Stephen Hawking released from hospital

Stephen Hawking released from hospital in Rome after checks

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Stephen Hawking has been released from hospital in Rome after two days of checks.

The physicist, who was in Italy to attend a scientific conference, was taken to the Gemelli hospital on Thursday night after falling ill.

A spokesman for the hospital, which is where popes are treated, said that he was in a good condition and was on his way back to Britain.

Hawking, 74, suffers from motor neurone disease and travels with a staff that includes two nurses.

He had met the Pope on Monday night, and a Vatican spokesman later confirmed he was not believed to be in a serious condition.

The cosmologist has been speaking out on current events in recent weeks, calling for people to "work together" and "break down barriers" in a column written after Donald Trump won the U.S election.

He has also said it would be a "terrible mistake" to ignore the issues behind Trump's victory and the Brexit vote, adding: "We are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing.

"It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent."

He also warned that mankind was "at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity" with the "technology to destroy the planet."