Once seen as the last resort for a bunch of lonely geeks, online-dating services have gradually shed much of the stigma formerly associated with them. 

Last year Jetplace, an Australian company, admitted that it had been running more than 1,300 false profiles on a matchmaking service that it owned. Dating-site bosses maintain that such instances are rare, but detecting them can be tricky.

Fossil birds don’t often receive good press. Numerous papers pass through the academic literature each year without even a nod from journalists, but the description of a prehistoric stork on the island of Flores proffered such delicious headline bait that reporters could not resist. Although no bigger than its modern-day relatives, this 6-foot stork would have towered over the tiny Flores “hobbits”