16 articles from SUNDAY 1.1.2023

How ‘love languages’ has been helping couples for 30 years

It’s a well-established therapeutic tool for allowing couples to make sense of each other, but now social media has given the idea of ‘love languages’ a real boostRecently, my boyfriend and I had a check-in. He told me that he felt as if I’d grown complacent when it came to physical affection. I bristled at the accusation, but clamped my mouth shut, mostly because he was right. Truthfully,...

Why everyday stress could be the key to a healthy old age

Research indicates that low-level stress from moderate exercise or work can enhance our cognitive and physical abilities in later lifeFew words in the English language conjure up more negative emotions than stress. The mere mention of those six letters might elicit mental images of looming work deadlines, unpaid bills, the pressure of exams or tense family Christmases, to list just a few...

Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day | John Naughton

On New Year’s Day, copyright in the US expires on a new clutch of artistic works. But shady legal shenanigans mean it’s a little overdue…Here’s a reason to be cheerful this morning: it’s Public Domain Day, ie the day on which a new batch of hitherto copyrighted works comes out of copyright and enters the US public domain – the zone that consists of all the creative work to which no...

‘There’s been a fundamental change in our planet’: hunt on for spot to mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch

Scientists are to pick a location that sums up the current epoch when Homo sapiens made its markIn a few weeks, geologists will select a site that demonstrates most vividly how humans have changed the structure of our planet’s surface. They will choose a place they believe best illustrates when a new epoch – which they have dubbed the Anthropocene – was born and its predecessor, the...