A 300-year-old British coin has sold at auction for a world-record price of £845,000.

The five guinea 'Vigo' coin dates to 1703 and was made using gold seized by the British from a Spanish treasure ship at the Battle of Vigo Bay.  Just 20 of the coins were struck, in celebration of the victory, and they are now among the most collectable pieces of coinage in the world.

The Queen Anne Vigo coin was sold by London auctioneers Baldwin's of St. James's.  It was eventually bought by a phone bidder for a hammer price of £703,000.  With fees added on the total price paid for it was £845,000.

The whopping price is the highest ever shelled out for a British coin, smashing the previous record of £630,000 for an 1817 George III silver crown.

The series of Vigo coins were made out of 7.5lbs of gold captured from a Spanish galleon.  After the British failed to capture Cadiz in October 1702, the fleet intercepted Spanish treasure ships laden with Aztec and Inca gold, coming back from America.  The British attacked the Spanish fleet in Vigo Bay and captured the gold and silver on board.  The booty was then returned to Britain where, desperate for gold, the Bank of England had it melted down and turned into coins.

The pieces feature a bust of Queen Anne on one side and coats of arms on the other.  Of the 20 coins struck 16 are known of.  This coin spent many years with a private collector who decided it was the right time to sell it.

Stephen Fenton, director of Baldwin's said: 'We figured it would get a very high price like this because the market is so strong the moment.  These English five guinea coins are among the most desirable coins about and we had a lot of interest.  The history of the Vigo coins really appeals to collectors and even brings in a whole different market from Spain.  Because of the price there will always be a slight limit to how many people can buy them but on this occasion interest was incredibly strong.'

Mr Fenton added: 'The coin is in amazing condition and has been given the highest grading possible by an expert.  It had been with a private collector but with the market as strong as it is at the moment, he decided it was the right time to place it in our auction.'

The price is vastly higher than similar sales in recent years.  Two years ago a similar coin was sold at for just £225,000.

That ‘Vigo’, sold at Boningtons in November 2016 was at the time only the sixth example of its type to be offered for sale in the last 50 years.  Another example sold for £240,000 in Lewes in December 2012.  And auctioneers Spink sold one in 2005 for £130,000 and an inferior example for £82,000 two years later.  The 'Vigo' coins are incomparably more valuable than equivalent coins from a similar period.  A two-guinea Queen Anne gold coin dating from 1713, which was similarly struck but without the ‘Vigo’ mark, sold for just £5,400 in 2016.

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Left-handed people are better fighters than their right-handed counterparts because they catch them off guard, new research has found.

Researchers studied data on the careers of 10,000 professional boxers and mixed martial arts fighters.  They found that left-handed males and females do better in fights supporting the ‘fighter hypothesis’, which suggests they have a greater chance of winning fights due to a ‘surprise effect’.

Researchers from the University of Manchester found that when a left-handed fighter fought a right-handed competitor, around 54 per cent of the time the left-handed fighter got a higher rating.

There was also an over-representation of left-handed boxers in the ring.  As many as 17.3 per cent of male boxers were left-handed, higher than expected as just 12.6 per cent of males are left-handed in the general population.

The same was seen in female boxers.  The study said 12.6 per cent of them were left-handed, compared to 9.9 per cent of females in the general population.

Thomas Richardson told The Times: ‘In boxing it can be a whole different game if your opponent is left-handed.  It is even more difficult if a person switches stance, which left-handed fighters can do.’

The results could provide an explanation for the success of several boxers that use the 'southpaw' position.

The greatest boxer in Welsh history, Joe Calzaghe, who held a WBO title for 10 years, stood with his right hand and right foot forward before a match.  This could have been key to his success, allowing him to make ‘surprise’ moves that right-handed boxers were not as able to defend.

Manny Pacquiao, or Pac-Man, from the Philippines, is also a left-handed boxer who has enjoyed enormous success.  He has won boxing titles in more weight classes than any other boxer in history.  He won the World Boxing Association and IBF featherweight titles, and became The Ring's Fighter of the Year in 2006 and 2008.

The Roman Emperor Commodus, who famously enjoyed fighting in the Roman arena, was also left-handed, and proud of it.  According to Dio Cassius, he had the head of the Colossus of Nero replaced with his own, and added an inscription saying he was ‘the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve times one thousand men.’

The full findings of the study were published in the online pre-print repository BioRxiv and have yet to be peer reviewed.

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It seems not even next-generation 5G networks are safe from security flaws.

A team of researchers have discovered three new vulnerabilities in both 4G and 5G networks that could allow anyone to intercept your phone calls, fake text messages and track your location.  The study comes as carriers and phonemakers are preparing for 5G networks, which promise faster speeds, to launch around the world.

Researchers from Purdue University and University of Iowa conducted the study and will present their findings at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego on 26 February.

'Any person with a little knowledge of cellular paging protocols can carry out this attack,' Syed Rafiul Hussain, one of the paper's co-authors, told TechCrunch.

The worst of the three attacks, called Torpedo, takes advantage of a flaw in a network's paging protocol.  Paging protocols comprise the system that notifies phones of incoming calls and texts.

The researchers discovered that if they placed and cancelled a flurry of phone calls over a short time period, it would send a paging message without alerting the phone owner to an incoming call.  In doing so, the attacker is able to track the victim's location.

To carry out the Torpedo attack, all it takes is a $200 device to place the calls, according to the Telegraph.

All four major U.S. carriers - AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, are reportedly affected by the Torpedo flaw.

Hussain told TechCrunch that one major carrier is also affected by the second flaw, called Piercer.  It's unclear if Torpedo affects mobile providers in the UK as well.

The Piercer flaw allows the attacker to associate a victim's phone number with their international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), or a device's 'persistent identity.'  By learning their IMSI, it enables the attacker to further keep track of the user's location.

The final vulnerability, called IMSI-Cracking, is achieved via a brute force attack, wherein automated software is used to decode encrypted data.  It allows attackers to crack the device owner's IMSI on a 5G network and enables all kinds of snooping, including those used by 'stingrays,' or tracking devices used by police to monitor someone's real-time location.

What's more, researchers said that more advanced devices can even send fake messages, listen in on phone calls and intercept text messages.

The flaws were reported to the GSMA, which sets the telecom industry's cellular standards, according to TechCrunch.  GSMA is able to fix the Torpedo and IMSI-Cracking vulnerabilities, while the Piercer flaw can only be fixed by carriers.

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The telecoms industry is gearing up for 5G, the next generation wireless networks which could enable new technologies such as self-driving cars and robot surgeons.  But it may be raising expectations too early.

As industry leaders gather at the Mobile World Congress trade fair in Barcelona recently, some warn consumers risk disappointment because the benefits 5G's much faster speeds and vast data capacity can provide are still a long way from becoming reality.

For example while 5G will bring near-instantaneous connectivity for smartphones and can virtually eliminate latency -- the lag-time when data is sent or received -- this 'will only be a reality in 2023-2025.  We are still in the early stages,' said Yannick Sadowy, the director for telecoms and media and consulting firm Accenture.

Before 5G becomes a reality for consumers, two transitions need to take place.  Mobile operators have to upgrade their networks with 5G gear made by companies such as China's Huawei and Finland's Nokia, and phone makers need to make handsets with built-in 5G radios that can hook up to these networks.  But analysts don't expect 5G compatible smartphones to be become widely available until the second half of 2019 and the first models will be expensive.

And it will take even longer for the geographical reach of the 5G networks which are starting to be rolled out this year to be extensive enough to let you use your 5G phone without having to rely on current 4G wireless standards for most of the time.

Mobile communications industry body GSMA, which represents nearly 800 operators, forecasts 4G will still account for 45 per cent of worldwide mobile subscriptions in 2025, while 5G would only be at 15 per cent.

'5G will still be a reasonably small technology in 2025 but it will have a good pickup.  One needs to be patient,' GSMA director general Mats Granryd told AFP.

GSMA estimates capital expenditure on mobile networks worldwide would be $500 billion over the three years between 2018 to 2020.

To get the new technologies which 5G promises to unlock 'you first need a network which will cost a fortune to deploy and has an uncertain return on investment.  The risk of disappointment exists,' said IHS Markit analyst Stephane Teral.

Expectations are high.  More than half of consumers in developed countries, 54 per cent, expect 5G networks to deliver faster speeds, and one in four expect it to deliver 'innovative new services', according to a survey carried out by the GSMA last year.

5G 'will be a revolutionary technology but in the long term, it will take time to see everything which it will allow one to do with a smartphone but it will surprise us,' said Dexter Thilien, an analyst at Fitch Solutions.

Telecoms operators in Europe appear to have learned from the mistake of overpromising when 3G networks were first introduced in the continent in the early 2000s and have not played up 5G, although the same cannot be said for operators in the United States, he added.

At the time there was much hype around 3G but the first iPhone, compatible with the third-generation cellular network, only came out in 2008.

The main benefit for telecom operators in the short term will come from the surge in data consumption on the part of their consumers which 5G networks will spark, said Thomas Coudry, a telecoms analyst at Bryan, Garnier & Co.

As wireless speeds have increased over the past decade, consumers' data usage has soared.  And 5G could usher in a world of ultra-high definition video on smartphones and a host of apps which will lead to even higher data usage.

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Digital came into play in 1991 with 2G and SMS and MMS capabilities were launched.

Since then, the capabilities and carrying capacity for the mobile network has increased massively.

More data can be transferred from one point to another via the mobile network quicker than ever.

5G is expected to be launched in 2020 and will be up to 1,000 times faster than the currently used 4G.

Whilst the jump from 3G to 4G was most beneficial for mobile browsing and working, the step to 5G will be so fast they become almost real-time.

That means mobile operations will be just as fast as office-based internet connections.

Potential uses for 5g include:

• Simultaneous translation of several languages in a party conference call
• Self-driving cars can stream movies, music and navigation information from the cloud
• A full length 8GB film can be downloaded in six seconds.

5G is expected to be so quick and efficient it is possible it could start the end of wired connections.  By the end of 2020, industry estimates claim 50 billion devices will be connected to 5G.

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Scientists are closely monitoring a series of cracks running through Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf as they prepare for it to release an iceberg roughly 30 times the size of Manhattan.

Satellite images captured at the end of January show a rift that’s steadily been cutting northward is now nearing the edge of the shelf.  Once it reaches this point, an area of ice estimated to be at least 1700 square kilometers will break free – or, enough to envelope all five boroughs of New York City more than two times over.

According to NASA, the crack in the Brunt Ice Shelf was stable for nearly 35 years before it recently began accelerating at staggering rates, hitting up to 4 kilometers per year.

While it won’t be the largest iceberg to split off from Antarctica by a long shot, it’s the biggest chunk the Brunt Ice Shelf has lost since observations began over 100 years ago in 1915.  And, the ice shelf is the site of year-round research operations at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Station, sparking concerns for the humans who work there.

Close-up views of the satellite images show the centre rift is stretching across the ice shelf where it will soon meet perpendicularly with two other features: McDonald Ice Rumples and the Halloween Crack.

As of now, the researchers say it’s unclear what exactly will happen.  But, comparisons of images captured by Landsat 8 this year and Landsat 5 in 1986 show just how dramatically the situation has changed.

Joe MacGregor, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said: ‘The near-term future of Brunt Ice Shelf likely depends on where the existing rifts merge relative to the McDonald Ice Rumples.  If they merge upstream (south) of the McDonald Ice Rumples, then it’s possible that the ice shelf will be destabilized.’

The calving event will affect both the remaining ice shelf and potentially the scientific infrastructure at the remote site.  And, the recent changes in the rift’s activity only add to the questions.

Despite a long period of slow evolution, the past few years have seen significant acceleration.

NASA/UMBC glaciologist Chris Shuman said: ‘We don’t have a clear picture of what drives the shelf’s periods of advance and retreat through calving.  The likely future loss of the ice on the other side of the Halloween Crack suggests that more instability is possible, with associated risk to Halley VIa.’

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A schoolboy successfully made a nuclear fusion reactor in his family's spare room aged just 12.

Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, now 14, is believed to be the youngest person to build a functioning nuclear fusion reactor.  The machine was built from customised vacuums, pumps and chambers bought on eBay by his parents - costing the family a total of $10,000.

His contraption smashes together atoms with enough force to fuse them into one and this process releases energy trapped inside the atoms.   Information on how to build the machine was found online and on 19 January last year, mere hours before his 13th birthday, nuclear fusion was successful.

The previous record for the youngest successful mastermind behind a nuclear fusion reactor was held by Taylor Wilson, who achieved it aged 14.

He told Fox News: 'The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors.   After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed.  [I] got those parts off eBay primarily and then often times the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren't exactly what I needed.  So, I'd have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project.'

Deuterium gas - an isotope of hydrogen - is heated in a plasma core with 50,000 volts of electricity within a vacuum chamber to force the atoms together.  A similar process, albeit on a far larger scale, is what powers the sun.

This enormous voltage is an energy intensive process which, Jackson admits, takes in more energy than it produces.

The commercial viability of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity remains to be accomplished as all previous attempts are also energy pits.  Jackson says this flaw is 'why I'm not a billionaire'.

The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium is an online forum for amateur physicists.  Jackson used this platform to seek advice and learn how to create his reactor.  His parents funded the year-long endeavour, which they say took 'everyday grinding', but admit to knowing little about the undertaking.

Jackson's father, Chris, said he allowed his son to work on the project but ensured his safety by having experts speak to Jackson to educate him about the hazards working with radiation and thousands of volts of electricity poses.

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A serious flaw in the security of some computer chips, known as Spectre, is impossible to fix with software alone, Google experts claim.  The flaw is so large that computers of the future will need to be redesigned in order to avoid the issue.

Spectre affects chips manufactured by Intel, AMD and ARM and are used in almost every single one of the world's smartphones.  It leaves devices exposed to programmes that can steal data, passwords and emails.  When Spectre was discovered and its ubiquity was noticed, tech firms desperately scrambled to find a solution.

It was found that it decreases device speed by up to 30 per cent and Google introduced a feature to isolate each individual page on Chrome to limit the vulnerability.  There has yet to be a comprehensive solution to the issues and no fix for the fundamental issue has been found.

One manifestation of the issue, known as Speculative Store Bypass, has now been labelled as irreparable by Google's experts.  Ben Titzer, co-author of the study, told New Scientist: 'The entire field of computing missed this.'

Spectre exploits a weakness in a feature known as speculative execution which improves processing speed.

Experts are now resigned to the fact there may never be a simple patch or fix and the only true way to leave Spectre behind is to change the way machines are made.

Exact details of what can be stolen remain a mystery so it is impossible to gauge the effectiveness of previous software fixes.  Chips make guesses about future calculations, which are then discarded if incorrect.

The research is available on pre-print site arXiv.

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It is said you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.  But, when it comes to personality, it seems dogs continue making progress throughout their lifetime.

A new study has found that dogs’ personalities may change over time – and even tend to line up to match their owner’s.  The findings upend previous assumptions that dogs’ personalities are generally unchanging due to the overall stability of their lives.  According to the researchers, the results suggest dogs experience personality changes similar to how humans do over the course of their lives.

Lead author William Chopik, professor of psychology at Michigan State University said: ‘When humans go through big chances in life, their personality traits can change.  We found that this also happens with dogs – and to a surprisingly large degree.  We expected the dogs’ personalities to be fairly stable because they don’t have wild lifestyle changes [like] humans do, but they actually change a lot.  We uncovered similarities to their owners, the optimal time for training, and even a time in their lives that they can get more aggressive toward other animals.’

In the study led by Michigan State University, the researcher surveyed owners of more than 1,500 dogs.  This included 50 different breeds, with both male and female dogs aged just a few weeks to 15 years old.

Dog owners were given questionnaires about their own personalities as well as their dogs’, the researchers say.  And, this revealed some similarities.

Chopik said: ‘We found correlations in three main areas: age and personality, in human-to-dog personality similarities and in the influence a dog’s personality has on the quality of its relationship with its owner.  Older dogs are much harder to train; we found that the “sweet spot” for teaching a dog obedience is around the age of six, when it outgrows its excitable puppy stage but before it’s too set in its ways.’

Humans with extroverted personalities tended to rate their dogs as excitable and active, while dog owners with higher rates of negative emotions were more likely to rate their dogs as fearful and less responsive to training.

Agreeable dog owners were often found to have dogs that were less aggressive towards both animals and people.

According to the researcher, the findings tap into the idea of ‘nature versus nurture’ – a concept commonly used in the discussion of human personality.

In future studies, Chopik plans to focus on the effect a dog’s home environment can have on its behaviour.

Chopik said: ‘Say you adopt a dog from the shelter.  Some traits are likely tied to biology and resistant to change, but you then put it in a new environment where it’s loved, walked, and entertained often.  Now that we know dogs’ personalities can change, next we want to make a strong connection to understand why dogs act – and change – the way they do.’

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Soon, your boss may want to keep an eye on you in more ways than just whether or not you are at your desk.

A growing number of employers are urging their staff to wear company-provided fitness trackers with the incentive that they'll receive quarterly payouts for reaching step goals, in addition to other rewards like insurance reimbursements.  In exchange, bosses are supplied with detailed data on their employees, ranging from their daily steps, hours spent sitting down, heart rate and sleep quality, according to the Washington Post.

The practice has raised privacy concerns among many, while creating a totally new level of interaction between workers and their employers.

Lee Tien with consumer privacy advocate the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Post: 'The more that employers know about their employees' lives, especially outside the workplace, off-duty hours, the more potential control or effects they have on their lives in the first place.  It's quite possible there will be effects on whether you are retained, promoted, demoted - who is first to be laid off.'

The trackers are provided to staff either at no cost or via a small fee through their company's insurance provider.  Only employees who voluntarily opt-in take part in the program.  The device tracks their fitness activity and then sends this data to an app on their boss' phone.

Many employers say they began offering the trackers to get employees to stay fit and save on health-care costs, but it's not yet clear whether this approach makes an impact, the Post explained.

Some bosses push their employees more than others, with some staffers reportedly getting calls from their superior congratulating them on reaching step goals.

Devicemakers like Fitbit even added a call service to remind employees of their health targets.

Adam Pellegrini, senior vice president of Fitbit Health Solutions, told the Post: 'Sustained behavior change is really the focus.  Through the system, we can actually see who is not hitting their goals, who is not adhering to that action plan.'

Approximately 20 per cent of employers who provide health insurance said they collected data from wearable devices in 2018, which is a marked increase from the 14 per cent who did the year prior.

This data is often not only shared with bosses, but also the devicemaker, health insurance companies and other parties, the Post said.  Because it's voluntarily shared with these people, the data isn't protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a law that protects health records from public disclosure.  For this reason, employees should carefully consider before volunteering to wear a company-provided fitness tracker.

'The Fitbit or Apple Watch applications... may yield clues to things about you that you are not even aware of, or not ready for other people.   Individuals and consumers who are buying these devices don’t understand that is a potential consequence to know,' Tien told the Post.

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