I’ve been studying the effects of restrictions on pregnant women since last year. Some are too harshHaving a baby is one of the most significant life events in the human spectrum of experiences.While it is a physical experience, it is also a profoundly social, psychological, cultural, and spiritual experience. This is something that is forgotten at times by busy health providers, but never by...

A lack of note-taking is not always a red flag in therapy, writes Dr Helen Damon, and Ruth Medhurst says that the terminology around illness is totally outdated Your article (‘It was devastating’: what happens when therapy makes things worse?, 17 July) lists several “red flags” that indicate a therapist is unprofessional, including never taking notes in session. I am a counselling...

Slow-moving storms such as recent deluge in Germany could become 14 times more frequent by 2100Catastrophic floods such as those that struck Europe recently could become much more frequent as a result of global heating, researchers say.High-resolution computer models suggest that slow-moving storms could become 14 times more common over land by the end of the century in a worst-case scenario. The...

The discovery of the rare maiden pink at an electricity substation shows how nature can flourish in unlikely spotsA beautiful rare flower has been found growing at an unlikely site – an electricity substation near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Maiden pink is a relative of carnations, and grows only at a few places on the sandy dry soils of Breckland. Another rare plant, the lesser calamint, which...

Experts weigh in on the ‘anthropomorphic’ design of New Shepard, the Amazon CEO’s Blue Origin rocketJeff Bezos’s 11-minute trip aboard a Blue Origin rocket to the edge of space on Tuesday left the world’s richest man feeling “unbelievably good” and his crew “very happy”. But afterwards, as he wondered aloud how fast he could refuel, the rest of the world was left pondering just...

SuperBIT project will suspend telescope under balloon the size of a football stadium 25 miles above surface of EarthA balloon the size of a football stadium could help astronomers get crystal-clear shots of space for a fraction of the cost of an orbital telescope like Hubble.The secret weapon behind the SuperBIT project is a simple helium balloon – albeit one that floats up to 25 miles (40km)...

More than 1,000 scientifically significant specimens taken from former quarry after discoveryWhen Sally and Neville Hollingworth started going stir crazy in lockdown, rather than baking bread or doing quizzes on Zoom, the amateur palaeontologists turned to Google Earth.The couple passed the time planning for their next trip – using the satellite images to inspect sites that had previously...