Five of the best books about fatherhood
When I tried to winnow down my favourite books about fatherhood, it was a surprise to realise how many of the novels on my list were written by women. What is it with dudes and the domestic? Where did the…
Ten-minute brain scan could detect dementia early, study suggests
A 10-minute brain scan could detect dementia several years before people develop noticeable symptoms, a study suggests. Scientists used a scan of “resting” brain activity to identify whether people would go on to develop dementia, with an estimated 80% accuracy…
SpaceWar is back! Rebuilding the world’s first gaming computer
On my desk right now, sitting beside my ultra-modern gaming PC, there is a strange device resembling the spaceship control panel from a 1970s sci-fi movie. It has no keyboard, no monitor, just several neat lines of coloured switches below…
Christopher Isherwood Inside Out by Katherine Bucknell review – courage and camp
Christopher Isherwood was constantly pulled between the camp and the heroic. As a schoolchild, he went from military drills, emulating his soldier father, to doing square dances with his mother in her dresses. As a young man, he escaped upper-class England…
From racist rants to spiritual guru? What we learned from Seinfeld star Michael Richards’s autobiography
For the rest of time, Michael Richards will be known for only two things. One of them is Seinfeld, on which he played Kramer; the other is the notorious 2006 Laugh Factory standup set that ended with him screaming racial…
Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang review – a debut with real heart
Jiaming Tang’s debut novel opens in China in the 1980s, at the Workers’ Cinema in rural Fuzhou, a cruising spot for queer men. The cinema is described as a magical, almost utopian place, and the language Tang uses contributes to…
Revealed: the carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza after months of Israeli bombing
The carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza will be greater than the annual greenhouse gas emissions generated individually by 135 countries, exacerbating the global climate emergency on top of the unprecedented death toll, new research reveals. Reconstructing the estimated 200,000 apartment…
Meth-addict fish, aggro starlings, caffeinated minnows: animals radically changed by human drugs – study
From brown trout becoming “addicted” to methamphetamine to European perch losing their fear of predators due to depression medication, scientists warn that modern pharmaceutical and illegal drug pollution is becoming a growing threat to wildlife. Drug exposure is causing significant,…
Playing Kafka review – a well-intentioned but sanitised attempt at adapting the unadaptable
If Franz Kafka had lived to give notes on Playing Kafka, a new video game adaptation of his work, a big one might have been: where’s the sex? What this interactive version of The Trial has in branching narrative, it…
Under a Rock by Chris Stein review – sex, squalor and superstardom
Even before he co-founded Blondie – who swiftly transcended their roots in the New York punk scene to become one of the biggest bands in the world, selling around 40m records in the process – Chris Stein had lived quite…