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LONDON — Surrounded by family, friends and hundred of guests, Queen Elizabeth II attended a service of thanksgiving at Windsor Castle on Sunday at the end of five days of festivities marking her 80th birthday.

The queen, who has reigned for 54 years, attended the service with her 84-year-old husband Prince Philip, their three sons, their daughter and their grandchildren. Also among the 700 guests were former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, Prince Charles’ sons, William and Harry, and numerous other royals.

The Dean of Windsor, the Right Rev. David Conner, praised the queen for "calmness, serenity and stillness.”

"Your Majesty, not so much through word as by unselfconscious good example, you encourage us, you give us heart,” he said, telling the queen that she helped Britons "understand that happiness, fulfillment and humanity can be gleaned from self-forgetfulness.”

The queen celebrated her birthday on Friday with a walk among well-wishers followed by a dinner with her closest family members at Kew Palace in suburban London.

On Saturday, 80 cars went on display at Buckingham Palace, the queen’s London home.

Iran says there’s no going back on nukes

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday its nuclear program is irreversible, issuing yet another rejection of a U.N. Security Council deadline to cease enriching uranium that expires in five days.

Earlier this month, Tehran announced for the first time that it had enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a step toward large-scale production of nuclear fuel that can be used either in atomic weapons or in nuclear reactors for civilian electricity generation.

"Nuclear research will continue. Suspension of (nuclear activities including uranium enrichment) is not on our agenda. This issue is irreversible,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

The United States and some allies charge Iran is using the program as a cover for weapons production. Iran says it is designed only for power generation. The Security Council deadline of Friday is not binding, but the United States and Britain said Iran must comply or the two countries would seek a resolution to make the demand compulsory, which would raise the possibility of sanctions.

Scientists solve rare bone disease mystery

NEW YORK — Scientists have discovered a mutant gene that triggers the body to form a second, renegade skeleton, solving the mystery of a rare disease called FOP that imprisons children in bone for life.

The finding, reported Sunday, may one day lead to development of a drug, not only to treat the rare bone disorder, but more common bone buildup related to head and spine trauma, and even sports injuries, the researchers said.

"We’ve reached the summit,” said Dr. Frederick Kaplan, an orthopedist whose team at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine pinpointed the cause of FOP, or fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. The disease is believed to afflict only 2,500 people worldwide.

The research was reported in the online edition of the journal Nature Genetics by Kaplan, geneticist Eileen M. Shore, and their Penn colleagues, with contributions from researchers in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and South Korea.

After 15 years of work involving study of the genetic makeup of multigenerational families around the world, scientists at Penn’s Center for Research in FOP and Related Disorders found that FOP is caused by a single mutation in a gene called ACVR1. This devastating glitch means that tendons, ligaments and skeletal muscle begin painfully transforming into bone, sometimes locking joints overnight.<