According to new research, distinguishing between the UK’s 2,500 species could halt cognitive decline – so my brain could not be happier, or healthier Do you ever worry that your brain’s slowing down and your mind is … what’s the word … fogging? If you do, I have news. A recent study on birdwatching, with the appropriately named lead author Erik Wing, found that learning to become an expert birder...
According to new research, distinguishing between the UK’s 2,500 species could halt cognitive decline – so my brain could not be happier, or healthier Do you ever worry that your brain’s slowing down and your mind is … what’s the word … fogging? If you do, I have news. A recent study on birdwatching, with the appropriately named lead author Erik Wing, found that learning to become an expert birder causes changes to the brain that may help to protect against age-related cognitive decline. Compared with novice birders, when true bird nerds tease apart difficult species, they show more activity in brain regions linked to visual processing, attention and working memory. These same areas also appear more compact, and age-related changes in them are smaller. The take-home message is that learning to tell a chiffchaff from a willow warbler could help us to stay mentally sharp as we age. But what about discerning a common quaker from a clouded drab ? Or a brown-line bright-eye from a bright-line brown eye ? These are the names, not of birds, but of moths. I’ve been hooked on moths ever since I was a kid. Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of This Book May Cause Side Effects Continue reading...
The luscious chocolate and apricot torte is the stuff of legend in the grand, old world of Viennese coffeehouses. But which makes the tastiest? I’m on a tram on Vienna’s Ringstrasse as towering facades, columns, statues and domes drift past, each more ornate than the last. Here, the State Opera; there, the Austrian parliament, built in the Greek neoclassical style. As I gawp, I shove cake in my mo...
The luscious chocolate and apricot torte is the stuff of legend in the grand, old world of Viennese coffeehouses. But which makes the tastiest? I’m on a tram on Vienna’s Ringstrasse as towering facades, columns, statues and domes drift past, each more ornate than the last. Here, the State Opera; there, the Austrian parliament, built in the Greek neoclassical style. As I gawp, I shove cake in my mouth. After all, Vienna isn’t just the city of music, or lavish architecture. Thanks, in part, to its centuries-old coffeehouse culture, it’s also one of Europe’s finest pastry destinations. Cake (or more precisely, torte, kuchen or Mehlspeisen ) has its own day here – “Sweet Friday”, the most delicious of Catholic customs, when meat dishes are replaced with sweets. I have been introduced to it via the medium of Marillenknödel – apricot dumplings. Continue reading...
Andalusia houses ‘Europe’s vegetable garden’ – a laboratory of development and innovation producing vegetables for all of Europe Europe’s vegetable garden is in Andalusia, southern Spain. It is so vast that it can even be seen from space: if you open Google Maps and look west of Almería, you will see a white patch that looks like a glacier, but as you zoom in, you realise it is the highest concent...
Andalusia houses ‘Europe’s vegetable garden’ – a laboratory of development and innovation producing vegetables for all of Europe Europe’s vegetable garden is in Andalusia, southern Spain. It is so vast that it can even be seen from space: if you open Google Maps and look west of Almería, you will see a white patch that looks like a glacier, but as you zoom in, you realise it is the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world. More than 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) of land are covered in plastic, a geometric labyrinth five times the size of Manhattan, where 3.5m tons of vegetables are produced every year – from tomatoes to cucumbers, peppers to courgettes, aubergines to melons – enough to feed half a billion people and generate a turnover of more than 3bn euros. Workers prepare peppers inside the Hortamar cooperative, a fruit and vegetable producers’ organisation in Roquetas de Mar, founded in 1977, that now has more than 240 members and sells throughout Europe, the US and Canada. Continue reading...
Conviction revealed during questioning of Rob Hastings about a second woman whom he deceived into intimate relationship An undercover officer who deceived a woman into an intimate relationship was later convicted and dismissed from the police for assaulting his long-term partner, the public inquiry into undercover policing has heard. Rob Hastings, who infiltrated pro-Palestinian and left wing prot...
Conviction revealed during questioning of Rob Hastings about a second woman whom he deceived into intimate relationship An undercover officer who deceived a woman into an intimate relationship was later convicted and dismissed from the police for assaulting his long-term partner, the public inquiry into undercover policing has heard. Rob Hastings, who infiltrated pro-Palestinian and left wing protest groups for three years during his covert deployment, was convicted of assaulting his now ex-partner and mother of his three children in 2014. He was sacked by the Metropolitan police for gross misconduct as a result. Continue reading...
Exclusive: critics warn Reform UK use of trade policy would increase food costs amid cost-of-living crisis Nigel Farage’s farming adviser has called for a doubling of wheat prices by using trade policy, which critics have said would hike food costs during a cost-of-living crisis. Arable farmer and campaigner Clive Bailye has been appointed as a farming and land use adviser for Reform UK. Bailye ow...
Exclusive: critics warn Reform UK use of trade policy would increase food costs amid cost-of-living crisis Nigel Farage’s farming adviser has called for a doubling of wheat prices by using trade policy, which critics have said would hike food costs during a cost-of-living crisis. Arable farmer and campaigner Clive Bailye has been appointed as a farming and land use adviser for Reform UK. Bailye owns the website The Farming Forum, a social network for farmers, and helped organise the large-scale protests against the Labour government’s introduction of inheritance tax for farmed land. Continue reading...