Audio description | Boris Johnson | Space missions | Cuckoo clocks | #MeTooWe are unashamed septuagenarian members of the alleged subtitle-friendly minority (Pass notes, 16 November), utilising the TV facility for everything from British documentaries to US crime thrillers. The only potential hazard we ever encounter is when something called “audio description” is applied by mistake and a...

When dog moves ball containing device it sends a signal to a laptop and launches a video callWhether it is a silent stare or simply a rousing bark, dogs have found myriad ways to communicate with humans. Now researchers have created a hi-tech option for canines left home alone: a ball that allows them to call their owners on the old dog and bone.The device – nicknamed the DogPhone – is a soft...

While many trees were felled to prevent ‘leaves on the line’, Network Rail is now trying to treat them as assetsTrees and railways have never really got on with each other. In the days of steam engines, trees alongside railways were cut down to prevent engines sparking fires.Once steam engines were scrapped, the vegetation grew back and more than 6m trees became established alongside...

First study to look at women’s brains finds more empathy activation when looking at pictures of grandchildrenThey say that grandchildren are life’s greatest joy, and now the first study to examine grandmothers’ brain function has suggested grannies may be more emotionally connected to their grandkids than to their own sons and daughters.Since the 1960s, researchers have posited that one...