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Pass notesSleepNew research shows those who need less than six hours’ kip are at less risk of cognitive decline. And they could hold the key to a scientific breakthrough Name: Elite sleepers. Age: As old as humanity. Appearance: Currently even smugger than usual. Oh God, what now? This is a time for wild celebration! Science has just proved that so-called “elite sleepers” are less likely to develop dementia. I’m an elite sleeper, in that I never get out of bed. [Read More]

Brisbane This article is more than 2 months oldFirebombing death of bus driver in Brisbane could have been avoided with better decisions, coroner findsThis article is more than 2 months oldDecision to discharge ‘low risk’ Anthony O’Donohue from mental health service in 2016 found to be ‘not satisfactory’ Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The firebombing death of a young bus driver “might not have occurred” if different decisions had been made about the care of the mental health patient who had been deemed “low risk” before killing him, Queensland’s state coroner has found. [Read More]

Alys Fowler's gardening columnGardening adviceThis shade-loving iris comes into its own in winter, with berries that brighten dark corners and feed the birds. And the smell’s not that bad … Tucked into hedgerows or peeping out from under trees, the stinking iris, Iris foetidissima, is in full glory right now, its vibrant coral berries bursting from their seed pods amid the deep-green foliage. In summer, Iris foetidissima is easily overlooked. Its flowers are quite beautiful up close, with their delicate veining, but from a distance are a dull-leaden blue, or blue and beige-yellow, tempered and not inelegant, but perhaps too easily lost among the dagger-like foliage (which has a meaty smell when crushed, hence its name). [Read More]

Jennifer Lopez also used the hashtag in a photograph posted on Instagram on Monday. Photograph: Raymond Hall/GC ImagesJennifer Lopez also used the hashtag in a photograph posted on Instagram on Monday. Photograph: Raymond Hall/GC ImagesJennifer Lopez This article is more than 7 years oldJennifer Lopez comes under fire for saying 'all lives matter' on TwitterThis article is more than 7 years oldThe performer included the controversial hashtag in a tweet to promote her Orlando charity single that she’s since taken down [Read More]

Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings on the set of the show. Photograph: Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty ImagesJeopardy! host Ken Jennings on the set of the show. Photograph: Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty ImagesUS televisionJeopardy! host Ken Jennings says Mayim Bialik exit caught him ‘off guard’Jennings says he was not expecting co-host to leave but is eager to equal Alex Trebek’s record of 38 years as sole host Ken Jennings says he was as surprised as anyone to learn he would become the solo host of Jeopardy! [Read More]

Guide to paintingArtMixing the colours: mid-tonesIn this exercise you will have to develop a different way of looking at colour and translating it on to the canvasDuration Two hours Materials Palette, palette knife, brushes, primed paper, paints: cadmium lemon; cadmium yellow; cadmium red; alizarin crimson; ultramarine blue; cerulean blue What will I learn?Mid-toned colours are in the middle of the tonal spectrum, neither dark nor light. By eliminating tonal changes or contrasts - like shadows or bright light - in the painting process, you will have to develop a different way of looking at colour and translating it on to the canvas. [Read More]

European court of human rights This article is more than 9 years oldNaked Rambler loses at European court over right to public nudityThis article is more than 9 years oldJudges in Strasbourg rule Stephen Gough’s detentions were due to ‘violation of criminal law in full knowledge of consequences’A man known as the Naked Rambler has lost his case at the European court of human rights, where he claimed he had a right to bare all in public. [Read More]

The age of extinctionWildlifeThe climate crisis has intensified the rodents’ bloodthirsty fighting. From a chalet high on the French-Italian border, scientists are documenting their battles The ecologist Christophe Bonenfant strides down the mountainside, a metal cage strapped to his back. Inside, a hessian bag twitches and squirms. His cargo is 4kg of befuddled alpine marmot, a mountain rodent admired by hikers, immortalised by Goethe and Beethoven, and the star of a beloved French ad for Milka chocolate. [Read More]

Your views on education   Laura Spence, the Tyneside comprehensive pupil turned down by Oxford, was:     Handicapped by the inferior education she received as a state school pupil   Perhaps not as impressive a candidate as the other state school pupils admitted in preference to her   The victim of a scandalously class-ridden Oxbridge system   What should schools do with disruptive pupils? [Read More]

A brief survey of the short storyBooksShalamov’s great work on the Soviet gulag, Kolyma Tales, is much more than a memoir of crushed humanity: seen as an epic cycle, the work acquires major philosophical dimensions More from Chris Power’s A brief history of the short story “I hate literature,” wrote Varlam Shalamov in a 1965 letter. “I do not write memoirs; nor do I write short stories. That is, I try to write not a short story but something that would not be literature. [Read More]