Too much TV gives you square eyes, we were told by our parents, but the effects of binge-watching could take an even worse toll on our bodies.

With the UK now in its eleventh consecutive week of coronavirus lockdown, streaming service usage levels have gone through the roof.

Bored Brits stuck at home have relied on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and other platforms to while away the hours with endless movies and shows on demand.

But if that habit becomes a lifestyle, binge-watchers could develop some very unappealing physical characteristics including obesity, bloodshot eyes, premature ageing and bad posture.

Researchers from onlinegambling.com have constructed two human models named Eric and Hannah, which represent what a chronic Netflix addict might look like in just 20 years.

“From obesity and posture damage to premature ageing and bloodshot eyes, these are just some of the nasty effects they gathered through their research,” they told the Mirror.

Eric and Hannah have pasty skin and bald patches due to a lack of sunlight, but the artificial light from their screens have also prematurely aged them and they have some serious under-eye bags.

They’re both severely obese from all that time sitting in front of the screen, and their posture is terrible.

Their inactive lifestyles have given them varicose veins, misshapen leg muscles and what’s known as “dead butt syndrome”.

The researchers explained: “Sitting for too long puts persistent pressure on the pelvic region, which damages your glutes – causing backache, and pain in the hip region and ankles.”

But the damage doesn’t stop at their bodies. Eric and Hannah also have higher than normal levels of depression and anxiety as “bingeing usually means you sleep less”.

The terrifying models of a possible future are a grim reminder that while TV and movies may be a welcome comfort at the moment, a harmless hobby can spiral into addiction.

In 2018 a 26-year-old man in India was diagnosed with the world’s first case of Netflix addiction, after spending six months watching the service for at least eight hours a day.

A dog-walker encountered a squirming blue-green creature which looked like a “huge mutant dragonfly” locked in a desperate battle to survive.

Nicole Doctor was walking her pooches near her home in Atlanta, Georgia in the US, when she noticed the bug writhing dramatically in the street.

“It was squirming around violently so it immediately captured my attention when I was six feet away from it,” she said.

“When I got closer I noticed ants crawling over its back, probably trying to eat it.”

Nicole, a graphic designer, decided to record what she was seeing.

Her pics shows the bizarre-looking creature dragging itself along the ground, its back half waving around as its wings hang uselessly by its sides.

“Its eyes were jutting from the sides of its head, similar to a hammerhead shark,” she said.

“The wings dragged along the ground, wet and clinging to themselves. I almost thought the insect was a huge mutant dragonfly when I saw the wings.

“Four antennae protruded from the head but two of them look like pincers.

“The tail reminded me of a fishtail and the legs reminded me of a cockroach when it was on its back.

“If I had to describe what it looked like, I’d say it was an amalgamation of a cockroach and dragonfly but the size of a millipede.”

She added: “I thought the insect looked creepy and cool.”

Nicole shared her images online, attracting 10s of thousands of viewers and nearly a thousand comments.

Some commenters told her she had encountered a dobsonfly, an insect whose wingspan can grow to be up to seven inches across – and expert opinion says this one was in bad shape.

Lyle Buss, from the University of Florida’s Insect Identification Lab, said: “That bug is not doing very well.

“That is indeed the eastern dobsonfly. The long mandibles mean it is an adult male. There’s nothing else in the eastern US that could be confused with it.

“I expect that dobsonflies, like large moths and butterflies, like to be on a vertical surface when they emerge from the pupal case.

“That way gravity helps as they force air into their wing veins to unfurl and expand their new wings.

“They have a limited time to accomplish this and, if the wings dry before they are fully expanded, there’s no fixing it.

“I’m not sure if this one is looking for a vertical surface to finish expanding his wings, or if it’s already too late.”

There’s no way of knowing what the creature’s fate was but, whatever happened, it didn’t stay where it was for long.

“I walk my dogs everyday near the same pond where it might have emerged from,” said Nicole.

“It was gone when I went back the next day and the day after.”

Dobsonflies undergo complete metamorphosis during their life cycle.

After hatching, they live underwater for several years in rivers and streams, before eventually coming to land to pupate.

When they eventually emerge as winged adults, they typically live for only a few days – just long enough to mate and lay eggs.

A star has exploded in a distant galaxy, resulting in the brightest supernova ever seen.

Scientists tracked the dramatic “death” of SN2016aps over two years, and have concluded the ensuing supernova was twice as bright as any that had been observed before.

At 50 to 100 times the mass of our galaxy’s sun, the astronomers were stunned to watch the “extraordinary” space event, documented in a new study.

“We can measure supernovae using two scales: the total energy of the explosion, and the amount of that energy that is emitted as observable light, or radiation,” said study lead author Matt Nicholl, a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham.

“In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1% of the total energy. But in SN2016aps, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova.”

It’s such an extreme explosion, Prof Nicholl and his colleagues have theorised it may be a “pulsational pair-instability” supernova, in which two large stars merge into one system which then collapses.

If their theory holds up, it’s the first time such a supernova has been observed.

SN2016aps was discovered in 2016 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii. It was located in a galaxy about 4.5 million light years from Earth.

Prof Nicholl and his team watched the star explode for two years with NASA ‘s Hubble Space Telescope, until the brightness of the supernova eventually faded to just 1% of its peak output.

The blast ultimately released about 10 times more energy than our sun will emit in its entire lifetime.

“Until now it wasn’t clear that explosions this powerful were even possible,” said Edo Berger, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University.

The scientists have pieced together what may have led to the enormous explosion. Most of SN2016aps’ brightness likely came from the interaction between the supernova and a surrounding shell of gas. Before they explode, doomed giant stars pulsate violently and eject the shells into space.

“If the supernova gets the timing right, it can catch up to this shell and release a huge amount of energy in the collision,” Nicholl said. “We think this is one of the most compelling candidates for this process yet observed, and probably the most massive.”

The team calculated that the supernova system was between 50 and 100 times the mass of the sun.

“The gas we detected was mostly hydrogen — but such a massive star would usually have lost all of its hydrogen via stellar winds long before it started pulsating,” Nicholl said.

“One explanation is that two slightly less massive stars of around, say 60 solar masses, had merged before the explosion. The lower-mass stars hold onto their hydrogen for longer, while their combined mass is high enough to trigger the pair instability.”

The new study was published on Monday in the Nature Astronomy journal, and it’s hoped its findings will lead to even more exciting space discoveries.

“Finding this extraordinary supernova couldn’t have come at a better time,” Prof Berger said.

“Now that we know such energetic explosions occur in nature, NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see similar events so far away that we can look back in time to the deaths of the very first stars in the universe.”

The James Webb, thought of as the successor to the famous Hubble, will launch next year and will be used to hunt for signs of alien life as well as other observations.

While many of us will be enjoying hot cross buns and chocolate eggs this Easter weekend, some people will be spending the holiday in much less comfortable conditions.

For devout Christians in the Philippines, prayer isn’t enough to honour the life and death of Jesus Christ and instead they are voluntarily crucified on Good Friday.

Not metaphorically either – real nails are hammered through their hands before they’re hoisted up by the arms on wooden crosses.

The crucifixions are part of the local observance of Holy Week in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation, and have been happening since 1962.

Wearing crowns made of twigs to represent thorns, dozens of worshippers (known as ‘magdarame’) take part in the extreme ritual every Good Friday in towns and cities across the Philippines, although it’s concentrated in the Central Luzon province of Pampanga.

Some drag heavy crosses or crawl on their hands and knees to the site of the crucifixion as crowds of onlookers watch, while other penitents whip themselves with bamboo or pieces of wood in an act of self-flagellation.

Designated participants dress up as Roman centurions and play the role of Christ’s executioners.

Those who have chosen to be crucified (usually men) are then tied to wooden crosses and metal nails the size of pencils are driven into their palms and feet.

The crosses are hoisted upright and the penitents get to experience the painful feeling of their bodies being stretched with only their bleeding hands holding up their weight – although they get some additional support from the ties binding their arms to the cross.

Thankfully, the crucifixions last only a few minutes rather than the agonising days-long process of an actual execution.

People who choose to be crucified consider it an act of “mortification of the flesh”, a process of spiritually killing one’s sinful nature through physical suffering.

Others are crucified to fulfil a ‘panatà’ (vow) or to express their gratitude for favours granted by God.

The practice is strongly discouraged by the Catholic Church in the Philippines, which has disavowed crucifixion as a superstition that goes against its teachings.

“The spiritual dimension is totally lost, and it’s entered into only because of some shows, some manifestations for other people to be satisfied with or to see,” Bishop Deogracias Iniguez has said of past Good Friday events.

“Many of these penitents, those who are practicing these physical afflictions have a meagre, have a shallow understanding of these practices.”

Meanwhile the Philippines’ Department of Health has recommended everyone who participates in the crucifixions should have tetanus shots and the nails used should first be sterilised.

At some of the more popular events, local merchants set up stalls selling beer, ice cream, fans and even souvenir whips to audience members.

Medics are on hand at the sites to give first aid to anyone who needs it.

Boys as young as 15 have taken part in the gruesome ritual, as well as women. Foreigners have been banned from taking part after a Japanese man allowed footage of himself being crucified to be included in a porn film.

Those who have been crucified say it takes about two weeks for the wounds in their hands to feet to heal. No one has died during the rituals – yet.

Crucifixion was a real form of capital punishment used in many different countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The victim would be tied or nailed to a wooden beam and left there for hours or days – however long it took for them to die.

Asphyxiation would often be the cause of death, along with heart failure or even sepsis from the rusty nails.

There are fears that the UK could be hit harder by coronavirus because of the rollout of the 5G wife network, claim conspiracists.

Currently there are 3,983 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Britain and Northern Ireland.

The disease has spread rapidly through the population since it was first detected here on January 31. The death toll stands at 335 and PM Boris Johnson warns this is expected to rise significantly.

As coronavirus has ripped across the globe, a new conspiracy theory has found an eager audience: that the symptoms of the virus – high fever, coughing and shortness of breath – are actually the human body responding to exposure to 5G.

The theory has been met with scepticism from experts, who have pointed out that coronavirus cases have been identified in many areas with no 5G networks.

Anti-5G critics based in the UK believe the virus likely began in a market in Wuhan and travelled here through transmission.

But they’re concerned the ultra-fast network currently operating in almost 100 locations around Britain could be helping it to spread more quickly.

Activist Louise Thomas, based in Somerset, told Daily Star Online: “We can’t say 5G has caused the coronavirus, but it might be exacerbating it.”

Tanja Rebel, another activist and philosophy lecturer at the Isle of Wight College, told us: “Many studies show that Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR) suppresses the immune system and that it helps viruses and bacteria thrive.

“So EMR and in particular 5G could act as an accelerator for the disease. We do not know for sure, but common sense and the precautionary principle decree that we urgently need a moratorium on the roll-out of 5G until we can show that it is safe.”

The precautionary principle says that governments and societies should react with caution to anything with the potential to cause catastrophic damage which is not yet well-understood by science.

Public Health England has been approached for comment on the claims.

Italy, now the country with the highest coronavirus death toll, had 5G networks installed in five cities in 2019 with plans to extend coverage throughout 2020.

A 2011 study from Northeastern University in Boston indicated that some single-celled bacteria, such as E.coli, may communicate with each other using “radio waves”.

Very little is known about COVID-19, the novel coronavirus at the heart of the current pandemic, but research has shown that viruses “talk to each other” when making decisions about infecting a host.

Activists are now calling for the government to put a stop to the 5G rollout in the interests of public health.

“Especially in today’s situation it is paramount that we do not play further with lives,” Rebel said. “Anything else would be deeply reckless.”

Britain could see a China-style “social monitoring” credit system implemented if 5G critics’ fears come to pass.

The high-speed network is currently being rolled out across the UK, with the government promising full coverage by 2025.

It’s being spearheaded by Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that currently supplies the 3G and 4G technology used by EE and Vodafone.

But the US government has strongly opposed Huawei’s involvement in British 5G, even threatening to restrict the intelligence it shares with us if the deal goes ahead.

In January a delegation of senior Trump administration officials flew to the UK to present evidence of the security risks they say Huawei pose to the country. One said it would be “nothing short of madness” for Britain to let the company supply its 5G.

The officials wouldn’t reveal details about their evidence, but one claimed China could potentially conduct intrusive surveillance of Brits by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the software.

Tanja Rebel, an activist and philosophy lecturer from the Isle of Wight, says the US government is right but their motives for banning Huawei from Britain are far from altruistic.

“The US is aware of the dangers that Huawei poses to national security, as 5G will make us far more vulnerable to malign foreign intrusion,” she told Daily Star Online.

“Of course, this does not just restrict itself to Huawei, it goes for any country with suspicious motives.

“This is why I think there is a competitive element in all of this as well: The US wants to hamper Chinese development of 5G and possibly even slow down UK development, as the country who is first to have comprehensive 5G coverage will have a significant competitive edge as well as complete control over its population.

“For 5G will entail the ultimate control grid.”

Ms Rebel, who has said the rollout of untested 5G technology “amounts to assault” on the British population , fears the extensive network could be twisted into a mass system of surveillance.

“See China where the digital social credit system is used to punish and penalise those who make even the tiniest of breaches, and where minorities are incarcerated in concentration camps where there is complete digital control.”

China’s powerful surveillance state, helped by high-tech facial recognition cameras on the streets, implements a controversial system that monitors citizens’ behaviour and rewards or punishes them accordingly .

Those who violate traffic laws, buy too many video games or post fake news online receive low “social credibility scores”, while those who donate blood or do volunteer work are scored highly.

The scores affect where people can travel, which schools their children can attend and even the speed of their internet.

Even the country’s notorious “re-education camps” are subject to round-the-clock surveillance.

Daily Star Online has approached Huawei for comment.

The United Nations has condemned the Chinese government over credible reports that more than a million Uighurs, the country’s Muslim minority, are being held in camps where they are tortured into swearing loyalty to the state.

Investigators have also claimed Uighurs are being killed for the purposes of organ harvesting .

China has defended its treatment of Muslims, claiming those in camps are treated well and that the initiative is successful in stamping out terrorism.

A woman claims a spooky image filmed at a pub is her late dad.

Katie Taylor, 33, was stunned to see his likeness captured during a ghost hunter’s live Facebook stream.

She thinks taxi driver Roger is communicating by showing up at his old haunt The Black Dog in Grantham, Lincs.

Special needs teacher Katie, from Sheffield, said: “My parents lived in Grantham before they had me. My mum said they used to go to The Black Dog quite a bit.

“That picture is clearly a man’s face and the resemblance to my dad is uncanny. Everybody that I’ve shown it to has said, ‘Wow, that’s definitely your dad’.”

Roger passed away in March 2016 from pneumonia aged 60, after battling lung cancer.

The investigation at The Black Dog was carried out by Retford Ghost Hunters.

Katie added: “I was just scrolling through Facebook and saw some images captured on a ghost hunter’s webcam.

“I stopped and immediately thought, ‘Eh?’ When I properly looked at it, I saw that it was my dad’s figure.”

Landlord Chris Knowles said: “I lived here with my family for four years and there were all sorts of strange goings-on.

“We sometimes felt that someone was in a room when we were on our own.”

Many pubs around the UK are allegedly haunted and paranormal activity has been witnessed by patrons or captured on CCTV.

A childlike ghostly figure was seen roaming the Lamb and Lion in York in 2019, while the Drover’s Inn in Loch Lomond has reported self-opening doors, sinister laughter, mysterious bruises, moving objects, orbs and unexplained ‘sexual bumping’ in the night.

Lincolnshire locals have been terrorised by a huge “dogman” creature for hundreds of years, a paranormal expert says.

Lee Solway, host of the Realm of the Supernatural podcast , told Daily Star Online there have been reports of a giant dog-like creature in the region “dating back to the 1600s”.

Mr Solway says there was a particularly eerie encounter in 1995 when a local Grimsby official was notified by a security guard that something that “looked like a werewolf running around” had been spotted at a caravan park.

When the man arrived on the scene to investigate, he found a van parked on the road with no one inside.

Terrified locals hiding nearby called out to him to run, saying a huge wolf with “glowing eyes” had chased off the previous guard.

The official never saw the creature – and the first security guard never returned to work.

American cryptid fanatics have long documented sightings of the folkloric dogman, even capturing said creature on camera .

The legend is described as a 7ft tall, blue or amber-eyed canine-like animal with the torso of a man and a fearsome howl. The first reported sighting of the dogman in North America came in 1887, and there have been multiple accounts since then.

Paranormal believers had a field day in 2018 when a mysterious creature was shot dead in a forest in Montana, puzzling scientists who couldn’t work out what species it was.

Photos of the animal’s body show it had long dark grey fur, an elongated snout and a big head. Experts said its ears were too large and its legs and torso too short for it to be a wolf, which are common in North America.

Wolves haven’t roamed the UK for about 500 years, so sightings of large wild dogs cause much more alarm here.

Nick Redfern, a lecturer and journalist who covers unsolved mysteries such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs, confirms there have been a number of reported dogman sightings in the UK.

“There was a spate of them in the summer of 2006,” he wrote for Mysterious Universe.

“It was in late June of that year when all hell broke loose. Reports flew around Staffordshire, England’s Cannock Chase woods to the effect that nothing less than a fully-grown wolf was wildly roaming the area.

“Early on the morning of June 28, motorists on Junction 10A of the M6 Motorway near Cannock jammed Highways Agency phone-lines with reports of a ‘wolf-like creature’ that was seen ‘racing between lanes at rush hour’.

“Motorists stared with utter disbelief as the three-foot-long beast, described as ‘greyish-black’, racing between lanes, skilfully dodging cars, before leaping for cover in nearby trees.”

There’s evidence of other phenomena in Lincolnshire that seem to indicate strange activity in the area.

Realm of the Supernatural co-host ‘Finchy’ took a photo of two bloody deer legs strewn across the A18 near Humberside Airport, soon after a huge creature described as “darker than the night” was spotted nearby.

Mr Solway also photographed a bizarre “twisted tree” in Willingham Woods, Market Rasen that had been violently broken – as though a large creature had swept past it.

He doesn’t buy many people’s assumption that those who have sighted the dogman were just “on drugs”.

“They’d be some very good drugs to let you see that.”

There could come a time when Brits don’t need to work to earn a living – they’ll be paid to do nothing.

The Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an economic system in which every citizen is paid the same amount of money by the government regardless of whether or not they are in paid work.

Proponents say it’s a solution to a broken welfare system that ensures no one who may not be able to work is left behind.

The concept dates back to the 16th century but has gained popularity in recent years after high-profile trials in Scandinavia seemed to produce promising results.

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s recent campaign revolved around implementing the UBI in the United States, and he gained a loyal base of youthful supporters for it.

Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the SNP have all supported trying out the UBI in Britain.

Some economists are also on board with the idea, even if it means not as many of us have jobs.

The UK’s employment rate is currently at a record high, with about 75% of us between 16 and 64 currently in work.

Dr Steve Davies, head of education at the Institute of Economic Affairs(IEA), says fewer people in the workforce would be a good thing for the country.

“We are close to total employment now, where every adult that can work is working,” he told Daily Star Online.

“Economists see this as an unmitigated good. I think that is clearly incorrect.

“I think we actually have too large a proportion of our adult population in paid work – this is mainly because of the high cost of housing and other essentials – so I actually welcome a reduction in that.”

Dr Davies says thanks to the principle of diminishing marginal returns, we now have an economy with high levels of employment but “low to zero productivity growth”. This leads to stagnant or declining wage growth and living standards, and means employers have little incentive to invest in productivity-enhancing equipment as it’s cheaper to use poorly-paid human labour instead.

Because so many of us are working, we have less time to engage in the unpaid labour of domestic chores, childcare and gardening that “underpins the monetised exchange economy”.

“Not only does the output gain per additional worker decline as more people enter the workforce, each additional person becoming a paid employee also means a cost, because the things they used to do on an unpaid basis in the domestic sphere will either be done less well or not at all,” he said.

“In the latter case they will shift into the monetised part of the economy so that you get the ridiculous situation of people (mainly but not entirely women) going into the labour force and then spending a large part or even most of what they earn net on paying other people to look after their children.”

This contributes to social problems such as the obesity epidemic, as households have less time and so are more likely to make unhealthy choices when it comes to nutrition.

Dr Davies says the optimum level of employment among adults in the UK is about 55% to 60%.

He’s not opposed to the UBI, although he says it would have to pass some rigorous standards to have a chance of working, as it would need to adequately replace the entire benefits system as it currently exists.

The payments would also need to be high enough to cover the average Brit’s basic needs, but low enough not to encourage too much of the population to stop work altogether.

“The sweet spot is to make it a subsistence income, that you can survive on but no more, but that is hard to calculate, not least because of significant local variations.”

Hull recently applied to trial the UBI but those plans were rejected by the government– but that doesn’t mean other cities won’t get to try it.

‘UBI Labs’, think-tanks exploring the potential for UBI, have been set up around the country to identify good candidates for trials.

Sam Gregory, chair of UBI Lab Sheffield, told Daily Star Online that all recent modelling has shown the UBI would “dramatically” reduce inequality and poverty.

“But no-one can know for sure without testing it out, which is why we want to see pilots launched in the UK,” he said.

He expects more communities across Britain will follow Hull and ask to hold pilots – and not just big cities but towns and rural areas too.

“As automation accelerates over the decade and claims an increasing number of British jobs, the case for a basic income will grow stronger by the day. But before we think about rolling it out we need to test it.”

The Scottish government has commissioned a feasibility study into their own UBI test, and Mr Gregory believes pilots will be launched in England and Wales before 2030.

“UBI is not the silver bullet to fix everything, but what we have at the moment obviously isn’t working for the most vulnerable people in our society. It’s time to start testing something different.”

The pentagon is funding a programme studying UFOs and paranormal activity at a “supernatural” ranch in Utah, it is claimed.

The existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme (AATIP) was first reported in 2017, but the US Defence Department denied UFOs or alien activity were being investigated.

However newly released documents would seem to contradict that claim.

Magazine Popular Science published a report on Friday that included documents acquired from Bigelow Aerospace, a private company contracted to conduct work on behalf of the AATIP.

They indicate the $22 million (£16 million) programme has indeed been studying UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.

One of Bigelow’s reports doesn’t mention the AATIP by name, but explores claims surrounding the notorious Sherman Ranch, better known as Skinwalker Ranch – and was produced at the same time the company was conducting its work for the Pentagon.

“Skinwalker” is the Native American term for a shape-shifting evil spirit that lives in forests.

The cattle ranch outside the town of Ballard, Utah has long been the subject of speculation about paranormal and potential alien activity.

Terry Sherman moved there with his wife Gwen and their two children in 1994. They only stayed 18 months, during which time they reported seeing mysterious crop circles and lights appearing in the air.

They also say they saw mysterious large animals that seemed resistant to gunshot wounds. Some of their cattle was mutilated while some of it vanished entirely.

The family became so frightened they sold the 512-acre ranch in 1996 and went to the media with their stories, which attracted the attention of hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, a man with a fascination with the paranormal.

He went on to found Bigelow in 1999.

The company’s report which was published on Friday said the Skinwalker Ranch is a “possible laboratory for studying other intelligences and possible interdimensional phenomena”.

Another of the published reports focused on injuries suffered by people who experienced “exposure to anomalous vehicles”.

However its author told Popular Mechnanics that the report provides no evidence for extraterrestrial or non-human technologies.

Other reports studied the “physical effects” of unknown aerial phenomena and their “biological effects” on biological organisms.

Coronavirus could come and go with the seasons, claims an infectious disease expert.

The world is still reeling from the devastating outbreak that has killed more than 1,500 people in the last month, with Europe reporting its first death on Saturday.

Scientists are desperately trying to develop cures and a potential vaccine for Covid-19 which has so far infected more than 67,000 people after originating in a seafood market in Wuhan, China.

But there’s some good news: coronavirus may vanish in a few months as the weather gets warmer.

The bad news is it could return with a vengeance next winter.

Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, infection disease expert and Associate Professor at the Australian National University, has theorised the virus may be seasonal.

“When the warmer months appear it could suddenly disappear and then reappear in the colder months,” he told The Mirror.

He says it’s difficult to predict how long the epidemic will last because data on suspected cases is difficult to come by, and suspects a large number of cases have yet to be reported.

“China has changed the way it has counted cases which has muddied the waters a little bit,” he said.

“But if you go back to the old way of counting cases, in the last few days there has been a reduction in the number of confirmed cases and if that trend in the cases we know about is reflected in the cases we don’t know about, maybe we are getting it under control.”

Covid-19 bears some similarities to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed 774 people between 2002 and 2003.

However this coronavirus is believed to be more infectious although less deadly.

China has attempted to contain the coronavirus by imposing strict quarantines and locking down entire cities, with no travel allowed in or out of Wuhan.

Dr Senanayake doubts this approach will do much to prevent the pneumonia-like disease further, and says it’s impractical as a long-term solution to the outbreak.

“Children have to go to school,” he said.

“People have to go to work and China accounts for 16% of the world economy. If China is shut down, it has downstream effects for all of us.”

In 30 years’ time, you could change the colour of your car with an app, take a nap on its built-in bed and cruise to your destination via self-driving technology.

Auto Trader has released concept designs for what the average car will look like in 2050, based on the expertise of a futurologist, market trends, the rate of technology’s growth and research into what consumers of the future will want.

According to predictions, the car of the future will be fully electric and will feature “digital paint”. This will allow passengers to change the colour and style of the vehicle with just the tap of an app, depending on their mood.

“Advances in technology [mean] this feature could be widely available as early as the year 2040,” AutoTrader says.

The car will be fully autonomous, meaning it can drive itself. To ensure passengers can make the most of not having to focus on the road, it will feature a built-in mattress in the centre of its “spacious cabin”.

In a recent survey of 2,142 UK drivers, 24% said they’d use the car mattress to sleep, while 13% of male respondents said they’d rather use it for sex.

Some 22% said they’d spend their commute reading a book from the car’s extensive library, while 19% said they’d be binge-watching their favourite programmes and films from the in-built TV.

Others said they’d use the space to play board games or do yoga. 15% of women surveyed said they’d use the free time to do their hair and make-up en-route to an event.

The car also features a ” friendly AI” that will select the perfect driving speed and style, whether passengers are out for a leisurely weekend drive or need to dash to their destination.

It will look different to 2020’s typical car in that it will be fitted with a “bubble” window that extends over the roof, giving passengers more space to move around in. The bubble also gives 360 degree panoramic views.

If passengers want more privacy, they can turn on the glass’ black-out function with a tap.

Auto Trader’s Rory Reid says the design reflects changing preferences and expectations among British consumers.

“The government’s recent announcement on bringing forward the ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars to 2035 is already influencing what Brits are looking for,” he said.

“Overnight we saw a 165% increase in searches for electric vehicles on Auto Trader. So it’s no surprise that the 2050 car will be fully electric, but it’s fascinating to think what these advancements, including driverless tech, could mean for the actual design of cars and how they could be used.”

He says the idea of digital paint reflects a growing desire for personalisation.

“People are increasingly using technology to express themselves and this tech would remove the need to wait for a colour of car to come into stock or fork out extra to have a car spray painted a certain colour.”

Futurologist Tom Cheesewright, who helped with the 2050 car’s design, says the vehicle of tomorrow “takes you from A to B with minimum fuss and in maximum style”.

“Future technologies will give designers free reign to create more space and comfort, so that we can get on with our lives while an AI takes care of the driving. While our cars won’t be flying any time soon, we can all benefit from cleaner, quieter, safer roads. In just twenty years, the age of the combustion engine will be well and truly over.”

There are suspicions among some members of the anti-5G movement that the ultrafast satellite network may be connected to a mysterious military facility that can control the weather.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a transmitter facility used to study the properties and behaviour of the ionosphere, located in Alaska.

Its military-funded construction was completed in 2007, but just seven years later the programme was shut down and ownership of HAARP and its capabilities were transferred to the University of Alaska.

For years conspiracy theorists have speculated that the US government is using HAARP to control the weather, an allegation that’s been repeatedly denied by officials and scientists.

Some people believe HAARP’s powers go beyond weather, claiming it’s capable of mass mind control through its emission of extremely low frequency radar, with ionospheric heaters (powerful radio wave transmitters) targeting people more specifically.

There’s renewed interest in HAARP because of the mounting tensions between Iran and the US, and some say the programme is not only active, but is being strengthened by the rollout of 5G.

HAARP operates within the ionosphere, the layer of our atmosphere that lies 75 – 1000km above the surface of the Earth.

It’s also where 5G satellites roam in increasing numbers, as SpaceX plans to launch 1,400 more by the end of 2020 as part of its Starlink fleet. The company has applied to launch up to 30,000 more, and other tech giants like Amazon and Facebook are also planning to send up their own 5G satellites.

Air Force 2025, the 3,300 page report published in 2008 that identified future challenges for the US military, contained this intriguing paragraph:

“A Spacebased High-Energy Laser System is seen as a multimegawatt chemical laser that can zap ground, air, or space targets. At lower power settings, it could disable enemy optics, perform passive sensing missions, actively illuminate a target with a laser, or even modify the weather. Between fifteen and twenty such satellites could provide global coverage.”

There are considerably more than twenty satellites orbiting the Earth at present, with thousands more to follow.

US activist and author Arthur Firstenberg is one of many 5G critics that says the Starlink fleet will damage the Earth’s electromagnetic environment, posing “an immediate threat of extinction to all life on Earth”, he told Daily Star Online.

“The Starlink satellites are located in the lowest layer of the magnetosphere, which is called the ionosphere. The ionosphere, which is the source of energy for all life on earth, will be exposed to the full power of the satellite radiation instead of just a tiny fraction of the energy that goes through power lines located on the ground.”

However he doesn’t believe the satellites would be used in HAARP-style technology, and says controlling the weather is far less feasible than some seem to believe.

Makia Freeman of Global Research has connected the growing 5G network with HAARP, claiming the technologies are part of a wider conspiracy of surveillance and domination.

“It is vital to understand the bigger picture of the grand conspiracy here,” she writes.

“All these disruptive and hazardous technologies – 5G, wi-fi, wireless radiation, HAARP, ionospheric heating, geoengineering, GMOs, etc – are going to be woven into one giant integrated system of surveillance, command and control.”

She cites chemtrails “loaded with metal particulates which 5G can use” as one example of the interconnected nature of these technologies.

Other conspiracy theorists believe 5G is continuing the atmospheric control that was being done by HAARP until its closure in 2014.

A 2017 plan to install 50,000 5G cell towers across the state of California was met with mass protests by locals, some of whom claimed it was part of a “geoengineering” plot of surveillance and weather control.

A young man killed in the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius had his brains turned to glass in the extreme heat.

Forensic experts have examined the body of a 25-year-old Roman who died in the disaster, and discovered a shiny, solid black material inside his skull.

They say the mysterious substance is the remains of human brain tissue, which transformed into glass in a process known as “heat-induced brain vitrification”.

It’s the only known case of its kind, as brain tissue is rarely preserved for so long.

When it is found in the skulls of long-dead people, the tissue has normally turned to soap due to fatty acids.

“To date, vitrified remains of the brain have never been found,” said Dr Pier Paolo Petrone, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Naples Federico II.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Petrone and colleagues say the “rapid rise in extreme heat” when Vesuvius erupted converted human tissue to glass.

The man whose brain was vitrified was found embalmed in ash in the 1960s, lying face-down on a bed in what was once the town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed in the devastating eruption.

Analysis of ancient wood at the site revealed the area got as hot as 520C during the disaster.

“This suggests extreme radiant heat was able to ignite body fat and vaporise soft tissues; a rapid drop in temperature followed,” the report says.

They believe the young man was asleep at the time and likely died instantly – a relief as the volcano’s pyroclastic flows (currents of very hot gas, ash and rock) would have caused his skull and bones to explode.

Previous studies by Dr Petrone and his colleagues suggested “surge temperatures” killed many of the inhabitants of Herculaneum, Pompeii and other Roman settlements, extreme thermal shock causing their internal organs to shut down.

The discovery of splatters of reddish iron compounds on the victims’ bones indicates their red blood cells burst when extreme temperatures vapourised their muscles and fat, the researchers say.

They’ve also suggested the victims’ brain fluid boiled in the heat causing their heads to explode, although other experts have expressed doubt about this particular finding.

The thermal energy released by Mt Vesuvius during the eruption was 100,000 times that of the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.

“Green snow” has fallen on a Russian city terrorised by a meteor seven years ago, prompting fears “space dust” has fallen.

Residents of Chelyabinsk captured the unusual sight on social media, with photos and videos showing a significant area of a snow-covered field on the outskirts of the industrial city tinged green.

Locals were frightened by the sight, with some believing it could be a sign from the cosmos that another space threat is heading their way.

On the morning of February 15, 2013, a superbolide (meaning extra bright) meteor travelling 34,000mph

exploded over the city

. It generated a huge flash of light followed by a shockwave that shattered glass and damaged buildings around Chelyabinsk.

The explosion generated 20-30 times more energy than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. More than 1,000 people reported injuries, mostly from broken glass, and one woman broke her spine.

Residents took to social media to speculate about the green snow, with some theorising it could be “space dust” falling from the heavens. Others wondered if the snow had special healing properties. Some joked that the snow was deliberately dyed green in an attempt to cheer citizens up in the middle of a long winter.

After many concerned inquiries from the public about the green snow, local authorities investigated and found the colour was likely the result of dust being blown out of a nearby granite quarry.

Officials don’t believe the snow poses a health risk. However Chelyabinsk authorities have said they will take a reading of the local air quality to make sure.

The quarry is also being investigated about what caused the dust leak, and will be fined should any safety or ecological violations are discovered.

Chelyabinsk, which is home to more than 1.1 million people, has come to celebrate the meteor explosion that made hundreds of people need counselling.

Fragments of the meteor were found in and around the city, and a large chunk is displayed at a local museum.

In December that chunk alarmed residents once more when it seemed to move by itself , sparking theories it was trying to escape Earth and return to the universe.

Famous dermatologist Dr Pimple Popper has helped transform a man’s life by removing a bizarre 3lb ‘third testicle’ that was really a fatty growth.

Ravon, 26, starred in Thursday’s episode of Sandra Lee’s infamous reality TV show in which she performs life-improving procedures on patients such as skin extractions and cyst drainings, often in stomach-churning detail .

But even she was shocked at Ravon’s peculiar deformity. The Tennessee dad-of-one had been plagued by a heavy growth hanging between his legs for the past year, which had affected his confidence, sex life and even his ability to go to the toilet.

“My initial reaction with Ravon is ‘wow’,” Dr Lee said on the show.

“When somebody tells me that they have a growth on their leg, this is not what I’m expecting. It really took me aback initially. I thought I was looking at the wrong thing. He definitely has something here that is unique.”

Ravon said the lump began as the size of a small bouncy ball, which he dismissed as an ingrown hair. But it grew to the size of a tennis ball over the course of the next six months.

It began to seriously impact his life, causing him irritation and pain as well as embarrassment.

“When I go to use the bathroom I have to lift up my leg, I can’t really sit on it,” he explained. “When I sit down it instantly drops into the toilet… It’s just nasty.”

He could only bring himself to have sex with his girlfriend a few times a month because he was “so self-conscious”, and said having the lump removed would be “the best thing in the world”.

When it came time for Ravon to show the growth to Dr Lee, she was taken aback.

“Are you sure that’s not really part of your body?” she asked, but he assured her it was its own separate “wobbly” entity.

She discovered the growth was hanging off his skin by a “little stalk” which would make removal easier. After examining the lump she diagnosed it as a large skin tag that had become filled with fat – different from the average lipoma, a benign fatty lump that grows under the skin.

When it came time to operate, Ravon was nervous.

“Having a sharp object near my genital area — that’s kind of nerve-wracking,” he told the camera. “It’s like a horror movie, what if I jerk or something and cuts somewhere else that it’s not supposed to?”

Dr Lee first injected numbing fluid into the growth before she began slicing into it. She used scissors to cut the tissue away before snipping off the lump and stitching the wound closed.

Afterwards she gave Ravon the detached growth to hold.

“As I was holding it in my hand it weighed about three to four pounds,” he said. “But now that little small lump feels like thousands and thousands of pounds has been lifted off of me.”