Jacobite leader was unknowingly ‘following the footprints’ of megalosaurs after escaping to the Isle of Skye in 1746

When Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the Scottish Highlands after defeat at the Battle of Culloden, his route may have crossed the fossilised footsteps of massive meat-eating dinosaurs, researchers say.

Newly discovered impressions at Prince Charles’s Point on the Isle of Skye, where the Young Pretender is said to have hunkered down in 1746, reveal that megalosaurs, the carnivorous ancestors of the T rex, and enormous plant-eating sauropods gathered at the site when it was a shallow freshwater lagoon.

Older adults in Wales who had the jab were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia that those not vaccinated

Researchers who tracked cases of dementia in Welsh adults have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the shingles vaccination reduces the risk of developing the devastating brain disease.

Health records of more than 280,000 older adults revealed that those who received a largely discontinued shingles vaccine called Zostavax were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next seven years than those who went without.

Ambitious project could soak up funding for subatomic physics for decades, say opponents

Scientists are refining plans to build the world’s biggest machine at a site beneath the Swiss-French border. More than $30bn (£23bn) would be spent drilling a 91km circular tunnel in which subatomic particles would be accelerated to near light speeds and smashed into each other. From the resulting nuclear debris, scientists hope they will then find clues that would help them understand the detailed makeup of the universe.

It is an extraordinarily ambitious project. However, it is also a controversial one – for many scientists fear the machine, the Future Circular Collider (FCC), could soak up funding for subatomic physics for decades and leave promising new research avenues starved of resources.