“Citizen scientists” have helped experts to speed up the process of unlocking genetic data simply by playing a smartphone game.

In just one month, gamers using Cancer Research UK’s app have accomplished the same amount of analysis that it would take one scientist six months to do manually, the charity said. Players navigating the Play To Cure: Genes In Space game are in fact helping to highlight flaws in the genetic make-up of cancer patients.

Each time gamers play, they are analysing the DNA of one chromosome and, since its launch at the start of last month, users have made 1.5 million “classifications”, a spokesman said. Gamers from almost every country in the world have collectively spent 53,000 hours - six-and-a-half years - playing the game, which is set 800 years in the future, the charity said. The app is free to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play. (PA)

Voted favourite fictional gadget

The Delorean time-travelling car from the classic 80s film Back To The Future has been voted the nation’s favourite fictional gadget.

The car from the Michael J Fox film was followed by the sonic screwdriver (Doctor Who) and the teleporter (Star Trek) in a poll commissioned by the Gadget Show Live. With the invisibility cloak at number four, Marauder’s map at 10 and time-turner at 15, the Harry Potter franchise took top billing for the most gadgets on the list. Gadget Show Live takes place next month at the NEC in Birmingham. (PA)

Takeaways can make you obese

People who live or work near takeaways eat more junk food and are almost twice as likely to be obese as those who have none on their doorstep, a study has found.

Consumers who are the most tempted by takeaways and fast food eat an extra 40g of high calorie food – the same as half a small serving of McDonald’s fries – every week compared with those who stay away. Working near a fast food place or takeaway caused the biggest problems, closely followed by them being sited near the home.

The research, published online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), is the first UK study to combine data from home, work and commuting, and involved 5,442 adults from Cambridgeshire aged 29 to 62. (PA)

Five-year-old girl at wrong school

A five-year-old girl spent a whole day at the wrong school before teachers realised she was not a pupil.

The youngster apparently got on the wrong school bus in upstate New York, which on that day was being driven by a substitute driver who did not realise her mistake. At the school, teachers were expecting a new starter and asked the girl if she was that student.

She said she was, and she then spent the day answering to the no-show new starter’s name. Teachers eventually realised the error when the girl’s mother called to report her daughter had not returned on the usual school bus. (PA)

Amsterdam recreated in 3D

Hundreds of years after wealthy merchants began building the tall, narrow houses that define Amsterdam’s skyline, architects are updating the process for the 21st century – using a giant 3D printer to create pieces of a canal house and slotting them together like Lego blocks.

Hedwig Heinsman, of architects Dus, said the goal of the demonstration project launched this month is not so much to print a functioning house, rather it is to discover and share the potential uses of 3D printing in construction. At the core of the project is a 20-foot printer dubbed the Kamermaker, or “room-builder”. Ms Heinsman said: “There’s only one way to find out... by doing it.” (PA)

Tokyo book vandal is arrested

A man has been arrested after more than 300 books which all relate to Anne Frank were found to have had pages ripped from them at libraries across Tokyo. Police say the man sneaked into a library and ripped pages from 23 of the books on February 5. Some of the missing pages were found in a plastic bag at a house in the city.

The books targeted include Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, which she wrote during the two years her family hid from the Nazis during World War II. (PA)