Therapy isn’t about life hacks. The best solutions are simpler – and more complex

What we want is quick, clever fixes. What we need is quite different: the ability to tolerate intolerable feelings, to sustainably change and grow

When people seek therapy – and I know this, because I too was once a person seeking therapy – we often want strategies, techniques and tools for our toolboxes. We want to be asked questions and to know the answers; we want to ask questions and to be given answers. We believe that these are the things we need to build a better life.

Now that I am a patient in psychoanalysis, and I am a psychodynamic psychotherapist treating patients, I can see why my therapist needed to frustrate this desire, and offer me the opposite. What I wanted was to manage myself out of my emotions rather than feel them, to hack my life rather than live it – and that makes for a shallower existence, not a better one.

Published: June 2, 2025, 10:00 am

Is it true that … taking collagen supplements slows signs of ageing?

Many people take collagen powders and pills in the hope of looking younger for longer, but there are better ways to improve your chances

Collagen is one of the body’s building blocks. Made up of amino acids absorbed from the protein we eat, there are more than 20 subtypes found everywhere – from our bones and muscles to organs. Types I, II, and III are the most common in skin, cartilage and connective tissue, helping with strength and elasticity.

In recent years collagen has become known as the protein that keeps the skin on our face young-looking, with collagen powders and pills promising to slow signs of ageing – but is there any truth in those claims?

Published: June 2, 2025, 7:00 am

The deadlift difference: is this the exercise you need for an active and pain-free future?

Life is easier with a strong, flexible body – and this weightlifting move will help with everything from rearranging the furniture to picking up your groceries. You might even learn to love the barbell

One of the lovely things about getting older is realising there’s always something more you should be doing to look after your body. Did I say lovely? Obviously I meant tedious. But how you feel about it doesn’t change the facts. If you take the slightest interest in your health, and want to stay strong, mobile and pain-free in your 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, you’ll have to pay attention to the exercises that many of us avoid in our 20s, 30s and 40s. Or, in my case, until you’re 61¾.

Like deadlifts, which help with one of life’s most basic tasks – bending over and picking stuff up. Training these also involves bending over and picking stuff up – usually a barbell, but sometimes a kettlebell or pair of dumbbells. “Here’s a few things deadlifts help with,” says Laura Kummerle, a Georgia-based physiotherapist and personal trainer (PT). “Lifting your grocery bags off the ground on to the counter, lifting your laundry basket off the ground, lifting your kid/grandkid (especially out of their crib when you can’t squat), lifting a piece of furniture or a heavy rock for landscaping … They work the hip hinge, which is a fundamental movement pattern for strength training, but more importantly for daily life.”

Published: June 1, 2025, 1:00 pm

My mother says she’ll disinherit me unless I split with my partner. What should I do?

Using money to break up a relationship, particularly one with children, is not loving behaviour. You have to take control of your own life

I have been with my partner for 14 years and we have two small children together. I have always had a complicated relationship with my mother, who was a stern disciplinarian when I was growing up, and is deeply sensitive and lacks social confidence. I too am probably overly sensitive and get anxious.

My partner believes that my mother doesn’t think she is good enough for me. There have been numerous hints that this is the case, and she recently told me she was surprised when I started a relationship with someone whom she considers to be of “a different class”.

Published: June 1, 2025, 5:00 am

I’ve just been sent £170 fine for not paying a parking ticket … six years ago

Reader is unsure what they did, but after all this time, National Parking Enforcement is threatening court action

I have received two letters from National Parking Enforcement Ltd (NPE) demanding £170 for failing “to correctly use a pay & display machine” in a car park six years ago. It doesn’t specify what I did incorrectly – I’m guessing I made a typo when entering my car reg because the buttons on the machines are so faded and Os and zeros look identical.

I’m told I face court and a damaged credit rating if I don’t stump up.
ML, Fakenham

Published: June 2, 2025, 6:00 am

‘Humanity deserves better’: iPhone designer on new partnership with OpenAI

Sir Jony Ive indicates unease over impact of modern technology amid tie-up with ChatGPT developer

The designer of the iPhone has promised his next artificial intelligence-enabled device will be driven by a sense that “humanity deserves better”, after admitting feeling “responsibility” for some of the negative consequences of modern technology.

Sir Jony Ive said his new partnership with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, would renew his optimism about technology, amid widespread concerns about the impact of smartphones and social media.

Published: June 2, 2025, 11:21 am

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year

Move sends shock waves through traditional media industry by posing threat to advertising agencies

• Business live – latest updates

The owner of Facebook and Instagram is to help advertisers to fully create and target campaigns using artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, in a move that sent shock waves through the traditional marketing industry.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which also owns WhatsApp, aims to directly target brands’ marketing budgets, posing a threat to the advertising and media agencies that handle client campaigns and budgets.

Published: June 2, 2025, 1:10 pm

Crime scene catharsis: how a darkly comic video game and TV show turned me into a murder clean-up specialist

Slinging bodies into a pickup as Kovalsky in Crime Scene Cleaner reminded me of Greg Davies in The Cleaner – there is something grimly satisfying about death’s aftermath

Lately I’ve been playing a new job sim game, Crime Scene Cleaner, while also watching BBC’s comedy series The Cleaner, both of which focus on the aftermath of gruesome murders – sometimes you just need some cosy viewing to take the edge off the day. In the TV show, Greg Davies plays Wicky, the acerbic employee of a government-endorsed clean-up company, while Crime Scene Cleaner’s lead character Kovalsky is a lowly janitor, mopping up blood and disposing of trash to cover up for a mob boss named Big Jim.

The crime scenes in both are laughably over the top. Or are they? I’ve never actually seen a real-life murder scene, so perhaps copious blood sprayed over walls and ceilings and the masses of broken furniture is completely normal.

Published: June 2, 2025, 12:45 pm

UK is no better prepared: key takeaways from Covid inquiry’s test, trace and isolation module

While a test was quickly developed, weaknesses in the early pandemic response included no plan for nationwide testing and ineffective contact tracing

The Covid inquiry has spent the past three weeks on the UK’s attempts to control the pandemic through test, trace and isolation. Here we look at the key findings from the module and experts’ recommendations for future pandemic preparedness.

Published: June 1, 2025, 3:00 pm

Exercise ‘better than drugs’ to stop cancer returning after treatment, trial finds

First clear evidence that structured exercise regime reduces risk of dying by a third, can stop tumours coming back or a new cancer developing

• ‘Now I do weight training’: how exercise helped one patient stay free of cancer

Exercise can reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by a third, stop tumours coming back and is even more effective than drugs, according to the results of a landmark trial that could transform health guidelines worldwide.

For decades, doctors have recommended adopting a healthy lifestyle to lower the risk of developing cancer. But until now there has been little evidence of the impact it could have after diagnosis, with little support for incorporating exercise into patients’ routines.

Published: June 1, 2025, 12:00 pm

We’re close to translating animal languages – what happens then?

AI may soon be able to decode whalespeak, among other forms of communication – but what nature has to say may not be a surprise

Charles Darwin suggested that humans learned to speak by mimicking birdsong: our ancestors’ first words may have been a kind of interspecies exchange. Perhaps it won’t be long before we join the conversation once again.

The race to translate what animals are saying is heating up, with riches as well as a place in history at stake. The Jeremy Coller Foundation has promised $10m to whichever researchers can crack the code. This is a race fuelled by generative AI; large language models can sort through millions of recorded animal vocalisations to find their hidden grammars. Most projects focus on cetaceans because, like us, they learn through vocal imitation and, also like us, they communicate via complex arrangements of sound that appear to have structure and hierarchy.

Published: June 1, 2025, 1:00 pm

A chance to spot rare and mysterious noctilucent clouds

At this time of year in the northern hemisphere, just after the sun sets, these mysterious clouds can appear in the west

It’s time to watch for the beautiful cloud formations known as noctilucent clouds. Latin for “night shining”, noctilucent clouds are seasonal and become visible in the northern hemisphere from late spring/early summer.

Although unpredictable, when they do appear they will be seen in the western sky about half an hour after the sun sets. As the sky darkens into night, they will shine with an extraordinary electric blue colour.

Published: June 2, 2025, 5:00 am

Younger generations less likely to have dementia, study suggests

Researchers say people born more recently, particularly women, have lower risk at same age as their grandparents

People born more recently are less likely to have dementia at any given age than earlier generations, research suggests, with the trend more pronounced in women.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2021 there were 57 million people worldwide living with dementia, with women disproportionately affected. However, while the risk of dementia increases with age, experts have long stressed it is not not an inevitability of getting older.

Published: June 2, 2025, 3:00 pm

Magnetic 3D-printed pen could help diagnose people with Parkinson’s

Study utilises handwriting-generated electrical signal to measure tremor in tandem with AI machine learning

It won’t be much good for taking down notes, but a 3D-printed pen filled with magnetic ink could help identify people with Parkinson’s disease, a small pilot study suggests.

More than 10 million people worldwide are thought to be living with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disorder with symptoms including tremors, rigidity, slowness of movement and mobility difficulties. While there is no cure, early diagnosis can help those affected access support and treatments earlier.

Published: June 2, 2025, 3:00 pm

UK shortage of critical drug forcing pancreatic cancer patients to skip meals

One pharmacist described scarcity of life-saving Creon as ‘worst stock shortage’ they have dealt with

People with pancreatic cancer are eating only one meal a day because of an acute shortage of a drug that helps them digest their food.

Patients with cystic fibrosis and pancreatitis are also affected by the widespread scarcity of Creon, a form of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT).

Published: June 2, 2025, 1:11 pm

Milky Way photographer of the year 2025 – in pictures

This year’s collection of images from Capture the Atlas features an extraordinary milestone: a historic photograph of our galaxy taken from the International Space Station by Nasa astronaut Don Pettit, who recently returned from his latest mission onboard the ISS

Published: June 1, 2025, 6:00 am