Read any interview with an Olympian, A-lister or high-flying entrepreneur and they’ll likely reference rising at the crack of dawn, whether to train, meditate or start firing off emails.

The idea that ‘the early bird catches the worm’ has such a grip on society that getting up as early as 5am has become semaphore for good health and great success – even those of us who’d rather have a lie-in are lucky to set an alarm for much past 7am, thanks to the timing of the typical working day.

But in fact experts say as few as 5 to 10 per cent of people are true ‘larks’ (early to bed and early to rise) with most (myself included) preferring to both go to bed, and get up, later.

The bad news is that we night owls (late to bed and late to wake) could be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to long-term health.

A study published last week in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggested that late types could be 19 per cent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than early birds.

The research, undertaken at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, looked at the health outcomes of almost 64,000 middle-aged female nurses over a period of eight years and also found that those who described themselves as night owls were 54 per cent more likely to have unhealthy lifestyle habits including smoking, inadequate sleep and low levels of physical activity.

The good news is that it could be possible to ‘retrain’ yourself to have a healthier sleep type.

Every one of us has a ‘chronotype’ – also known as a circadian preference – which refers to our preferred timing of sleep and waking.

This is mostly genetically determined, but can be dynamic as it’s also influenced by factors such as our hormones (more on that later). Our chronotype lies on a spectrum between being a lark and an owl. Inbetween types are known as doves.

As Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience and head of the Sleep & Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University, explains: ‘Our internal clocks – located within our suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), an area deep within the brain – are set to a cycle of around 24 hours.

‘However, it is only around 24 hours: they tick a little faster or a little slower depending on the individual. These differences are due to changes in one or more of our clock genes.’

This wide spread of sleep-wake times is specific to humans, he says, and is thought to be adaptive: ‘In early human societies, it would have probably been very useful for tribes to have a certain number of their population vigilant at different times of the day.’

Today, however, being a night owl can be a burden. But it is possible to change your chronotype to better fit with modern life – within reason.

Experts say that it could take only a few days if you keep to a strict regimen. Our sleep-wake times have roughly two hours of ‘flex’ built in – so if you’re a night owl, heading to bed at midnight and waking around 8am, you could realistically become a lark happily bedding down by 10pm and rising at 6am.

Professor Foster says: ‘With a good routine and commitment to early light exposure, this degree of shifting your chronotype is realistic.’

But he adds: ‘Sleep is as fundamental [to our existence] as being awake. I can see that for many people today, having larkish tendencies would be much more convenient – but it mustn’t come at the expense of sleep duration.’

I certainly think I would be better off as a lark. I was born a late type and have always had a fractious relationship with sleep, having spent years unable to balance my inability to fall asleep in good time with the need to get up early for school and, later, work.

Now, added to the mix, I have a six-month-old who likes to begin the day anywhere between 4am and 6am – and I’d love to greet the morning with as much enthusiasm as he does.

But before you set about trying to shift your chronotype, it’s important to understand the factors that shape it.

‘The first is your genes,’ says Professor Foster. ‘There are subtle changes in the clock genes, Per and Cry1, which can speed up or slow down our internal master clock, the SCN.’

‘Second, our chronotypes change over time, from childhood to old age,’ he adds.

‘From about the age of ten, there’s a tendency to want to go to bed later and later.

‘Then from your 20s onwards there’s a slow shift towards becoming more of a morning type again, and by the time you’re in your late 50s, early 60s, you’re getting up and going to bed at about the time you did as a pre-teen.’

This amounts to a difference in ideal sleep and wake times of on average two hours – meaning if you enjoyed a midnight bedtime in your 20s, by your 60s around 10pm will feel more natural.

This change is associated with the alteration in hormonal levels associated with puberty: ‘The sex steroids – oestrogen in women and testosterone in men – interact with the master clock within the brain,’ says Professor Foster.

As I am breastfeeding, my oestrogen levels are likely to be quite low – so perhaps that would help make mornings easier for me at the moment, I wonder. Professor Foster hypothesises that it could well do.

Excellent news – this should make my journey from owl to lark easier.

The third, and most important factor to consider in altering your chronotype is light exposure.

Light helps keep our 24-hour body clock running to time, entering through the eyes and signalling, via the retina, to the SCN.

‘The key thing to remember is that morning light advances the clock,’ says Professor Foster.

‘So if you want to train yourself to be a lark, get outdoors in the morning light as soon after dawn as you can for at least 30 minutes; you’ll find it easier to go to bed earlier and get up early the next day. Exposure to light at dusk has the opposite effect.’

And simply sitting by a window won’t do when it comes to becoming ‘more lark’ – nor will switching on the lights.

‘We have data to show that just 30 minutes of light at 10,000 lux can have an effect on our brains, but average domestic lighting conditions are about 100 lux, office lighting is maybe 400 lux, so we’re effectively living in dim, dark caves,’ says Professor Foster.

He suggests using a lux metre (around £15 online; free on an app on your phone) to assess the lighting conditions in your home. To really make you feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, add in some movement – ‘morning light exposure and exercise can act synergistically,’ says Professor Foster.

He adds: ‘There’s evidence that the timing of physical exercise will also shift the clock – as well as morning exercise being good for your metabolism.’

So would making these kinds of changes help me? I decided to try it out for a month. As it turns out, I had a secret weapon: my cocker spaniel Vincent.

‘There’s some data that suggests people who own dogs have better sleep-wake patterns,’ says Professor Foster.

One theory is that this is because you have to get up and get them out in the morning. ‘And that gives you a ‘photon shower’ [shower of light particles],’ he explains.

The first morning I took Professor Foster’s advice and threw open the curtains at daybreak: but the light on that cloudy day measured just 410 lux. Even outdoors on my patio it was just 3,426 lux.

This suggests that in the UK even a half-hour outdoor photon shower may not cut it – especially as we head into winter.

‘The answer may be to use a lightbox,’ says Professor Foster, ‘and have your breakfast in front of it.’ (Popular models will set you back around £60 to £90.)

As well as throwing open the curtains and hitting the patio first thing, I try to take an early dog walk – well before noon – and head to bed at a respectable 10pm (OK sometimes closer to 10.59, rather than my standard midnight-ish).

After a month, while my chronotype isn’t quite transformed – partly because a new baby makes my nights so unpredictable – on the days that I’m able to follow my ‘lark’ routine, I feel so much better, and find the following morning – and the next, and the next – considerably easier.

The key is consistency, says Professor Foster. But I know the darkening mornings will make it hard to keep up momentum. Time to look into that light box…

Arm has raised alarm bells about China as it gears up for the biggest stock market listing in the US for nearly two years.

The Cambridge-based chip designer – which is owned by Japanese investor SoftBank – revealed it was ‘particularly susceptible to economic and political risks’ in China, where it rakes in nearly a quarter of its revenues.

In a 330-page document outlining plans for a £50billion initial public offering in New York next month, Arm spent more than 3,500 words detailing how the growing tensions between the Biden administration and Beijing were already hampering its performance.

The US recently limited China’s access to new technology and investment through a series of sanctions – fanning the flames of a trade war.

Arm said sales made by divisions including Arm China slumped by £21million over the three months to June.

The figure included around £9million which it blamed on ‘trade protection and national security policies’ from the US.

And the company warned this situation would only get worse as its relationship with its independent Chinese business – which is majority owned by local investors rather than SoftBank – remains shaky.

‘We depend on our commercial relationship with Arm China to access the People’s Republic of China [PRC] market,’ the filing said.

‘If that commercial relationship no longer existed or deteriorates, our ability to compete in the PRC market could be materially and adversely affected’.

The warning came as Arm confirmed it was on track to be the most valuable company to complete an IPO since November 2021, when electric-car maker Rivian hit Wall Street.

And some analysts have said it is precisely because of the uncertain US-Sino backdrop that SoftBank opted for the Nasdaq rather than London to make Arm’s stock-market comeback.

‘New York is the safety-blanket path for listings especially big tech names like Arm,’ said Dan Ives, tech analyst at investment bank Wedbush. ‘Given the geopolitical headwinds and regulatory issues in China, all flight paths for IPOs now lead to New York.’

SoftBank took Arm private for £24billion in 2016, removing it from the London Stock Exchange.

Although it had hoped to sell Arm to US chip firm Nvidia in 2020, the £31billion deal collapsed due to regulatory blocks.

The UK then undertook an intense lobbying effort to convince SoftBank to have a dual listing in London and New York.

SoftBank snubbed these efforts, claiming the US was the ‘best path forward’ for Arm.

Yet the move has raised serious questions for the City and its ability to attract bumper IPOs. Despite health company Haleon’s £30billion float last summer, FTSE valuations have suffered in recent years.

Some blame a ‘Brexit discount’, which has spooked international investors, and others slam London as a ‘Jurassic Park’ index due to its lack of stocks in new industries such as fintech and artificial intelligence.

The world’s largest building materials company CRH has warned it is going to move its primary stock market listing to New York, and gambling giant Flutter is gearing up to list there in the autumn.

According to data compiled by media group Bloomberg, fewer than £790million has been raised on the London stock market this year, the worst performance since 2009.

Meanwhile, the United States largely remains a safe bet for many companies who are looking for faster processes and higher valuations.

To emphasise the latter, Apple – which is America’s most valuable company – is worth nearly £1bn more than all the firms on the FTSE 100 combined.

‘Price seems to be the driving factor for SoftBank,’ explained Russ Mould, analyst at AJ Bell, who said that the Japanese conglomerate’s boss Masayoshi Son would also be looking to prove himself with this float.

He said: ‘SoftBank will be looking to show it can still make successful investments after a string of embarrassing duds, most notably [co-working space firm] WeWork and [crypto trading platform] FTX. Son will be out to prove that SoftBank’s track record is a good one.’

Arm will also be in good company across the Atlantic – the US is home to chip giants such as Nvidia and Intel.

By contrast, London has been on a mission to loosen its IPO rules to boost deal making, which includes giving founders greater control and removing financial reporting barriers.

Victoria Scholar, analyst at Interactive Investor, said: ‘While proposed changed to listing rules in London could help to bolster its appeal as a go-to destination for global IPOs, there’s still work to be done on its international perception.

‘London needs to work on fostering exciting fresh companies in fintech, renewable energy and artificial intelligence and prove that it’s just as important a global financial hub post Brexit as it was before.’

It is still possible, however, that SoftBank could eventually decide to list Arm in London as a secondary listing on top of its New York one.

Twinkling away in deep space, it’s hard to imagine that some stars may sound like a ‘warped ray gun’.

But state of the art technology suggests that’s the case, after scientists created simulations which reveal the ‘eerily fascinating’ noises for the first time.

Researchers at Northwestern University unveiled what ‘twinkling’ stars sound like after converting the rippling waves of gas inside stellar cores into sound waves.

You may be surprised to know that these luminous spheres often blast noises like weather sirens and even distant humming in a ‘windswept terrain’, according to the US team. 

‘Waves emerging from the core of a large star, for example, make sounds like a warped ray gun, blasting through an alien landscape,’ lead author Dr Evan Anders of the study said.

‘But the star alters these sounds as the waves reach the star’s surface.’

As part of this study, researchers developed the first 3D simulations of what really goes on at the heart of the star.

At the star’s core, intense pressure squeezes hydrogen atoms together to form helium atoms and excess energy.

This energy gives rise to heat, which causes clumps of goo-like plasma to rise  as if it were inside a lava lamp. 

These waves usually then ripple outward to the star’s surface where they compress and decompress the star’s plasma, causing brightening and dimming of the star’s light.

However, Dr Andres claims that other waves also become ‘trapped’ and continue to bounce around inside the star.

By understanding this, scientists were able to convert the rippling waves of gas into sound waves, enabling people to hear both what the insides of stars and the ‘twinkling’ should sound like.

Because the waves are outside the range of human hearing, researchers uniformly increased their frequencies to make them audible.

Depending on how large or bright a star is, Dr Anders says the convection produces waves corresponding to different sounds.

He continued: ‘For a large star, the ray gun-like pulses shift into a low echo reverberating through an empty room.

‘Waves at the surface of a medium-sized star, on the other hand, conjure images of a persistent hum through a windswept terrain.

‘And surface waves on a small star sound like a plaintive alert from a weather siren.’

The team even passed songs through different stars to understand whether these masses have the ability to change their tune.

Audio clips from ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ were used to test this, in addition to a recording from ‘The Planets’ by classical composer Gustav Holst.

He added: ‘We were curious how a song would sound if heard as propagated through a star.

‘The stars change the music and, correspondingly, change how the waves would look if we saw them as twinkling on the star’s surface.’

In another first, the Northwestern team also discovered how much stars should innately shine. 

To do this, Dr Anders and his team developed a filter to understand how waves should bounce around inside of a real star.

When the filter was applied, simulations showed how the waves would appear if viewed through a powerful telescope.

Dr Anders said: ‘Stars get a little brighter or a little dimmer depending on various things happening dynamically inside the star.

‘The twinkling that these waves cause is extremely subtle, and our eyes are not sensitive enough to see it. But powerful future telescopes may be able to detect it.’

Recovery in business confidence since start of this year comes to a ‘shuddering halt’ as sticky inflation and soaring interest rates bite

By John-Paul Ford Rojas For The Daily Mail

Updated: 19:05 EDT, 30 June 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

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Orangutans can BEATBOX: Incredible video reveals how apes can make two separate sounds simultaneously

• Orangutans can make two separate sounds simultaneously, like beatboxers
• The findings could provide clues around the evolution of human speech 

By Xantha Leatham Deputy Science Editor For The Daily Mail

Updated: 10:00 EDT, 27 June 2023

Desperate family and friends of the five missing on the Titan submarine fear they are ‘losing time’ after ‘banging’ noises were picked up by sonar devices – but experts warn the crew has just 24 hours of breathable air left.

Rescue teams are racing against the clock three days after the deep-sea vessel disappeared near the wreck of the Titanic.

Loud banging noises had last night been detected in the search area, the US Coast Guard confirmed, but it added that initial attempts to locate the sub using underwater equipment had ‘yielded negative results’.

Nevertheless it sparked fresh hopes that the passengers onboard were alive and could be hitting the side of the craft with cups in a frantic attempt to be detected on sonar.

But at 12,500ft – nearly two-and-a-half miles – below the surface, there are possibly just two vessels on Earth capable of rescuing them.

Last night the US Coast Guard estimated the 22ft long OceanGate Expeditions vessel had just over 40 hours of oxygen left.

The five onboard, which includes British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, remain in the dark depths of the Atlantic, which experts have likened to ‘being in space’.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, his son Suleman, 19, OceanGate’s chief executive and founder Stockton Rush and French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet, are also stuck inside. 

Above the surface of the wreck five vessels remain on standby helping the frantic search efforts – with four more from the US Coast Guard on their way, including one boat filled with medical personnel, according to marine tracking data.

In a heartbreaking plea this morning, one of Mr Harding’s close friends Jannicke Mikkelsen warned ‘we are losing time’.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I’m nervous. I’m sick to my stomach with nerves. I’m terrified, I’m anxious. I’m not sleeping at the moment. I’m just hoping for good news. Every single second, every single minute feels like hours.’

Colonel Terry Virts, another friend who dubbed Mr Harding ‘the quintessential British explorer’, also stressed that ‘the clock is ticking’ to find the five onboard.

Meanwhile retired British navy rear admiral Chris Parry told LBC that hopes of finding the missing deep-sea vessel without an ’emitting signal’ will be ‘impossible’ to find in the timescale. 

It comes as:

• It emerged that OceanGate refused to put Titan through an independent inspection process;
• Machinery was flown into a Canadian airport to help with the ‘last chance’ rescue;
• And a friend of Mr Harding said he pulled out of the mission due to ‘safety concerns. 

Admiral Parry said: ‘I’m afraid the odds are vanishingly small. Obviously, we want to remain hopeful and optimistic but there are two problems here – one is actually finding the thing and secondly is how on earth are you going to get it off the seabed? 

‘It’s never been done before and I don’t think anybody’s got any ideas about how to do it at the moment.’ 

Scientist Dr Michael Guillen, who ‘almost died’ when visiting the Titanic wreck in 2000, said that the trapped crew could be using cups to bang on the side of the sub to communicate.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘If their hydrophone failed so early in the mission, less than two hours down which means they never made it to the bottom, the very least they could take their cups and bang it on the side of the sub.

‘That’s what I would do if I were down there and I am sure that’s what the pilot will be telling everybody.

‘They have five people, they can make quite a racket by just banging on the side as sound communicates extremely well in water.’

Dr Guillen added that when he heard the news it gave him ‘great hope that perhaps they’re still alive’.

Another friend of the British billionaire Chris Brown revealed he pulled out of the doomed voyage after becoming concerned about the quality of the technology and materials used in the vessel. 

The 61-year-old, who is also an explorer, told BBC Breakfast of the banging sounds: ‘That is just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with.’

‘There’s always hope. As an explorer, you never give up anyway,’ he added.

The sounds, heard at 30-minute intervals, could be coming from those trapped within the submarine intensely banging on the vessel’s hull in order to be picked up by a sonar.

Sonobuoys in the ocean listen to sounds before transmitting the sonar sound energy – this most commonly referred to as a ‘ping’ that notifies the buoys at the surface. 

Rear Admiral John Mauger, who is helping coordinate the search, said yesterday that the submarine it could be stuck.

‘We don’t have equipment onsite that can do a survey of the bottom,’ he said.

‘There is a lot of debris, so locating it will be difficult. Right now, we’re focused on trying to locate it.’

Titan stopped transmitting signals on Sunday. It is supposed to send a sonar ‘ping’ (radar and GPS not functioning underwater) to mothership Polar Prince every 15 minutes, but the last one was at 9.45am – an hour and 45 minutes into the dive as it was floating right above the Titanic.

Speaking of the conditions in the depths of the ocean, Admiral Parry added: ‘It’s utterly dark down there, and you have also got a lot of mud and other stuff getting swept up. You can only see about 20ft in front of you with searchlights. There are very strong ocean currents which are pushing you along.’

Colonel Virts, a former commander of the International Space Station, told the Today programme he believes if the group ‘can be rescued they will be because of the amount of effort being put in’.

He added: ‘They’re in a tough situation and the clock is ticking. According to the company and submarines spec, by Thursday they will be out of oxygen.

‘So hopefully we get them up soon as the clock is ticking.’ 

‘The water is very deep – two miles plus. It’s like a visit to another planet. It is a sunless, cold environment and high pressure.’

Last night, search equipment was seen being loaded onto the Horizon Arctic to help with the frantic search, hours after the Canadian aircraft first detected the noises.

The bangs were first noted in an email exchange with the US Department of Homeland security – seen by Rolling Stone – but was later confirmed Coast Guard officials.

They said underwater noises were heard by a plane and operations were ‘relocated’ to determine the origin. As of early today, they have ‘yielded negative results’.

The memo, while did not reveal the timing or cause of the noises, read: ‘CC Halifax launched a P8, Poseidon, which has underwater detection capabilities from the air. 

It added that the aircraft had ‘reported a contact in a position close to the distress position’. ‘The P8 heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard.’

Rescue crews will now analyse the data further to help form a search plan into the deep Atlantic Ocean. 

As the search continues, OceanGate has continued to come under fire, with Admiral Parry slamming the company this morning claiming the submarine trip was ‘fundamentally dangerous’ and had ‘no back-up plan’. 

‘Why on earth you would go in a dodgy piece of technology where you actually have to sign away any right to sue the company for emotional damage, injury or death is beyond me’, he added.

‘It is fundamentally dangerous, there was no back-up plan, it’s experimental and I’m afraid to say there’s an element of hubris if you want to go down and do that.’ 

But a businessman who has previously made the deep-sea voyage to the wreck of the Titanic said he had confidence in the crews, adding ‘there’s a very good chance they will be found.’

Oisin Fanning told the BBC: ‘The two guys on the sub currently, so Paul and Stockton, are both consummate professionals.

‘I mean, to be honest, if I was in trouble, I’d want to be on a sub with them.’ 

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of The Explorers Club, said last night that ‘there is cause for hope.’

He said in a statement: ‘We have much greater confidence that 1) There is cause for hope, based on data from the field – we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site.’ 

Mr Garriott de Cayeux said he believed US Coast Guard was ‘doing everything possible with all resources they have’.

Mr Harding is a founding member of the board of trustees for The Explorers Club. 

The group said they have a direct lines to Congress, the Coast Guard, Air Force and Navy as well as the White House. 

If the mini-sub lost power, with no working propellers, lights or heating, its five passengers will be in total darkness in temperatures of around 3C (37F) as the craft rolls along the seabed.

Oceanographer Mr Gallo said: ‘Where is it? Is it on the bottom, is it floating, is it mid-water? That is something that has not been determined yet.’

For some reason, OceanGate Expeditions, the company that runs the tours of the Titanic, took eight hours to call the coastguard on Sunday. It was reported at 5.40pm, and Canada’s Coastguard was alerted even later, at 9.13pm.

OceanGate, which started dives to the Titanic in 2021, is now facing questions after it emerged the Titan previously suffered electrical damage and had to be rebuilt to withstand the deep seas.

The Titanic wreckage lies at 12,500ft, and Titan was one of the only craft in the world capable of reaching it. Even nuclear submarines cannot safely go that far down. Dive specialists are assisting in the ‘unique and challenging’ operation, said Captain Jamie Frederick from the US Coast Guard.

Standing on a dockside, he told reporters: ‘Getting salvage equipment on scene is a top priority. It is very heavy equipment, it is very complex, but the best experts are on scene. If the sub is located, the experts will look at the best course of action for recovering the sub.’

Among the equipment is a decompression chamber for the five passengers should they be brought to the surface.

Last night friend of Mr Harding, Mr Brown, also a thrill seeker who intended to join the group on the missing Titanic sub pulled out of the dive because he thought OceanGate was ‘cutting too many corners’, it has emerged.

He paid the deposit to go on the doomed voyage but said he changed his mind after becoming concerned by the quality of technology and materials used in the vessel, The Sun reported last night. 

Among his concerns were OceanGate’s use of ‘old scaffolding poles’ for the ballast and the fact that its controls were ‘based on computer game-style controllers’.

He told the newspaper that despite being ‘one of the first people to sign up for this trip’, he ultimately decided the ‘risks were too high’.

Mr Brown added he felt ‘really upset about Hamish’, who is among the five passengers on the submersible.

Mr Brown and Mr Harding signed up for the voyage after sharing a ‘few beers’ while holidaying on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island.

The pair paid the 10 per cent deposit for the trip, which has since more than doubled in price, while the Titan vessel was still being developed, he claimed.

But Mr Brown alleged that in the years that followed, he learned OceanGate had ‘missed key targets’ when depth-testing the submersible.

The multi-millionaire digital marketing tycoon found it concerning that the vessel was controlled by a modified Playstation controller.

He also is understood to have been worried by the technical issues and delays throughout the development process.

He told The Sun: ‘I found out they used old scaffolding poles for the sub’s ballast.

‘If you’re trying to build your own submarine you could probably use old scaffold poles. But this was a commercial craft.’

Mr Brown, who said he is ‘not one to shy away from risk’, eventually emailed OceanGate and asked for a refund.

He is worried for his friend but said Mr Harding is not the panicking type. He believes the billionaire is likely keeping ‘extremely calm’ and ‘processing plans, schemes and ideas through his enormous brain’.

He said his friend will be ‘giving hope’ to the other passengers.

A US Navy veteran warned of the chilling health effects of being trapped in a submarine just weeks before the Titanic tourism sub went missing, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In a scientific paper published in a medical journal last month, Dr. Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, detailed the ‘hostile’ environment onboard commercial submersibles, with passengers facing depleting oxygen supplies, toxic carbon dioxide levels and plummeting temperatures.

The Titan vessel that is still missing will have a carbon dioxide scrubber on board to remove excess toxic gas that builds up when passengers exhale in the confined space, but in most craft, those have a limited capacity.

A scrubbing system removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the air safe to breathe. 

Speaking to DailyMail.com Tuesday, Molé said it is ‘very much’ a race against time to rescue the passengers, if they are not already dead from a ‘catastrophic rupture of the pressure vessel.’

He added: ‘Anytime humans are confined in an airtight space, most people may think of oxygen, but carbon dioxide is actually a bigger concern.

‘In a submersible, they’ll have some system of scrubbing carbon dioxide. If they lost battery power, then that system would no longer work.’

There is also a risk of hypothermia due to the low temperatures in the depths of the ocean, as well as hyperventilation induced by panic attacks, which can use up more valuable oxygen. 

It has also emerged that a Florida couple sued the Rush, CEO of the Titanic tourism company OceanGate Expeditions, accusing him of misleading them about their trip to visit the wreck and refusing to refund their $210,258 when they complained.

Marc and Sharon Hagle, who made their fortune in commercial real estate, are well known for their philanthropy and their adventurous spirit. In March 2022, they were on the fourth Blue Origin passenger space flight and became the first married couple to become space tourists.

In 2016, while on a trip to the South Pole, they decided their next adventure would be underwater. In 2017 they were announced as among the first customers for OceanGate, which was founded in 2009 by Seattle-born aviator and businessman Stockton Rush, now 61.

But they never got to take their trip, and in February this year sued Rush, accusing him of selling the adventure knowing it was not on schedule, and refusing to refund their cash.