Should pregnant women eat for two?

The myth may say that women can pile on the pounds when expecting a baby, but the evidence tells a different story.

Anyone who’s been pregnant will tell you how friends or family members regularly push food towards them, saying: “Go on! Help yourself! You’re eating for two now!” Women who have spent their life worrying about their weight often find themselves thrilled or relieved that at last there’s a good reason not to worry about what they eat. For once, they argue, it’s allowed… and surely it’s good for the baby if you eat plenty?

Unfortunately when you begin to look at the evidence, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

The belief that eating for two is a good idea results in up to a third of women putting on amounts of weight medically considered to be excessive. Not only is this weight hard to lose after the baby’s born, but it can lead to more serious consequences.

There is an increased risk of high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. It can also affect the birth itself with a higher rate of interventions, including caesarian sections and even an increased, though still rare, risk of stillbirth.

Professor Jane Ogden, a health psychologist at Surrey University has found that some women feel that pregnancy legitimises the amount they want to eat. If so, there is a danger that becoming accustomed to eating for two can make it hard to return to eating for one after childbirth, or later if you’re breastfeeding.

Getting people to take notice of any guidelines is another matter. A lot of women say they feel perpetually ravenous while they’re pregnant, so it’s not surprising that they eat more.

The American Dietetic Association’s review of interventions to help women avoid excessive weight gain during pregnancy found that some worked and others didn’t. In Finland, women ate more fresh fruit and vegetables as a result of the advice, but didn’t put on less weight. In the US some interventions did work, except when women were obese before they became pregnant.

Other studies in Native American Cree communities in Canada found that nutritional advice had only a modest effect. And a recent review of different interventions found those that encouraged women to eat a healthy diet were more effective in terms of maternal weight and obstetric outcomes than those recommending walking and other types of light exercise.

Calorie count

What if someone’s eating for three or even four because they’re expecting twins or triplets? Do they need to eat significantly more? Perhaps not.

If a woman is carrying more than one foetus her metabolic rate is 10% greater, causing her to use up calories faster. And some diets recommend women expecting twins or triplets eat up to 4,000 calories a day. That’s as much as the British forces are advised to consume on duty in Afghanistan, but this doesn’t take into account that pregnant women are likely to be slightly more sedentary than fighting soldiers.

What’s also true is that women expecting twins or triplets who don’t put on enough weight are more likely to have very small babies. But although women are sometimes told to eat a great deal of extra calories, it’s not clear where the evidence for exactly how many comes from.

Worryingly, a systematic review of studies in 2011 couldn’t identify a single randomized controlled study that compared normal diets with special high calorie diets. Without direct comparison of normal diets with special high calorie diets, who’s to say which advice is correct?

So putting aside the question of the multiple births, how much extra should people try to eat when they’re pregnant?

In the US, the Institute of Medicine recommends that pregnant women eat three meals and two snacks a day. That sounds like plenty until you look at the number of calories recommended: an extra 340 calories a day during the second trimester and 452 calories a day in the third. 

That is the equivalent of a normal diet plus two eggs during the middle months of pregnancy and two chocolate digestives plus some garlic bread in the third. It’s hardly eating for two. As the London obstetrician Patrick O’Brien puts it, “You’re eating for one and a bit.

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You can hear more Medical Myths on Health Check on the BBC World Service.

Disclaimer
All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.

Will we ever… create intelligent robots?

Walking, talking androids have been a sci-fi staple for decades, but as John Pavlus reports building one in reality is still a matter of getting the right parts and smarts.

- We made you ‘cause we could.

- Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?

In Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s film about a space expedition searching for the origins of human life, the elegant, Lawrence-of-Arabia loving android David discovers from a crew member the possible motives behind his own creation – and understandably finds this less than inspiring.

But the idea of creating intelligent robots has fired human imagination for decades. These robots have taken many forms in speculative fiction, from the seductive charms of Futura in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis to the urbane, existential angst of David in Prometheus. In reality, though, how far have we progressed towards being able to create an intelligent robot just “’cause we could”?

To understand where we are now, we have to go back about twenty years, to a time when artificial intelligence research was in crisis. Rodney Brooks, then a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote a landmark paper in 1990 stating: "Artificial Intelligence research has foundered in a sea of incrementalism… small AI companies are folding, and attendance is well down at national and international Artificial Intelligence conferences... What has gone wrong?"

The problem, as Brooks saw it, was that the type of research inspired by Alan Turing’s famous artificial intelligence test had hit a dead end. The Turing test directed decades of AI efforts towards devising computer systems that “thought” by solving logic problems –focusing on the "sea of symbols", as Brooks put it, that were believed to undergird intelligence. These systems could shuffle and sort information with dizzying speed, giving them the appearance of intelligence when performing certain abstract tasks (like playing chess). But when it came to “common sense” intelligence – the kind we rely on when selecting a book from a bookshelf, distinguishing a cat from a dog or a rock, or holding a glass of water without dropping or crushing it – this symbolic, Turing-style AI couldn’t cope.

Get smart

A better alternative for AI was to take a “situated” route, as Brooks called it. The first order of business: forget about building brains that can solve logical problems. Instead, focus on building bodies that can deal with and respond to the physical world. In other words: build robots.

There's something about an embodied agent that seems more "intelligent", in a general sense, than any algorithm. IBM's Watson systemmay be able to beat humans at Jeopardy! with its deep reservoir of facts – an impressive simulation of "book smarts". But Boston Dynamics' Big Dog robot, manoeuvering itself sure-footedly up hills and around unfamiliar obstacles, and even maintaining its balance when shoved by its human companion, actually seems to be smart – at least, in the same way a dog or horse is.

"One kind of smart has to do with knowing a lot of facts and being able to reason and solve problems; another kind of smart has to do with understanding how our bodies work and being able to control them," says Marc Raibert, CEO of Boston Dynamics. "That kind of smart helps people and animals move with remarkable mobility, agility, dexterity, and speed."

When Brooks wrote about this new kind of artificial intelligence in his 1990 paper, he introduced half a dozen robots who look like Big Dog's evolutionary ancestors. One of them was Genghis, a six-legged insect-like robot that could autonomously negotiate unfamiliar terrain in an eerily lifelike way, without any high-order processing or centralized control system. All it had were lots of simple sensors "tightly coupled" to motor controllers in each leg, loosely connected in a “nerve-like” network to pass sensory information between the motors, "without any attempt at integration".

This primitive-seeming architecture, wrote Brooks, was the key to someday building artificially intelligent robots: Parts before smarts.

Brooks's insight paved the way for Boston Dynamics' lifelike robots, as well as Brooks's own iRobot corporation (which manufactures Roombasand bomb-defusing robots for the military). And yet a truly intelligent robot – with parts and smarts equivalent even to that of a domestic dog – has yet to be built. Why? Not because situated AI turned out to be yet another dead end, but because it addressed a newer, harder problem, known asMoravec's Paradox. "It is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old [human] when it comes to perception and mobility," roboticist Hans Moravec wrote in 1988.

Acting human

So how can we solve Moravec's Paradox? One approach is to take the assumptions of situated AI to their logical endpoint: If we want to build a robot with human-like intelligence, first build a robot with humanlike anatomy. A team of European researchers has done just that: theirECCERobot (Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot) has a thermoplastic skeleton complete with vertebrae, phalanges, and a ribcage. Instead of rigid motors, it has muscle-like actuators and rubber tendons. It has as many degrees of movement as a human torso; it flops into a heap when its power is turned off, just like an unconscious human would. And most importantly, all of these parts are studded with sensors.

"The patterns of sensory stimulation that we generate from moving our bodies in space and interacting with our environment are the basic building blocks of cognition," says Rolf Pfeifer, a lead researcher on ECCERobot. "When I grasp a cup, I am inducing sensory stimulation in the hand; in my eyes, from seeing how the scene changes; and proprioceptively [in my muscles], since I can feel its weight.”

These sensory patterns are the raw material for the brain to learn something about the environment and how to make distinctions in the real world, says Pfeifer, and these patterns depend strongly on the particular actions we perform with our particular body parts. “So if we want the robot to acquire the same concepts that we do,” he says, “it would have to start by generating the same sensory patterns that we do, which implies that it would need to have the same body plan as we do."

For now, ECCERobot's humanoid physiology is so difficult to control that it can barely pick up an object, much less exhibit intelligent behaviour. But Pfeifer and his team aren't the only ones exploring this "anthropomimetic" strategy: Boston Dynamics, the same firm that created Big Dog, is working with DARPA, the US military's research wing, to develop a humanoid robot called ATLAS which will "use the arms in conjunction with the legs to get higher levels of rough-terrain locomotion," says Raibert.

In any case, says Pfeifer, building an intelligent humanoid robot – one that "can smoothly interact with humans and human environments in a natural way" – will require breakthroughs in computing and battery efficiency, not to mention a quantum leap in sensory equipment. "A really crucial development will be skin," he says. "Skin is extremely important in the development of intelligence because it provides such rich sensory patterns: touch, temperature, pain, all at once."

A robot with skin and human-like internal anatomy starts to sound less like a robot at all, and more like a synthetic organism – much like David inPrometheus. Which takes us back to the question he asks in the film. Or as Pfeifer more pragmatically puts it: "Why build a robot which is a very fragile and expensive copy of a human being?"

It is a very useful goal, Pfeifer argues. “Even if we still mostly want robots to do specialized tasks, there will be tons of spinoffs from an understanding of humanoid, intelligent behaviour. Yes, we'll draw inspiration from biology. But that doesn't imply that we won't go beyond it."

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Researchers use spoofing to 'hack' into a flying drone

                          

American researchers took control of a flying drone by hacking into its GPS system - acting on a $1,000 (£640) dare from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

A University of Texas at Austin team used "spoofing" - a technique where the drone mistakes the signal from hackers for the one sent from GPS satellites.

The same method may have been used to bring down a US drone in Iran in 2011.

Analysts say that the demo shows the potential danger of using drones.

Drones are unmanned aircraft, often controlled from a hub located thousands of kilometres away.

They are mostly used by the military in conflict zones such as Afghanistan.

Todd Humphreys and his colleagues from the Radionavigation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin hacked the GPS system of a drone belonging to the university.

They demonstrated the technique to DHS officials, using a mini helicopter drone, flown over a stadium in Austin, said Fox News, who broke the story.

"What if you could take down one of these drones delivering FedEx packages and use that as your missile?" Fox News quoted Mr Humphreys.

"That's the same mentality the 911 attackers had."

Potential dangers

The spoofed drone used an unencrypted GPS signal, which is normally used by civilian planes, says Noel Sharkey, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control.

"It's easy to spoof an unencrypted drone. Anybody technically skilled could do this - it would cost them some £700 for the equipment and that's it," he told BBC News.

"It's very dangerous - if a drone is being directed somewhere using its GPS, [a spoofer] can make it think it's somewhere else and make it crash into a building, or crash somewhere else, or just steal it and fill it with explosives and direct somewhere.

"But the big worry is - it also means that it wouldn't be too hard for [a very skilled person] to work out how to un-encrypt military drones and spoof them, and that could be extremely dangerous because they could turn them on the wrong people.

SPOOFING EXPLAINED

"Imagine you've got a plane in the air and it sends back information to the person controlling it on the ground.

So if I wanted to fly my drone on a route between London and Birmingham, delivering mail for instance, I would get continuous signals coming back telling me where it is at all times.

And I would get GPS co-ordinates, using a signal from the satellite to navigate.

But if the drone is near Birmingham, but it receives GPS co-ordinates for Gloucester, it would then think it is in Gloucester and make an adjustment to go further north, changing the course."

Noel Sharkey

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Olympic rings lowered over Thames

A set of giant Olympic rings has been lowered from Tower Bridge over the River Thames in London, marking one month until the start of the Games.

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson says it shows the city's readiness to host the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhpRsJUyPgo

Role of stress in dementia investigated

By Damir DervanovicHealth editor, DDC World News online

UK experts are to begin a study to find out if stress can trigger dementia.

The investigation, funded by the Alzheimer's Society, will monitor 140 people with mild cognitive impairment or "pre-dementia" and look at how stress affects their condition.

The researchers will take blood and saliva samples at six-monthly intervals over the 18 months of the study to measure biological markers of stress.

They hope their work will reveal ways to prevent dementia.

The results could offer clues to new treatments or better ways of managing the condition, they say.

Dementia triggers

People who have mild cognitive impairment are at an increased risk of going on to develop dementia - although some will remain stable and others may improve.

And past work suggests mid-life stress may increase a person's risk of Alzheimer's disease.

A Swedish study that followed nearly 1,500 women for a period of 35 years found the risk of dementia was about 65% higher in women who reported repeated periods of stress in middle age than in those who did not.

Scottish scientists, who have done studies in animals, believe the link may be down to hormones the body releases in response to stress which interfere with brain function.

Prof Clive Holmes, from the University of Southampton, who will lead the study, said: "All of us go through stressful events. We are looking to understand how these may become a risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's.

"Something such as bereavement or a traumatic experience - possibly even moving home - are also potential factors.

"This is the first stage in developing ways in which to intervene with psychological or drug-based treatments to fight the disease.

"We are looking at two aspects of stress relief - physical and psychological - and the body's response to that experience."

Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "We welcome any research that could shed new light on Alzheimer's disease and other causes of dementia.

"Understanding the risk factors for Alzheimer's could provide one piece of the puzzle we need to take us closer to a treatment that could stop the disease in its tracks."

Queen and Martin McGuinness shake hands

The Queen shook hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

The Queen and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness have shaken hands for the first time.

The meeting between the monarch and Northern Ireland's deputy first minister took place at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on Wednesday.

It happened at an event organised by a charity, Co-Operation Ireland, which works to bring communities together.

They shook hands at a private meeting and later shook hands in public.

The private meeting, in a room at the theatre, involved a group of seven people, including Irish President Michael D Higgins and Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson

It is understood Mr McGuinness welcomed both the Queen and the Irish president in Irish.

The deputy first minister is said to have commented on the Queen's visit to Dublin last year, and in particular her comments regarding all the victims of the Troubles.

A Sinn Fein spokesman said: "He emphasised the need to acknowledge the pain of all victims of the conflict and their families."

Sinn Fein said Mr McGuinness told the Queen that their meeting was a "powerful signal that peace-building requires leadership".

Later, as the Queen left to continue her Diamond Jubilee tour of Northern Ireland, the pair shook hands again, this time in public.

As they shook hands for a second time, Mr McGuinness wished the Queen well in Irish, which translates: "Goodbye and God bless."

The BBC's royal correspondent Peter Hunt said: "Asked how it was to meet Queen, Martin McGuinness replied 'very nice'".

The main event had been billed as one to celebrate the role of the arts in contributing to reconciliation and peace-building and not as part of the Jubilee celebrations.

During the event, the Queen was presented with a gift of Belleek pottery to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

President Higgins said he and his wife, Sabina, had been delighted "to have the opportunity for a brief but very warm meeting" with the Queen.

He said it marked "another important step on the journey to reconciliation on this island".

The prime minister's official spokesman said the Queen's visit to the Republic of Ireland last year had "taken relations between the two countries to a new level".

The spokesperson added: "We think it is right that the Queen should meet representatives from all parts of the community."

Those present at the Lyric event included the pianist Barry Douglas, poet Michael Longley and actors Adrian Dunbar and Conleth Hill.

BBC Northern Ireland's political editor Mark Devenport said the occasion at the Lyric had been specifically designed to meet Sinn Fein's sensitivities and to ensure that a ground-breaking encounter could take place.

"It is being stressed the arts event has a cross-border dimension and is not part of the Jubilee celebrations," he said.

"That is in contrast to the huge party planned for Stormont, which is a celebration of the Queen's 60-year reign organised by the Northern Ireland Office."

The Queen and Prince Philip later toured Titanic Belfast, a new visitors' centre located near where the ship was built. She has also unveiled a plaque to commemorate the visit.

She enjoyed a lunch which included traditional Irish soda bread, Comber potatoes, the sweet toffee yellow man, and icecream.

Northern Ireland's first minister said thousands were waiting for the Queen at Stormont.

"I am certain, you will receive a massive, unparalleled and enthusiastic expression of affection and fidelity," he told the Queen.

"I know for many in the media, the focus has been on a handshake and a photograph, but for most people in Northern Ireland it is not about one moment of history but the opportunity to celebrate and give thanks for 60 very full years of Your Majesty's service to this nation."

About 20,000 people are expected to attend the event at Stormont later.

• There will be live coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee visit at 14:45 BST on BBC Two NI with live streaming online on the BBC Northern Ireland news website.

Are you hoping to see the Queen during her Northern Ireland tour? You can share your thoughts with us using the form below.

Spice Girls unveil West End show

By Tim Masters

The Spice Girls have reunited to launch Viva Forever!, a new West End musical based on their hit songs.

Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell helped unveil the show at a central London hotel on Tuesday.

"We're going to be introducing a whole new generation to Girl Power," Beckham said.

Written by Jennifer Saunders, the musical explores the "bitter reality of fame" brought by a TV talent show.

Viva Forever! opens at London's Piccadilly Theatre on 11 December.

The show is the idea of Judy Craymer, producer of Abba musical Mamma Mia!, who described Saunders as a "brilliant collaborator".

"She understands the anxieties in women, the fear of judgment and trepidation that one day they get to a certain age and become invisible," Craymer said.

The launch event was held in the neo-Gothic St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, the location where the Spice Girls filmed the video for their breakthrough hit Wannabe in 1996.

Reunited on the same podium, the five ex-bandmates exchanged banter about Halliwell's exit from the group at the height of their fame in 1998.

"I've got to say these girls are amazing and brilliant and loving," said Halliwell.

"Every time I see them, and I don't see them that often, independently and collectively they're really lovely. I'm really grateful to have good friends like this."

"She's only saying that because she left," joked Chisholm, aka Mel C.

"To have our songs performed night after night in a theatre is an honour for us," Chisholm went on.

"My little boy doesn't know who were are, so I can't wait for him to see this," said Emma Bunton.

According to its producers, Viva Forever! is "the story of a beautiful, talented girl and her best friends who get swept up in the obsession of today's TV celebrity culture".

Craymer said Saunders' story would "embrace all generations".

"We listened to Spice Girls songs for nine months non-stop," she said. "Jennifer came up with a heart-warming family story that touches on celebrity today."

The show, Craymer continued, was "very much about the chaos that a TV talent show can bring on a family and friendship".

Saunders, the writer of TV comedy Absolutely Fabulous, said both she and her daughters had been Spice Girls fans.

"I remember the joy and energy and positivity that they brought, and I wanted to bring that to the story," she told reporters.

The musical will be directed by Paul Garrington, who has staged international productions of Mamma Mia! and Dirty Dancing.

'Jukebox' musical

Viva Forever! is the latest in a line of so-called "jukebox" musicals that use popular songs to score what is often a fresh storyline.

The commercial success of Mamma Mia! has helped fuel dozens of similar shows, such as Jersey Boys - featuring the hits of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons - and the Michael Jackson show Thriller Live.

Mamma Mia!, which opened in 1999, is booking in the West End until April 2013, while We Will Rock You, based on the music of Queen, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Yet other examples of the genre have enjoyed lesser success.

Despite winning an Olivier for best new musical, the Madness-based Our House closed in 2003 after 10 months in the West End.

The opening of Viva Forever! will coincide with that of The Bodyguard, a musical based on the 1992 Whitney Houston film that opens at the Adelphi in December.

According to theatre critic Mark Shenton, "the received wisdom on jukebox musicals is the band mustn't be alive or touring".

"I'm wondering if the Spice Girls are too familiar to need this treatment," he told the BBC News website.

"On the other hand if anyone can do it Judy Craymer can, because she created the trend and there have been many imitators in her wake."

The Spice Girls topped the charts in 31 countries with their 1996 debut single Wannabe and went on to sell more than 75 million albums worldwide.

The group created the 1990s mantra "Girl Power" and starred in their own feature film, Spiceworld, in 1997.

The Spice Girls disbanded in 2000 but reformed seven years later for a reunion tour.

Craymer said she was "thrilled" the five had shown "so much encouragement and support" about a musical she insisted was "not a tribute show".

"The positivity, energy, humour, excitement and friendships that encapsulated the Spice Girls and their songs have inspired the whole creative team," she added.

Previews of Viva Forever! begin at the Piccadilly on 27 November.

Facebook's email switch prompts criticism by users

Facebook is facing a backlash from users after replacing email addresses listed in members' contacts with those provided by its @facebook.com system.

The company said it had acted to make details "consistent" across its site.

If Facebook's email system takes off it could drive more traffic to the firm's pages helping boost advertising sales.

But some users have branded the move "annoying" and "lame" and publicised instructions on how to display original addresses instead of the Facebook ones.

Facebook first announced plans for the move in April, although the news attracted little attention at the time.

"We are providing every Facebook user with his or her own Facebook email address because we find that many users find it useful to connect with each other, but using Facebook email is completely up to you," said a statement from the company.

Emails sent to @facebook.com addresses appear alongside posts sent via the network's internal message system, allowing users to pick up both types of communication from the same place.

Annoyed users

One analyst told the BBC the effort could backfire.

"It reeks of the same move Google did with its Buzz product when it automatically opted people in, and users recoiled against the action," said Anthony Mullen, interactive marketing analyst at Forrester Research.

"This is a direction Facebook needs to move in - your email is a proxy for your identity on the internet and Facebook want to usurp people's pre-existing email identities with their own to help drive up traffic to its site and lock users into its service.

"The problem is the lack of transparency - it has acted without asking for members' permission first."

Messages posted to the rival social network Twitter suggested the move had annoyed some users.

"Warnings would have been nice Facebook, don't just go and change email addresses," tweeted Josselyn Arundell from Manchester.

"More stunningly bad work from Facebook," posted London-based Darren Gough.

"Good idea to get people to use it. Poorly executed!!!" added Brent Jagodnik from California.

Few messages supported the move.

Users wishing to undo the change can do so by clicking on the "about" link in their profile and then clicking the "edit" button next to their contact information.

They then need to click make their Facebook email address "hidden from timeline" and then - if they wish - make one or more of their other preferred addresses visible.

Space: A travel guide

With Virgin Galactic planning its first sub-orbital test flights later this year, space tourism is close to becoming a reality even if you are not mega-rich. But which space company to choose to take you to the final frontier? Richard Hollingham, looks at the options.

It’s the ultimate experience – an event that will change your life. And whether you’re a billionaire, millionaire or just incredibly wealthy, the space tourism industry has something to offer. So far, only seven space tourists have flown in space but, all being well, over the next couple of years that’s going to change. Big time. And, if you’ve got the money, you could be part of it.

I’m not going to pretend the experience will be cheap but whether you want a quick sub-orbital thrill, a week staring out of the window of the International Space Station (ISS) or a daring mission to the far side of the Moon, it’s going to be considerably cheaper than it was for Nasa.

Neither is it without its risks. Even today, there is nothing routine about spaceflight. Some of these companies are relying on tried and tested Russian spacecraft but the others are stretching new technology to its limits. Just hope you’re not on board when those limits are discovered.

But, if you’ve saved your money and signed the waiver form, here’s what you can expect from a selection of the major players in this fledgling market.

VIRGIN GALACTIC

Mission: Space is Virgin Territory

The experience: After a few days of training alongside your five fellow crewmembers, you don your spacesuit and take your seat in the VSS Enterprise rocket plane.  Slung beneath the wings of the WhiteKnight Two twin-hulled aircraft, your rocket is carried 50,000 ft (15,000m) into the clear skies over the Mojave Desert. With everything checked out, WhiteKnight releases Enterprise, the pilot hits the start button and you’re thrust back into your seat as the rocket powers into space.

After the engines have cut off, it’ll be completely silent (apart from the exclamations from your fellow passengers) and you’ll have around five to six minutes of weightlessness when you’re free to float around the cabin and peer out of the large windows to the Earth below. Then it’s back to your seat, as gravity takes over and the spacecraft descends– at some speed – to land back on the runway.

What they say: “It has been specifically designed to give as many people as possible, an affordable, fantastic experience,” Virgin Galactic commercial director, Stephen Attenborough, tells me. “It’s the astronaut experience, so it’s the rocket ride to space, it’s having a big cabin that you can float around in zero gravity, it’s got big windows, so you’ve got fantastic views of Earth, it’s all run by Virgin so you’ll have a fantastic experience and you’ll come back an astronaut!”

Cost: $200,000

Wow factor: 8/10

Warped factor: 6/10

Verdict: It’s likely to happen in the near future and is certainly going to be a thrill-ride. But it might leave would-be astronauts wanting more.

SPACE EXPEDITION CORPORATION (SXC)

Mission: A life changing experience

The experience: SXC are working with XCOR Aerospace, the developers of the Lynx suborbital space plane. Equipped with four rocket engines, the plane is designed to take off and land on a runway. What’s neat about these engines is that they can be ignited and shut down at any time during flight. However, the Lynx has yet to fly.

As a passenger on board, you will be strapped into the cockpit at the front alongside the pilot. After take off, the plane will climb rapidly at three times the speed of sound to 58km (36 miles) above the Earth. At that point, the pilot will shut off the engines and let the plane coast upwards for another 40km (25 miles) as you start to descend in an arc back towards the Earth. You’ll experience around 4Gs of force as the plane re-enters the atmosphere, before it glides back for a horizontal landing.

Facebook makes $10m charity payment to settle lawsuit

Facebook is to pay $10m (£6m) to charity to settle a lawsuit over the way it used "social" ads.

Known as a "sponsored story", the ads popped up on a user's friends' pages after the user clicked to "like" a firm's advert.

The lawsuit was brought by five members of Facebook who said the ads violated Facebook members' rights to control the use of their activity on the site.

Facebook has declined to comment on the lawsuit and settlement.

The deal with users who sued was reached in May, but court documents were made public this weekend.

The Facebook users filed their lawsuit in December 2011 in a federal court in San Jose, California, claiming that the social network had violated the state law by making their "likes" known to others without allowing them to opt out or paying them.

Multiple lawsuits

According to Reuters news agency, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is quoted in the lawsuit as saying that such friend endorsement is the "Holy Grail" of advertising.

But the judge ruled in favour of the plaintiffs.

"California has long recognised a right to protect one's name and likeness against appropriation by others for their advantage," Judge Lucy Koh wrote, reported Reuters.

The social network said the settlement funds would go to charity.

It is just another court case involving the social networking giant, which listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in May.

One of the most recent cases involves Mr Zuckerberg and the banks leading the firm's flotation being sued by shareholders who allege that the site's revised growth figures were not disclosed to all investors.

In a different case, Yahoo has filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social network has infringed 10 of its patents, including systems and methods for advertising on the web.

Facebook denies the allegations.

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Euro 2012: England striker Wayne Rooney ready for Ukraine test

Wayne Rooney insists he has no problems with his attitude or temperament ahead of a potentially hostile Euro 2012 atmosphere against Ukraine on Tuesday.

The England striker, 26, has completed a suspension following adismissal in qualifying which excluded him from his country's first two games.

"What happened was a mistake and I've paid the price," he told reporters.

"I'm happy and ready to play. I've been looking forward to it and now I'm available to play I'm excited."

“We've been to a lot of stadiums around the world and we've had to deal with a big atmosphere on a lot of occasions”

Wayne RooneyEngland striker

Rooney was initially banned for the entire group stage following his straight red card for violent conduct against Montenegro in October.

The suspension was reduced to two games on appeal, and the Manchester United forward admitted that at one stage he feared for his Euro 2012 involvement.

"When it was a three-game ban I thought I'd probably wouldn't be here," Rooney admitted. "I'm happy that I am here."

England need just a point from their final Group D game against Ukraine in Donetsk on Tuesday to reach the knock-out stage. The co-hosts, meanwhile, require a win to reach the quarter-finals.

In a Donbass Arena expected to be dominated by noisy home support, Rooney maintained that England will be able to remain cool and collected.

"We've been to a lot of stadiums around the world and we've had to deal with a big atmosphere on a lot of occasions," he said.

Rooney

"We're big enough and experienced enough to deal with that."

Rooney's colleague at United, 21-year-old striker Danny Welbeck, has lead the England line in both of the opening fixtures andscored against Sweden on Friday, as didLiverpool striker Andy Carroll.

England manager Roy Hodgson has already indicated that he will select Rooney on Tuesday, with another attacker expected to miss out.

Rooney, however, was full of praise for his goalscoring colleagues.

"I know Danny very well having played with him at club level," he said.

"Andy has done very well. He's a big old-fashioned number nine who can hold the ball up and score goals.

"We mustn't forget Jermain [Defoe, the fourth striker in the squad], who's as natural a goalscorer as you'll ever see.

"We are four good strikers. We've got a big belief in ourselves. We're good enough certainly to go through the group stages."

England have based themselves in Krakow in Poland for the duration of Euro 2012. Rooney says he is enjoying the inner-city base, the bustling atmosphere contrasting favourably with the out-of-town team camp at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

When asked if the England squad are enjoying themselves more this time out, he told "Without doubt.

"The players have really settled, they're happy. Two years ago we were a little unsettled in certain ways. But the players are all happy playing together, playing for each other, which I'm sure everyone can see on the pitch."

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