The birth of a volcanic island is a potent and beautiful reminder of our dynamic planet’s ability to make new land. Given the destruction we’ve seen following natural events like earthquakes and tsunamis in the past few years, stunning images of two islands forming in the southern Red Sea are most welcome.

Remarkably similar carvings and simple cross sculptures mark special sites or places once sacred, spanning a zone stretching from the Irish and Scottish coasts to Iceland. We can look to Skellig Michael, which rises from the sea 12 kilometers off the southwest Irish coast; to Aird a’Mhòrain on the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist; to the Isle of Noss, Shetland; and to Heimaklettur cliff face in Iceland’s Westman Islands.

Also in southern Iceland, a number of the 200 man-made caves found there are marked by similar rock-cut sculpture. And these dark remote places suggest a different answer to a puzzle that we thought we had solved a long time ago.

Early Christian writers were fond of putting words into other people’s mouths.

When the apostle Paul (the theologian formerly known as Saul of Tarsus) wrote to the church in Corinth about a particularly significant religious experience, he informed them that his journey to the “third heaven” or “Paradise” resulted in his hearing “things that are not able to be told, that no mortal is permitted to speak”.

Many of us have a tipple on special occasions but including these drinks in official data has been found to increase England’s alcohol consumption by 12 million bottles of wine per week.

According to a new study published in BMC Medicine, alcohol consumption figures account for only 60% of alcohol sold in England, due to a discrepancy between self-reported consumption data and retail figures.

The new research has discovered where the missing alcohol can be found.

A recent eye infection suffered by 18-year-old Nottingham University student Jess Greaney is the kind of story that fills us with horror.

Greaney had keratitis, an inflammation of the cornea, caused by Acanthamoeba castellanii, a parasite that was living and feasting on her eye.

Many of the people who visit me in my therapy practice spend time talking about work. How much work there is, how they never seem to be able to get it all done, how many hours they spend at work, how tired they are all the time and how fearful they are about losing their jobs. They’ve read articles telling them how they can improve their work/life balance. They’ve delegated and relegated, meditated and ruminated.