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There are moments in home life that feel small and oddly mythic. You tip something down the drain and expect the usual ritual of patience or panic. Instead you watch the water sluice away with the calm of a small miracle and then call a plumber who arrives, fiddles, shakes his head and admits he … Read more

I used to think persimmons were merely a pretty seasonal showpiece on the kitchen counter. Then I started paying attention to the ways older people I know reach for them almost ritualistically in late autumn and winter. There is something more than nostalgia at work. Persimmons are not just sweet. For people over 50 they … Read more

There is a private theater that opens every time the aircraft door slides shut and the cabin lights dim. The audience is small and the cast is large. Flight attendants arrive at their positions not only with safety procedures memorised but with a whole repertoire of quick impressions they assemble in the first minute of … Read more

There is an uneasy thrill in energy circles this year. Deep under the Lorraine and Moselle areas of northeastern France researchers drilling for methane kept finding something else instead an unexpectedly large natural supply of molecular hydrogen. The term white hydrogen has been used in headlines but what this means in practical terms is more … Read more

When a routine summer project — dig a hole, pour concrete, argue about tile colours — turns into a life-changing moment, it makes the rest of us re-evaluate our lawns. In May this year a homeowner in Neuville-sur-Saône near Lyon began digging a pool and hit something strange: plastic bags containing five gold bars and … Read more

When the headline appeared in my feed I felt that odd mixture of excitement and scepticism that sticks around long after the novelty fades. Astronomers detect an unexplained radio signal from interstellar object 3I ATLAS. That sentence promised a cliff edge and then politely refused to throw anyone off it. The reality is more interesting … Read more

People talk a lot. We also betray ourselves a lot. In the spaces between small talk and argument there are little linguistic fissures where selfish thinking quietly leaks out. This article traces the phrases psychologists pay attention to when they want to know not what someone intends to say but what they cannot stop showing. … Read more

I discovered the worst kind of domestic betrayal last autumn. A neat stack of logs at the back of my garden that had survived wind rain and an inquisitive neighbour for months. They had all the telltale signs of patience rewarded the greyed ends the split checks the brittle bark yet when I tried to … Read more

January has a way of pretending to be ordinary until the sky rearranges itself. Right now a highly unusual polar vortex disruption is rapidly approaching this January and experts warn this years event is exceptionally strong. The maps you are seeing on TV are not just dramatic illustrations they are snapshots of an atmosphere that … Read more

The sky gave up a secret. Not everything that slips through our solar system behaves like one of our own comets. Over the last months an international patchwork of instruments from ground based telescopes to Hubble and Webb have stitched together images of the interstellar visitor known as 3I ATLAS. The result is not merely … Read more