The concept of “hard work v privilege”, and what either one says about someone’s social status, is an important one.

Politicians regularly draw dividing lines between “hardworking families” and those receiving “handouts”. Others distinguish between those whose wealth increases while they sleep, and small business owners who work hard for their incomes.

You’re in your mid-40s, eating healthy and exercising regularly. It’s the same routine that has worked for years.

Yet lately, the number on the scale is creeping up. Clothes fit differently. A bit of belly fat appears, seemingly overnight. You remember your mother’s frustration with the endless dieting, the extra cardio, the talk about “menopause weight.” But you’re still getting your periods. Menopause should be at least half a decade away.

So what’s really going on?

Christmas can be hard. For some people, it increases loneliness, grief, hopelessness and family tension, and the festive season has a way of turning ordinary concerns into urgent ones. Not because something terrible is guaranteed to happen, but because more is often at stake: money, time, family dynamics, travel and expectations.

A large study found a small but consistent dip in people’s wellbeing in the run-up to Christmas. One psychological process that often shows up under this pressure is worry.

A small, icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. A new study strengthens the case for Enceladus being a habitable world.

The data for those new research findings comes from the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004-2017. In 2005, Cassini discovered geyser-like plumes of water vapor and ice grains erupting continuously out of cracks in Enceladus’ icy shell.

Ιf you asked a multilingual friend which language they find more emotional, the answer would usually be their mother tongue – the one they used while growing up and probably still use at home. This does not mean they are incapable of expressing emotion in another language, but there is a clear link between first languages and stronger emotional expression.

This has a lot to do with where and how we learn a language. Our first language, which linguists call L1, is usually acquired in the emotionally charged settings of childhood and family. Second languages, known as L2, are often learned in more neutral contexts, such as schools and institutions, making them less emotionally intense.

Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers a glimpse into the zaniest crannies of European history, at a time when Europeans were obsessed with Egyptian mummies.

Driven first by the belief that ground-up and tinctured human remains could cure anything from bubonic plague to a headache, and then by the macabre ideas Victorian people had about after-dinner entertainment, the bandaged corpses of ancient Egyptians were the subject of fascination from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Mummy mania

Faith that mummies could cure illness drove people for centuries to ingest something that tasted awful.