55 m. ago 'I took one look at baby I'd given birth to and knew he wasn't mine

Krystena Murray took one look at the baby she'd just given birth to and knew there'd been a terrible mistake - but loved him as her own child regardless of what the DNA test said

Politics

2 h. ago Literary gold or betrayal of trust? Joan Didion journal opens ethical minefield

Soon we can all read the late author’s private notes about her therapy. But should we?In 1998, the late journalist Joan Didion wrote a scathing essay about the posthumous publication of True at First Light, a travel journal and fictional memoir by Ernest Hemingway, 38 years after the author killed himself. “This is a man to whom words mattered. He worked at them, he understood them, he got inside them,” Didion wrote. “His wish to be survived by only the words he determined fit for publication would have seemed clear enough.”Just over a year later, in December 1999, Didion began writing her own journal about her sessions with a psychiatrist. She addressed these notes – detailing her struggles with alcoholism, anxiety, guilt and depression, a sometimes fraught relationship with her adopted daughter Quintana and reflections on her childhood and legacy – to her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Continue reading...

Politics

4 h. ago ‘Photography is therapy for me’: Martin Parr on humour, holidaying and life behind the lens

He has a prolific career and extensive portfolio, with his images of British life especially iconic. At 72, he tells Miranda Sawyer, he’s still thinking about what to shoot nextAbout 20 years ago, I was on a judging panel for a photography competition, and one of the other judges was Martin Parr. He was charming and affable, almost teddy bear-ish. He was also utterly ruthless. When it came to deciding which photographs were worthy of a prize, he went through the selection swiftly – no, no, yes, no – without hesitation or doubt. His eye was impeccable. Has he always known what makes a good photograph? “Oh yes,” says Parr. “Right from the beginning. Total conviction. I knew I would be a photographer from the age of 13, 14, and I knew what was good even then. I was obsessive about photography. All artists are obsessive, I think.” We are in his agent’s office, a small upstairs flat on a market street in east London. Parr owns the building, and this room used to be packed with his work a...

Culture

6 h. ago Europe’s big carnivores are on the rise – but can we live with bears next door?

Numbers of animals once hunted as vermin are rising across the continent. But scientists worry about how we are going to get along with these predatorsEurope’s carnivores have had a remarkable change in fortune. After tens of thousands of years of persecution that wiped out sabretooth tigers, hyenas and cave lions, there has been a recent rebound in the continent’s surviving predators.Across mainland Europe, bear, wolf, lynx and wolverine numbers have risen dramatically as conservation measures introduced several decades ago have begun to make an impact. There are now about 20,500 brown bears in Europe, a rise of 17% since 2016, while there are 9,400 Eurasian lynx, a 12% increase. Continue reading...

Politics

9 h. ago Hawaii man freed after 30 years in prison visits mother's grave and ponders ubiquitous cellphones

A Hawaii man released after spending 30 years in prison for a murder he has always denied committing has spent his first day of freedom visiting his mother's gravesite and marveling at how much the world is different

Events

10 h. ago How cancer doctors try to keep themselves free of cancer: Eight experts reveal their science

Why does one person develop cancer and another does not? Increasingly, scientists believe that the way we live - what we eat and drink, our exercise levels- plays a major role.

Science

10 h. ago As talking therapy is prescribed to more than two million every year...top psychologist who says the key to curing UK's mental health crisis is to STOP banging on about our feelings!

For years, the prevailing advice for those suffering from poor mental health has been to talk about their emotions. But now, a top psychologist has put forwards a fascinating - and controversial - theory.

Science

13 h. ago Moment young children who were born blind see again thanks to groundbreaking British gene therapy treatment

Toddlers who were born with the most severe form of childhood blindness can now see after groundbreaking gene therapy treatment at an NHS hospital.

Economics

13 h. ago Brit WAGs deliver damning verdict on UK fellas on smell, reliability and the dog

A fifth of women said their four-legged friend was better at ‘cheering them up’ (21%) while another fifth (21%) said their pet was more ‘thoughtful’ than their other half

Politics

17 h. ago Brit couples follow Beyoncé with prenups soaring to unprecedented number before marriage

More and more Brits are opting for prenuptial agreements before tying the knot - the agreements are now 'mainstream' according to new figures from a YouGov survey

Politics

17 h. ago Inside Dope Girls star Julianne Nicholson's life from famous Brit actor husband to 90s TV roles

Julianne Nicholson plays a Soho nightclub owner in Dope Girls - but what else has she been in?

Culture

19 h. ago World's hottest scientist finally whips her filthy toes out after vow to never show them

Reptile-wrestling boffin beauty Rosie Moore has given her fans something they've been holding out for for years – a glimpse at her rather grimy toes – despite vowing to never reveal them

Politics

20 h. ago ‘You dream about such things’: Brit who discovered missing pharaoh’s tomb may have unearthed another

Archaeologist believes his ‘find of the century’ – of Pharaoh Thutmose II – could be surpassed by ongoing excavationTo uncover the location of one long-lost pharaoh’s tomb is a career-defining moment for an archaeologist. But to find a second is the stuff of dreams.Last week British archaeologist Piers Litherland announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt since Tutankhamun’s in 1922. Continue reading...

Events

21 h. ago Scientists reveal how to pick out the cleanest cubicle in ANY public toilet (and why it is different for men and women)

It's a familiar puzzle that many of us face on an almost daily basis. When nature calls and your only option is a public toilet, which cubicle should you pick?

Politics

21 h. ago ‘The bot asked me four times a day how I was feeling’: is tracking everything actually good for us?

Gathering data used to be a fringe pursuit of Silicon Valley nerds. Now we’re all at it, recording everything from menstrual cycles and mobility to toothbrushing and time spent in daylight. Is this just narcissism redesigned for the big tech age?I first heard about my friend Adam’s curious new habit in a busy pub. He said he’d been doing it for over a year, but had never spoken to anyone about it before. He had a furtive look around, then took out his phone and showed me the product of his burning obsession: a spreadsheet.This was not a record of his annual tax return or numbers he was crunching for work (Adam is a data scientist). Instead, it was a spreadsheet recording the minutiae of his life, with dozens of columns tracking every element of his daily routine. It all started, he told me, because of a recurring argument with his boyfriend. His partner didn’t think they spent enough time together, but Adam thought that they did. There was only one way to settle this, he decided: co...

Politics

22 h. ago UK soil breakthrough could cut farm fertiliser use and advance sustainable agriculture

Research group says discovery could lead to new type of environmentally friendly farmingA biological mechanism that makes plant roots more attractive to soil microbes has been discovered by scientists in the UK. The breakthrough – by researchers at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, Norfolk – opens the door to the creation of crops requiring reduced amounts of nitrate and phosphate fertilisers, they say.“We can now think of developing a new type of environmentally friendly farming with crops that require less artificial fertiliser,” said Dr Myriam Charpentier, whose group carried out the research. Continue reading...

Politics

22 h. ago 'New Covid' discovered in bats has a much higher mortality rate, Wuhan scientists warn

Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China have shared warnings of a new strain of Covid found in bats which has a fatality rate of 35%, amid fears of a new pandemic

Events

23 h. ago ‘I think we brought the wrong one home’: one mother’s search to find her lost son

Joan always suspected she had been handed someone else’s baby by the hospital when she gave birth more than 70 years ago. Then an Ancestry DNA test seemed to prove her right. Now in her 90s, she is in a race against time. Can she find her missing child?When Sue bought her mother and younger brother Ancestry kits for Christmas in 2018, she knew that they were never going to be fun gifts. A lingering doubt had always cast a shadow over their family, a question that had gnawed at them for decades. Sue hoped that, if she, Joan and Doug took DNA tests together, they might finally have the answer they craved.Their results came in a few weeks later. Ancestry listed Sue and Doug as full siblings, with Joan as their mother. Their father, Tom, had died in 2016. Sue felt certain that William – her parents’ first child, the older brother she and Doug had grown up with, a man they hadn’t seen for years – had already taken a DNA test with Ancestry. But he didn’t appear anywhere on their genetic f...

Politics

25 h. ago Scientists give stark warning on what vapers' lungs could look like in 10 years

The government officially announced a new landmark study which will follow young vapers over 10 years and how their bodies are affected – but one doctor has sent a stark warning

Events

26 h. ago From a broken boiler to blocked drains the nine most common problems in a new home

The average Brit forks out an extra £3,876 beyond their budget to fix unforeseen problems like a broken boiler or a leaking roof soon after getting the keys to their new home.

Politics