There need to be national multi-agency collaborative pathways for the holistic assessment of children with attention difficultiesWe, as chartered psychologists (BPS), are delighted that the inadequate provision for children with mental health difficulties in the UK was highlighted (Shocking failures on children with ADHD, 4 August). We agree with the findings that there are considerable local differences in practice in this field. We note with concern the reported rise in prescriptions for stimulant drugs such as Ritalin (methylphenidate) between 2010 and 2015. We should not fall into the trap of believing that diagnosis and medication are the only, or the best, ways to address the emotional and behavioural problems of our children. There need to be national multi-agency collaborative pathways for the holistic assessment of children just as there has been for years with children on the autistic spectrum.Medication should be the last resort after all other recommended interventions. It should only follow evaluation of the alternative therapies and strategies used, followed by careful monitoring of any side-effects. The BPS in its recent submission to the Nice consultation on ADHD called for a ban on prescribing these stimulants to children under five. Continue reading...

Apollo space missions | China’s emissions | Denis Healy sightings | Telephones | Identifying artFurther to Peter Avery’s letter about watching cricket outside a TV rental showroom (4 August), in the late 1960s I was an avid follower of the Apollo space missions. One day the BBC announced the next broadcast from the capsule was going to be the first in colour. We did not have a colour set, so I made sure I was in the shopping centre so I could watch it in a shop window.

Archaeologist who recovered Lindow Man, the best preserved bog body in BritainRick Turner, who has died aged 66 of cancer, made the archaeological discovery of the 1980s when he recovered Lindow Man, the best preserved bog body in Britain. The find, in 1984, helped to pioneer new techniques of investigation and analysis, and provided fresh insight into how our ancestors lived.As county archaeologist for Cheshire, Rick was called out to the Lindow Moss peat bog near Wilmslow by the police when a human foot was found by a worker at a commercial peat cutting site. An incomplete and decomposing female head had been discovered the previous year, and was initially regarded as evidence in a murder investigation before being shown to be that of a woman who had died around AD210. Continue reading...

Fatalities linked to synthetic opioid increased by 29% in a year, according to ONS figuresDeaths caused by the drug fentanyl rose by nearly 30% last year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.While statistics show that the rate of deaths from drug poisoning in England and Wales has remained steady – 66.1 deaths per 1 million people (3,756 deaths) – fatalities involving the synthetic opioid fentanyl were up 29%. There were 75 deaths in 2017, up from 58 deaths in 2016. Continue reading...

E, Jean Hannah Edelstein’s husband, explains his side of IVF treatment, from the sperm analysis to the importance of patienceWhat’s it like to be the partner of someone going through IVF treatment? This week, I sat down to discuss the experience with my husband, E. Like me, E is in his mid-30s and has never had kids before. Here’s what he told me.We discussed IVF very early in our relationship – it’s been with us basically from the beginning. On our first date we talked about cancer in our families – I lost my mom about a year before you lost your dad, you told me about Lynch syndrome – and we talked about having kids. So we must have talked about it, too. We all get to places in different ways. So, if having kids couldn’t work for you the old-fashioned way, it made sense that we’d take a different route. Continue reading...

Ablation, a minimally invasive tumour-destroying technique using focused radiation, is proving effective. So why is it not more widely known?Seven years ago, when Heather Hall was informed by her oncologist that her kidney cancer had spread to the liver, she initially assumed she had just months to live. “I’d been on chemotherapy for a while, but they’d done a CT scan and found three new tumours,” she says. “But they then said that, because the tumours were relatively small, they could try to lengthen my prognosis by removing them with ablation.”Hall underwent a course of microwave ablation, a minimally invasive treatment where surgeons use hollow needles to deliver intense, focused doses of radiation to heat each tumour until it is destroyed. While ablation technologies – they also commonly include radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation, which destroys tumours using intense cold – are not tackling the underlying cause of the disease, their impact can be enormous as they relieve pain and often prolong survival for many years, all at a low cost. Continue reading...

Expect a good show over the weekend, when dust particles from the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle burn up (or even explode) in our atmosphereWidely regarded as the best meteor shower of the year, the Perseids will return to our skies this week. The peak activity from the shower is expected at the weekend, during the nights of 11-12 and 12-13 August. The chart shows the radiant of the meteors in the constellation Perseus at midnight on the second evening. Anything up to 60 or 70 meteors per hour will appear to streak across the sky from this point over the two nights. Occasionally, the shower can turn into an outburst when the hourly rate can double or even triple. Although that is not expected to happen this year, the viewing conditions are expected to be good because the Moon sets early in the evening. With the moonlight gone, many of the fainter Perseids will become visible too. The meteors themselves are dust particles from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed by Earth in 1992, and will next draw close in 2126. The dust that makes up the Perseids was once part of the comet’s tail and now trails along in its orbit. The Perseids are known for exploding meteors, called fireballs. Continue reading...

Forty-year study shows loss of invertebrates, with repercussions for larger animalsOne of the longest-running studies of streams in the world – the minute study of 14 brooks that tumble through a remote Welsh mountain landscape – has exposed a troubling loss of riverine wildlife.Ecologists working on the Llyn Brianne Observatory project in mid Wales, which has been in operation for almost 40 years, have flagged up the disappearance and decline of invertebrates from the streams. Continue reading...

Romain Pizzi, who pioneered keyhole surgery for animals, is arguably the most versatile and inventive vet in the worldIn 2012, the conservation charity Free the Bears approached Romain Pizzi, one of the most innovative wildlife surgeons in Europe, with an unusual patient. A specialist in laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery – until recently rare in veterinary medicine – Pizzi has operated on giraffes and tarantulas, penguins and baboons, giant tortoises and at least one shark, and maintains a reputation for taking on cases others won’t. If you’re in possession of a tiger with gallstones, or a suspiciously sickly beaver, you call Pizzi. As Matt Hunt, CEO of Free the Bears says, “We have other vets who are incredibly talented. But Romain is one of a kind.”Pizzi has operated on giraffes and tarantulas, penguins and baboons, giant tortoises and at least one shark Continue reading...

A fruit bowl favourite and a staple food to millions, the banana is under threat from a formidable foeSome suggest the banana is on the brink of extinction. Panama disease, also known as fusarium wilt, is on the march, wiping out plantations that provide a staple food for hundreds of millions of people and a livelihood for hundreds of thousands more.Others say talk of Bananageddon is exaggerated. They point out bananas are as cheap and abundant as ever in our shops. The fungal strain that causes a new form of Panama disease has been spreading steadily for three decades, yet global production has continued to rise. Latin America – where some 80% of exported bananas are grown – has so far kept the pathogen at bay. Continue reading...

The Canadian culture warrior is coming to town. Prepare for new right platitudesI’ve only ever been on one of those team-building exercises favoured by large management consultancies and firms that operate in the technology sector.These enterprises may only involve a paintballing experience in a nearby forest where you can let the office dickhead indulge his leadership delusions and act out some fantasies from a childhood spent reading Commando comics. Continue reading...

The key to UK food security is not to grow more but to ensure our supplies and to cut out profligacyThis year’s heatwave and climate change in general highlight growing risks to food supplies and not just in this country (“To feed the world, we must exploit science, not spurn its advances”). Assuming that Britain will always be able to import food is folly. In 2010, Russia banned grain exports after a drought, while Trump’s reaction to a poor US harvest can be imagined. A falling pound and lack of trade agreements post-Brexit mean that European supplies are hardly guaranteed. Other countries might have their own problems and why should they bail out Britain, given its feckless attitudes?It took Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, not Defra, to help stop fishing throwback, while the UK condones factory farming, killing then not eating unprofitable livestock, wasting wood pigeons (and huge amounts of food in general) plus widespread overeating. Good land has vanished under oilseed rape and development (although some houses are needed) and there is no defined responsibility for UK food security. Continue reading...

Carl Safina’s educated anthropomorphism and Alex Preston’s vivid bird portraits are the wild stuff to illuminate our place in the natural worldWhich books best depict our relationship with other species without being oversentimental or too philosophical?

Environmentalists say lifting the restriction poses a grave threat to pollinating insectsThe Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation of genetically modified crops in dozens of national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted.

Postcode lottery chaos and misconceptions of mental health condition lead to delayed treatment, harming chances of education and future prospects

Poorly regulated aesthetic medicine industry needs more research to confirm or deny benefits and safety of procedures, say plastic surgeonsA growing number of websites are offering treatments to tighten and refresh vaginas, but leading plastic surgeons have warned that the safety and effectiveness of such procedures is not yet known.

Official guidelines are based on morality, not evidence, so will never admit that there may be benefits to drug or alcohol use

Species are hard to define, as they don’t fit neatly into the categories that science wants to put them into. But increasingly, people are naming new species without enough evidence to suggest they are indeed a separate taxon. Graihagh Jackson investigates why so-called taxonomic vandalism is on the rise and what we can do about itSubscribe and review on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom and Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterScience has long tried to divide nature into discrete categories. But the natural world doesn’t fit neatly into glass cabinets - the distinction between species is often much more fluid and blurred. So much so, that debates between academics often break out when they are trying to decide whether a newly discovered creature is a de novo taxa or belongs to an existing species. This has been the case with the marbled crayfish – it’s closely related to slough crayfish but unlike their American counterparts, it can reproduce asexually. Some argue it’s a new species, others disagree and believe that there’s not enough evidence. Continue reading...

Study shows correlation between levels of exposure to fine particulate matter and chamber enlargement seen in early stages of heart failureAir pollution is linked to changes in the structure of the heart of the sort seen in early stages of heart failure, say researchers.The finding could help explain the increased number of deaths seen in areas with high levels of dirty air. For example, a report last year revealed that people in the UK are 64 times more likely to die from the effect of air pollution than people living in Sweden. Such premature deaths can be linked to a number of causes including respiratory problems, stroke and coronary artery disease. Continue reading...

RSPB found urban sparrow colonies waning at fastest rate where traffic-borne nitrogen dioxide was worstThe cheeky house sparrow is the archetypal city bird. You can find them around the world, but they are in serious decline in cities in Italy, Canada, India and the UK. London’s house sparrow population fell by 60% between 1994 and 2006.Scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds fed London sparrows in 33 colonies and compared them with birds at 33 other places where no extra food was offered. More food meant more fledglings, but it did not improve their wintertime survival. Continue reading...

Tests show 5,000-year-old remains found at the world heritage site came from more than 100 miles away in west WalesThe bones of people buried at Stonehenge, who died and were cremated about 5,000 years ago, have given up their secrets: like the bluestones, which form part of the famous prehistoric monument, they came from west Wales, near the Preseli Hills where the stones were quarried.The remains of at least 10 of 25 individuals, whose brittle charred bones were buried at the monument, showed that they did not spend their lives on the Wessex chalk downland, but came from more than 100 miles away. Examination of the remains showed they were consistent with a region that includes west Wales, the most likely origin of at least some of these people.

We have never been more aware of the appalling events that occur around the world every day. But in the face of so much horror, is there a danger that we become numb to the headlines – and does it matter if we do? By Elisa GabbertIn April this year, a woman calling herself Apathetic Idealist wrote to an advice columnist at the New York Times, asking for help in overcoming a sense of political paralysis. This condition, which was keeping her from engaging in “real action”, began in November 2016, when Donald Trump won the US presidential election. “I continue to be outraged by this administration’s treatment of Latinos, Native Americans, Muslims, LGBT folks, women and so many others,” she wrote. “But I’m struggling to summon a response.”“I have no doubt that many people can relate to your letter. I can relate to it,” began the response from the columnist, Roxane Gay. “It is damn hard to expand the limits of our empathy when our emotional attention is already stretched too thin.” Continue reading...

US-based professor is only the second Australian to win the prestigious prizeThe Australian mathematician Akshay Venkatesh has won the Fields medal, the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel prize.He becomes only the second Australian to win the prestigious prize, after Terence Tao in 2006. It is only awarded every four years to up to four mathematicians who are under 40. Continue reading...

One quarter of the world’s population has latent tuberculosis - with 10.4m new cases and 1.7m deaths reported in 2016 aloneA new, shorter and safer drug regime for latent tuberculosis could help curb the global epidemic by increasing the numbers successfully treated and reducing the pool of infection, researchers believe.Two groundbreaking studies, one in adults and the other in children, have trialled a less toxic drug than the one in current use worldwide for latent TB and cut the treatment time from nine months to four. Continue reading...

The alcohol-based handrubs that hospitals use to prevent infection are becoming less effective, research has shownHospitals will need to use new strategies to tackle bacteria experts have warned, after finding a type of hospital superbug is becoming increasingly tolerant of alcohol – the key component of current disinfectant hand rubs.Handwashes based on alcohols such as isopropanol have become commonplace as a method of infection control. But while the move has been linked to benefits, including a fall in rates of hospital infections of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), new research suggests it might also have had unexpected consequences. Continue reading...

Caucher Birkar grew up on a farm near the Kurdish city of Marivan in Iran and spoke little English when he began his PhDA Kurdish man who came to Britain as a refugee after fleeing conflict two decades ago is one of four men who have been awarded the Fields medal, considered the equivalent of a Nobel prize for mathematics.

American physicist who won the Nobel prize for his groundbreaking particle discoveryOn the morning of 11 November 1974, members of the programme selection committee at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California were assembling for one of their regular meetings. Sam Ting, from Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, met Burton Richter, a leading experimenter at SLAC and said: “Burt, I have some interesting physics to tell you.” Richter responded immediately: “Sam, I have some interesting physics to tell you!”Neither realised they had discovered the same fundamental particle in two entirely different experiments, nearly 5,000km apart. Their breakthrough, which some regarded as the most important discovery in the history of particle physics, was so startling and far-reaching that Richter, who has died aged 87, and Ting shared the Nobel prize in 1976, making their award one of the most rapid in its history. Continue reading...

The blazing summer of 2018 has led to a shift in tone from some rightwing sceptics who can no longer deny the obviousIt’s not always easy to recognise a historical tipping point when you see one, but I believe I spotted one when I walked into my local newsagent last Wednesday and saw the front page of the Sun. Over a map of the world which was coloured bright scarlet, the splash headline screamed: “THE WORLD’S ON FIRE”.Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper was not mincing its words. The subheading on the left-hand side proclaimed “PLANET GRIPPED BY KILLER HEATWAVE”, while the right-hand one announced: “HUNDREDS DIE IN EUROPE AND JAPAN”. And if you were wondering what the cause of all this might be, the accompanying news report carried a quote – just the one – from Len Shaffrey, professor of climate science at Reading University, who said: “Global temperatures are increasing due to climate change. The global rise in temperatures means the probability that an extreme heatwave will occur is also increasing.” Continue reading...

Insects unable to transmit viruses halted disease in Australian city – now scientists hope same technique could help tackle Zika and malariaThe first large-scale deployment of mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which makes them unable to transmit viruses, has stopped all outbreaks of dengue fever in a city in northern Australia for the last four years.The success of the project in Townsville, Queensland, will encourage hopes that Wolbachia can provide a knockout blow against the Zika virus in Brazil as well, where the mosquitoes have been introduced into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Until now, the technology has looked promising but has only been tried in small pilot projects around the world of 1 to 1.5 square km. Continue reading...

Scientist claims it is likely that the illness that killed the novelist was contracted after he was wounded in the Spanish civil warScientific tests carried out on a letter sent by George Orwell shortly after his return from the Spanish civil war have suggested he may have caught the tuberculosis that killed him in a Spanish hospital.The letter, written after the author came home from fighting against Franco’s fascist uprising in July 1937, was sent by Orwell to Sergey Dinamov, the editor of the Soviet journal Foreign Literature. It was tested by Gleb Zilberstein, a scientist who has previously identified traces of kidney disease on the manuscript of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Although it is well known that Orwell died from a haemorrhage caused by tuberculosis, it has not been clear where he caught it. Continue reading...

After six years exactly, Dean Burnett’s Brain Flapping blog is coming to an end. It’s been emotionalOn 31 July, 2012, the very first Brain Flapping post appeared on the Guardian website. Exactly six years to the day later, here’s the very last one.To confirm, the Guardian is shutting down the science blog network, which includes Brain Flapping. Nothing personal, just more fallout from the ever-challenging modern media environment. And let’s be honest, what began with the Guardian boldly introducing a regular blog that took a more light-hearted, amusing/surreal look at science has, over six years, resulted in over 15 million hits, abandoning of the day job, two book deals, countless TV and radio appearances, and major Hollywood endorsements. Ergo, it would be a bit rich for me to claim to be hard done by. Continue reading...

Dosing animals with antibodies from their own immune systems could prevent illness and reduce the need for antibioticsUsing animals’ own immune systems may provide a way to reduce the overuse of antibiotics in farming, replacing the drugs with cheap farm byproducts and cutting the growing risk of resistance to common medicines, new research has suggested.Natural antibodies, produced by the immune system without previous infection, in animals and humans, can protect the body against harmful bacteria. They are present in some usually unconsidered farm byproducts, such as the whey left over from milk production, and they could be administered to animals easily in feed. Continue reading...

Number of king penguins on the remote Île aux Cochons has fallen from 2m to 200,000, warn scientistsThe planet’s largest colony of king penguins has declined by nearly 90% in three decades, researchers have warned.The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Île aux Cochons – roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica – the island was blanketed by 2m of the penguins, which stand about a metre tall. Continue reading...

Scientists say cannabidiol could extend patients’ lives by a matter of yearsA substance found in cannabis plants might boost treatments for patients with pancreatic cancer, research in mice has suggested.Cannabidiol, or CBD, is not psychoactive, meaning it does not produce feelings of being high in those who take it. It is extracted from hemp plants and is legal in the UK, although a CBD product must be licensed before it can be advertised as having health benefits. At present, there are no licensed CBD-only medicines in the UK, but it is being used in a number of clinical trials, including for treating psychosis. Continue reading...

The solutions to today’s puzzlesEarlier today I set you three Skyscrapers puzzles. You can read the explanation of the puzzle in that article, or print out the puzzles here.The solutions are below: Continue reading...

Galápagos finches have been the subject of a plethora of evolutionary studies, but where did the first ones come from?When the first of the Galápagos Islands arose from the ocean floor around 3m years ago, they were naked, angry, lava-spewing cones devoid of life. Now, millions of years later, they are alive with some of the world’s most iconic animals. Giant tortoises. Sea iguanas. Flightless cormorants. And those finches equipped with Swiss army knife beaks.The Galápagos finches are probably one of the most well-known examples of evolution and will forever be tightly linked to Charles Darwin’s voyage and his theory of natural selection (although you may be surprised to learn that the Galápagos finches were not as central to Darwin’s theory as we like to think). With their diversity of bill sizes and shapes, each species has adapted to a specific type of food; the ground-finch (Geospiza) has a thick beak adapted to feeding on a variety of crunchy seeds and arthropods, whereas the warbler finch (Certhidea olivacea) developed a slender, pointy bill to catch tasty insects hiding between the foliage. The woodpecker finch (Camarhynchus pallidus) even uses twigs or cactus spines to pry arthropods out of treeholes. Continue reading...

Attack the block!UPDATE: Solutions are available hereHi guzzlers,Skyscrapers is one of my favourite Japanese logic puzzles because it forces you to think three-dimensionally, and also because Tokyo is full of skyscrapers. Continue reading...

The brightest stars of three constellations form one of the northern hemisphere’s most familiar asterismsOne of the most obvious star patterns in the night sky at the moment is not a constellation at all. Instead, the Summer Triangle is made up of the three brightest stars from three constellations: Deneb from Cygnus, Altair from Aquila and Vega from Lyra. In the UK, British astronomer Patrick Moore popularised the term Summer Triangle in the latter half of the 20th century but its use dates back to at least 1913. Before that, the asterism was marked on 19th century star charts. All three stars give out blue-white light, indicating surface temperatures of roughly 2500-3500K hotter than the Sun’s 5800K. Whereas Altair and Vega are just a few times larger than the Sun, Deneb is fully 200 times the diameter of the Sun and pumping out around 200,000 times the Sun’s luminosity. Vega is interesting because it is surrounded by a disc of matter, which may indicate the formation of a planetary system. Continue reading...

My colleague Geoff Byham, who has died aged 71, will be remembered as the architect of advanced rotor aerodynamics at Westland Helicopters.In 1974, as Westland’s head of aerodynamics research, he led the development of new rotor aerodynamic solutions in partnership with the Royal Aircraft Establishment. This programme would later blossom under his leadership into the British Experimental Rotor Program (Berp), from which emerged a revolutionary helicopter blade. Continue reading...

Dig deep inside, battle self-doubt and become the person you know you can be. Richard Skinner on the healing powers of writing a novelWriting a novel is a scary prospect. They’re so long and winding, they can seem never-ending. The main obstacle might seem to be starting – the terror of the blank page – but the real stumbling block lies elsewhere. There is no reason in the world why you can’t write a novel and the only thing stopping you from doing so is yourself. It seems such an insurmountable task and, in any case, you might ask yourself, why would anyone be interested in what I have to say? Who am I to have a voice? It is this lack of self-belief that is the main hindrance. It is the first thing any aspiring author has to get to grips with every time they sit down to write.Writing is about claiming ownership of yourself in order to become the person you know you can be. It’s about acknowledging to yourself that writing is not just a hobby, but a profound force in your life, one that will help you to achieve a deep sense of self-expression. A novel is making your mark on the world. It is your cri de coeur. But bridging that gap will be a struggle. You will have to push yourself far outside your comfort zone. And you will have to be completely honest with yourself about why and what you want to write. The first question to ask yourself is: “What do I want to say?” Continue reading...

This absurd ruling restricts highly targeted plant breeding but allows random changes caused by carcinogenic chemicalsWe live on a planet where human numbers are expected to swell to more than 11 billion by the end of the century. At the same time, global warming is destined to alter our climate dramatically and, in many regions, erode our ability to feed the burgeoning population. Much will depend on our ability to use advanced scientific techniques, responsibly controlled, to produce the food we need while addressing environmental concerns.The Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791. It is published by Guardian News & Media and is editorially independent.

Targeted genetics will help a threatened species spurn a poisonous toad mealAustralia’s northern quoll, one of the world’s rarest carnivores, has developed a feeding habit that puts its very existence in peril. The squirrel-sized marsupial turns out to have a fondness for the poisonous flesh of invasive cane toads, introduced into Australia in the 1930s. And this appetite has wiped out vast numbers of the species across the country. As a result, the northern quoll is now considered to be nationally endangered.But scientists have launched a remarkable project aimed at saving the little nocturnal hunters. They have pinpointed an isolated group of quolls that have evolved an aversion to cane toads and, instead of munching meals of their venomous flesh, give cane toads a wide berth and seek other prey. Continue reading...

The lunar eclipse captivated stargazers across the world, generating countless photos and a decent dose of humour• The blood moon around the world – in pictures Amateur skywatchers and photographers from around the world – as well as the stargazing professionals – have sacrificed sleep to share spectacular images of the blood moon on social media.

From the ancient Minotaur myth to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining … why are mazes so powerful and comforting in confusing times?I cannot navigate. My internal disorientation is mirrored by the world’s; perhaps it is even caused by it. We are surrounded by confusion. I am afraid of what will happen. Round every corner, down every false trail, there are monstrous dangers that threaten to consume us. Will we ever find a clear path to lead us through?I have never been able to find my way. If I once possessed a sense of direction, I have long surrendered it to the reassuring blue thread of the map on my smartphone. But I never had one, really. Turn me loose in a city without a map and panic rises, as if I were a child who had lost the grip of a parent’s hand in a crowd. Continue reading...

Those who looked skyward before sunrise were not left disappointed, as the sun, Earth and moon alignedAustralians who looked skyward before sunrise were not left disappointed, as the moon glowed blood red for the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century.The total lunar eclipse, or “blood moon” began at 5.32am AEST on Saturday, lasting for one hour and 43 minutes, as the sun, Earth and moon aligned. Continue reading...

The world’s press photographers have fun taking pictures of the lunar eclipse

Tracking the eclipse from Australia, India, the Middle East, east Africa and Europe

Lunar observers foiled as thunderclouds obscure rare phenomenon for most of UK

Ageing motivates me to strive with ever greater enthusiasm and urgency to be better at the things that are important to meIt came as a surprise to me that the midlife crisis is something of a myth and the less time I’ve got left the happier I’ll apparently become.It’ll also be news to many 50-something people I know, some of whom, besides still supporting school and university-aged children at home, are also caring for ageing parents and all of the heartbreaking decisions that can entail. Continue reading...