A robot emitting ultraviolet light (UVC) with the ability to disinfect hospitals and get rid of the Covid-19 virus has been developed by a start-up attached to Trinity College Dublin. Being able to clean healthcare facilities thoroughly and quickly is hugely demanding as coronavirus cases escalate. Created by Akara Robotics, it is clinically proven to kill viruses, bacteria and harmful germs, and does so in a much shorter time compared to usual cleaning methods, according to its inventor Dr Conor McGinn. Robot Violet was tested in an acute hospital in the Dublin area last week after Dr McGinn contacted the HSE indicating it would be effective in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic in healthcare settings. They are awaiting microbiological test results to confirm its effectiveness.

These are the horrifying photos from the heyday of the Eugenics movement that the world wants to forget. Before the atrocities of Nazi Germany, eugenics - the system of measuring human traits, seeking out the desirable ones and cutting out the undesirable ones - was once practised the world over. In the decades following the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's'On the Origin of Species', a veritable craze for eugenics spread through Britain, the United States and Europe. Bruno Beger was a German racial anthropologist who worked for the Ahnenerbe, a project in Nazi Germany to research the archaeological and cultural history of the Aryan race. In this image taken in 1938, Dr Beger is measuring a Tibetan woman's head to demonstrate what he believed were the'inferior' characteristics of her race Advocates of eugenics made significant advances during the early twentieth century - and claimed that'undesirable' genetic traits such as dwarfism, deafness and even minor defects like a cleft palate needed to be wiped out of the gene pool.