One of my favourite books growing up was my dad’s copy of The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics. I spent hours flicking through images of an eyeless, trombone-mouthed golden man swallowing naked bodies, and a full-page, black-and-white comic strip by legendary psychedelic artist Rick Griffin. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t yet listened to most of the songs – the surreal…
The disability benefit reforms statement issued by the welfare secretary, Liz Kendall alongside £5bn of cuts felt like Labour’s latest attempt to answer the question that seems to come up every time it tackles a thorny social policy issue and deliver bad news. Namely: how is this different from life under the Tories? Kendall tried…
One of the keys to performing like an elite athlete — or at least having the metabolism of one — may be pooping like one. Transplanting feces from certain top-level cyclists and soccer players into mice boosted levels of a molecule that fuels intense workouts, researchers report March 27 in Cell Reports. Our gut microbiota…
The nearest single star to the sun, Barnard’s star, has a brood of planets all its own. The red dwarf star, about six light-years from Earth, hosts four close-in planets each about two to three times the mass of Mars, astronomers report in the March 20 Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Barnard’s star has a long history…
Lots of people like the idea of grooming dogs for a living. Some survey sought to identify the most popular jobs to which British workers would like to switch in the coming 12 months, and dog grooming came out top. I can see – or at least used to see – the attraction. Pooch parlours…
Two astronauts stuck in space for 9 months have returned to Earth