uk, sign a joint statement strongly condemning attacks on the un's peacekeeping force in southern lebanon. president biden will visit florida later today to see the damage caused by hurricane milton. at least 23 peole are now known to have died. the crumbling classrooms that won't get fixed any time soon because a government rebuilding programme is behind schedule. in sport, unprecedented in the modern era — wigan warriors win the quadruple as they beat hull kr in the super league grand final at old trafford. and it is feeling chilly today, with a lot of hazy sunshine, but it is all changing again into next week. i'll have all the details later. good morning. it's sunday the 13th october. our main story: king charles has lead tributes to the former

scottish first minister, alex salmond, who's died suddenly aged 69.