with industrial policy to stand up for ukraine, europe and the uk. in a criticial condition in hospital after suffering what it called a "prolonged asthma—like respirtory crisis", but said he had a peaceful night in hospital. israel announces a significant expansion of its military operation in the occupied west bank. it is the first time tanks have been used scholz casts his vote. scholz casts his vote. the snap election was triggered by the collapse of his coalition last year. now now

this week, we're revisiting some of our favourite tech stories that we've covered from around the globe — starting in australia, where nick meets the people helping to preserve one of the great wonders of the world — though some of the techniques are a bit old school. it looks like a giant thermos flask. yeah... we brave the permafrost on an island off norway

and in switzerland, there's something weird hey, those are my toes you're talking about. nick: one of the seven wonders of the world, the great barrier reef is the largest living structure on the planet. it's home to a quarter of our marine life and serves as a carbon sink, removing c02 from the atmosphere. at its core is coral. the animal has suffered rising sea temperatures, at the latest cop 29 event in azerbaijan, it was announced that 44% of the earth's corals are under

efforts are under way to help. for many, many years to come, and it's very cool. this is the world's largest cryopreservation they have had a pause button pressed on their biological clock. so these cells are frozen in liquid nitrogen, is —196 celsius. it's very, very cold. so you can see exactly what we're looking at. wow! i won't pull it out because we don't want to warm safe inside that tank there.

then, and keep them safe. that we can thaw out decades, centuries into the future and that genetic diversity can be introduced into populations. and there's a bit of artificial intelligence in there, they've got around 4,000 vials. equates to more than four trillion sperm. getting them here requires careful transportation. it looks like a giant thermos flask. this one's empty, so you can

actually see a canister. you can see that barcode there, which identifies everything and then that canister goes back inside the tank. set for travel. let's put it back. on restoring the reef? higher temperatures, and so we're losing genetic diversity each summer. traits and then we can prioritise our bio—banking

but the team are designing a workaround. we can only cryopreserve sperm and use that sperm during spawning. them out on the reef at any time of the year. coral ivf is only part of the preservation puzzle. area that is only. about 30 by 30cm. while it takes an expert

about an hour to countl the system is 88% accurate, which dorian says is as fast as a human. even so, they've got their work cut out for them. and so to do that, we need to have tens of thousands. just in pure counting time, over $6 million per year. l as well as cash, it could save lab time by generating heat maps. you can just look for - the brightest spots and know that the corals are doing well. do you really think that this project will help save the reef? can have maximum effectiveness. over to surviving for many more decades to come. _

adrienne: what happens if our most valuable technology it's stored on becomes obsolete? the search is on to find solutions that will stand the test of time, and one answer may lie close to the north pole. to be the ultimate backup for our data. it's certainly an unlikely location. it's a remote destination, far away from wars, crisis, terrorism, disasters.

and it's regulated by an international treaty. far away from everything, accepted by all the superpowers in the world. well, i guess we'll switch our lights on and head into the darkness. let's do that. we're going 300m deep into the permafrost, where temperatures are sub—zero. and behind these doors is the vault. artefacts are being stored, safeguarding a snapshot of our culture, history and technology for future generations. now we have more than 100 deposits from 30—plus countries across the world. so it's a wide selection of cultural heritage, history, literature,

art, music, you name it. and since its launch seven years ago, the archive has been filled with treasures. this is a very special container. and websites that we use. it's incredibly important for humanity to secure the future of software. every day by working together to write software. and also how you'll actually be able to read them.

ultimately, you can read it optically. it's dark, dry, and very chilly down here — conditions which its owners claim are ideal for storage that could last centuries. how does that help preserve it? nobody can guarantee what will survive. survives technology, obsolescence, time, and ageing. it all sounds rather dystopian. even here in the arctic, there are questions about security. and 1,000 years from now, will people understand what's here? so, the data are stored on reels of piquilm, which is an information carrier that cannot be hacked —

and it's self—contained and self—descriptive. so that means, on the film itself, stored in this vault, it, and how you can get the data back. piql, and back at its norwegian offices, all those files are printed onto film. data is a sequence of bits and bytes. we convert the sequence of the bits, which come but that's the idea, and its intended to be easily readable even far into the future. we are sending those raw images onto film. but we will be reading

data from the film. just a few hundred metres from here is the global seed vault, which inspired the arctic world archive. to svalbard to deposit their reels in the archive. one by one, reels are added. for many here, it's a significant moment. of islands that could disappear as sea levels rise. witnesses of the marshall islands _ it's an atoll state, i

which means it's like it was really humbling. going down an arctic mine. today, no matter how uncertain the future. the owner of instagram, facebook, and whatsapps says the 50,000 km lead will make sure that al and other nasa has upgraded the

likelihood of earth being hit by an asteroid in 2032 to 3.1% — that's around one in 32. the asteroid, known as 2024 yra, is the size this is the highest—impact probability in the agency's history — but experts agree it will almost certainly californian startup alef aeronautics has released administration. alef, which was founded in 2015, says the electric car can drive up to 320 km — but the ability of being able to fly over a trafficjam comes with a hefty price

swappable batteries making a lot of sense. to see a bike powered by compressed natural gas. nikhil: 250 million. horns toot. to the worsening air quality of its cities. this is bajaj auto's freedom, the world's first motorbike

it's basically a gas that's compressed and stored in a cylinder, and is both cleaner and cheaper than other automobile fuels like petrol or diesel. now, cars, trucks and even tuk—tuks have used cng for long. designing this bike? the motorcycle has very little space. of a certain shape. as to take care of that. into this bike.

that the customer will never be stranded, there is an auxiliary two—litre. emissions of several harmful greenhouse gases. like riding any other bike. is that a problem? today is impossible.

do you think evs will sort of fundamentally pose i think we are too large a country for things nothing has ended ever. transitioning a country this large all the way to electric of actual manufacturing? it's a cascade of things that has to fall into place first. to meet that goal.

0k, whose stupid idea was it to film parts of this report with my feet in the waters of lake zurich? oh, god! twice. blooming glaciers, don't it? you know, if you leave them in there long enough, now, the person making a whole lot less fuss than me so, search and rescue, and then also ammunition detection and retrieval.

in particular rivers. and today i get to see the latest upgrade to its adjusts its motors to counter the turbulence. it's pretty nippy. it also has sonar, which it uses to build up what's called a 3d—point cloud of the area.

at include mapping, and today, underwater toe inspection. how are they looking — blue? i can't feel �*em. oh, god, ah! take me on an adventure. show me the sights. as is common in robotics these days, andrej is using yeah, it'sjust a small fishing boat. nothing too crazy. it goes pretty fast. yeah, i mean, i can't keep up, and i was swimming seven i can't keep up with this. you can believe he was a nearly professional swimmer. well... honestly. and receives steering commands

through a 1.5km—long cable. but it can also operate without the cable, driving autonomously and avoiding obstacles and mapping its own area — which is no mean feat, given that, unlike airborne so, our drone is able to map i and localise at the same time. and then, when the robot, like, returns to that position, - it's a bit like the vacuum cleaner robot. it's more or less the samel thing, butjust underwater. 0k. yeah. will allow the company to target industries operating

in the future, the drone may be inspecting offshore wind turbines, oil and gas pipelines, communication cables, and maybe even the hulls of ships — highly—skilled human divers. is this fish? a lot of fish, yeah, exactly. wow! further. who knows what discoveries await this little robot? there's a chair! a chair, yeah. there's a chair. i mean, it's for sure cosy. i'll tell you what, i often see the occasional wild shopping trolley in a lake, but i rarely see a chair. now, where did i leave my shoes? incredibly beautiful

today, isn't it? hello. wind and rain warnings remain in force across many parts of the uk. a big area of low pressure driving things. it's these weather fronts slowly crossing the country especially across wales and the south—west. we will also see the winds pretty strong, as well.

temperatures still in double figures for many. as we go into tonight, the rain will eventually start a mixture of clear spells and showers further north across the country and east anglia and the rain will continue here through the night into the morning. and the west where we will see some sunshine, a scattering of showers, a little bit wintry over the hills. 0vernight rain quickly clearing away from east anglia especially scotland and northern ireland, but at least, compared with sunday, there will be some reasonable spells of sunshine in between. temperatures on monday afternoon still doing well as we head towards

the end of february. through monday night into tuesday, a little bit of a complication from a weather system pushing through france. all models indicating that low pressure will remain in france, showers for england and wales. we could see those showers fall as sleet or snow over the hills. more of us will see temperatures drop back it looks like we will see some rain midweek, but then a similar story for england and wales too, but we should brighten up a little bit quicker on thursday and friday. take care.

live from london. this is bbc news. tens of thousands of mourners gather in beirut, for the funeral of the hezbollah leader, hassan nasrallah. israel has stepped

up its military operation and dummy drones against it overnight — starmer vows to stand by ukraine. with industrial policy, to stand up for ukraine, in a high—stakes election being closely watched by europe and the us. pope francis spends a peaceful night in hospital —