All posts tagged: Born

How Bridget Jones was born on the pages of The Independent – and why she’s still a cultural icon today

How Bridget Jones was born on the pages of The Independent – and why she’s still a cultural icon today

Published by Daniella Wilson

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in If you were ever in any doubt of the far-reaching cultural impact of Helen Fielding’s fictional diarist, Bridget Jones, I invite you to look no further than my own diary entries circa the early to late Noughties. The style – “Ran into Sam today: Doooom, hair was all mad peaks and horns! V. v. bad” – was ripped, wholesale, from my favourite unlikely romantic heroine (though my self-conscious attempts at emulating Fielding’s witty, feather-light prose fell woefully short of the original). As a whimsical, unworldly young woman, I found my northern star in Fielding’s hilariously messy creation. She was a thrilling portal into what my future grown-up life might look like once I’d successfully moved to London, got a job in media, started devouring self-help books and drinking wine from a bottle instead of a box and, most importantly, got my heart well and truly broken by some proper, real-life …

Born Again’ Will End With Season 3

Born Again’ Will End With Season 3

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Man Without Fear is heading into one last battle. The forthcoming third season of Daredevil: Born Again will be its last one, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The decision comes about two months after the Marvel Studios show’s third season wrapped filming. The move also comes as Marvel has quietly parted ways with showrunner Dario Scardapane, whose contract was up and was not renewed. The parting of ways is eyebrow-raising as it means that Scardapane is exiting the show in the middle of post-production. It is unclear who will see the show through completion. One source said post-production is the final stages. Marvel had no comment. The series has focused on criminal kingpin Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) becoming mayor of New York and then targeting Daredevil and other vigilantes who are in his way. Season two, which ran in the spring, ended with Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil (Charlie Cox), being sent to prison. Daredevil: Born Again has had a somewhat rocky run since Disney+ revived the series, which initially ran for three seasons on …

Teaching 9/11 to Students Who Weren’t Born Yet

Teaching 9/11 to Students Who Weren’t Born Yet

Published by Jenni Sidey

I was five years old on September 11, 2001. This year, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 fell on a day I was teaching my communication and composition course. Standing in front of a room of 18- and 19-year-olds, I realized we occupied very different relationships to the event. I was alive when it happened, but I was too young to understand the enormity of what I was watching. My memories are fragments, tangled together with everything I learned later from my parents, teachers, news footage, documentaries, photographs, memorials, and the stories our culture has continued to tell about that day. At this point, I’m honestly not sure what I actually remember and what I’ve reconstructed from everything I learned later. My students occupy an entirely different position… They didn’t exist yet. So, on the 25th anniversary of September 11, I decided we should spend at least part of class talking about it. For my students, 9/11 has always been history. And that raised a question that felt particularly appropriate for a communication course: How do …

Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds | Global development

Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds | Global development

Published by Sam Flores

Babies born to mothers with anaemia have smaller brains, particularly in key regions linked to movement, learning and the regulation of emotion, according to a study. Researchers said the differences, first detected at the age of one, could lead to cognitive problems when children started school. More than a third of pregnant women worldwide have anaemia – a condition typically caused by iron deficiency in which the number of red blood cells in the body is lower than normal. Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and dizziness. Rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Researchers from King’s College London in the UK, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, followed more than 300 mothers and their babies in Cape Town, scanning the brains of the infants several times between the ages of three months and two years. On average, the total brain volume of babies born to anaemic mothers was 4% lower than that of babies born to non-anaemic mothers – despite all the anaemic mothers being diagnosed only with a …

World’s Most Endangered Tigers Born in Greece as Zoos Build a Safety Net

World’s Most Endangered Tigers Born in Greece as Zoos Build a Safety Net

Published by Sam Flores

SPATA, Greece (AP) — The world’s most endangered tigers have started a family in Greece, offering hope for a predator rapidly vanishing from the wild. Three 2-month-old Sumatran tiger cubs received identification microchips and their first vaccinations Tuesday at a zoo near Athens, as part of a global effort to build a backup population. The Sumatran tiger, classified as critically endangered, is found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which is slightly larger than Sweden. As few as 400 are believed to remain in the wild, mainly because of aggressive forest clearing. It joins the South China tiger and the Malayan tiger in the category of severe risk. “The Sumatran tiger is one of the most threatened tiger species in the world, and among felines in general,” said Theodoros Babilis, head keeper of cats and monkeys at Attica Zoological Park. Zoos in Europe and elsewhere are maintaining a safety population, he said, “so that in the future there can be potential reintroductions of this species into the wild.” The Sumatran tiger is the smallest …

Decades of incest caused isolated family to be born with blue skin | World | News

Decades of incest caused isolated family to be born with blue skin | World | News

Published by Sam Flores

Incestuous family ‘so inbred’ their skin turned blue from genetic condition (Image: -) For generations, members of one isolated Kentucky family were known for a striking feature that left neighbours and doctors baffled, as their skin could appear distinctly blue. The unusual colouring was traced to the Fugate family of Troublesome Creek, a remote community where limited contact with the outside world meant that generations of relatives married within a small group of families. The resulting inbreeding did not itself cause the condition, but increased the likelihood that members of the family would inherit two copies of a rare recessive gene responsible for it. The story began with Martin Fugate, who is thought to have arrived in Kentucky from France around 1820. According to accounts of the family, Martin himself had blue skin. He settled in the Troublesome Creek area and married Elizabeth Smith, who was also believed to carry the recessive gene associated with the condition. The Fugate family of Troublesome Creek became known for generations of unusually blue skin. (Image: -) The couple …

The Moon’s far side could open a window into the universe before the first stars were born

The Moon’s far side could open a window into the universe before the first stars were born

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Moon’s far side could give astronomers access to radio signals from the cosmic “dark ages,” a period before the first stars and galaxies formed. The idea has moved beyond theory. NASA’s first lunar radio telescope has already operated on the Moon, while LuSEE-Night is being prepared for a far-side landing and new missions such as CosmoCube are taking shape. Astronomers are also racing against a new problem: growing lunar activity could contaminate one of the quietest radio environments available anywhere near Earth. The far side of the Moon is a battered landscape of mountains, basins and overlapping craters, strikingly different from the broad dark plains familiar to anyone looking up from Earth. But its most valuable feature for astronomers may be something that cannot be seen at all. The Moon itself blocks much of the radio noise pouring outward from Earth. With virtually no atmosphere to distort very low-frequency signals, the far side offers an observing environment unavailable to telescopes on our planet. NASA now describes it as the only known place in the …

Are narcissists born or made? The answer might surprise you

Are narcissists born or made? The answer might surprise you

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Narcissists are everywhere these days. Narcissism has become a social media buzzword, with checklists of traits to cross-reference and tools to help you manage the narcissist in your family, friend group – or relationship. But while received wisdom is that it’s a trait that is produced largely by parenting, a new report has found that narcissism is, in fact, 50 per cent genetic, with the other half attributable largely to environmental experiences that aren’t shared within families. In fact, the report “Narcissism Runs in Families Due to Genetics: An Extended Twin Family Analysis”, published in Sage Journals, found that parenting styles may have no impact on whether you, or your children, end up as narcissists. If you, like me, suspect quite a few narcissists …

Meet the youngest male heirs born to rule thrones around the world

Meet the youngest male heirs born to rule thrones around the world

Published by Daniella Wilson

While drinking, driving and voting come with age restrictions, there is no such requirement to become an heir apparent to a throne. Some royal offspring wait years to move up the line of succession, while others are born into the position or find themselves there before even hitting puberty. For Prince Jacques of Monaco, Prince Charles of Luxembourg and Bhutan’s Crown Prince Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck, the path to the throne began in childhood. Meet the youngest male heirs destined to one day rule. Prince Jacques of Monaco © Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty ImagesPrince Jacques with his father Prince Albert of Monaco in 2024 It is Prince Albert’s fourth child, his son Prince Jacques, who is the heir to the Monegasque throne. Although his twin, Princess Gabriella, was born two minutes before him, Jacques is ahead of his sister in the line of succession because Monaco follows male-preference cognatic primogeniture, which gives male heirs precedence. Their older half-siblings, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi and Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste, are not in the line of succession because they were born …

Born into soul royalty, The Womack Sisters inherited music, but earned their success

Born into soul royalty, The Womack Sisters inherited music, but earned their success

Published by Sam Flores

It was the early ‘90s, and sisters BG, Zeimani and Kucha were at a family reunion on a horse ranch in West Virginia. While gathered around a crackling campfire, they swayed to the sounds of guitar strings and buttery baritone vocals, ensconced in a halo of warmth. But what made this particular family sing-along remarkable was that one of the lead voices belonged to soul legend Bobby Womack. The three sisters, who were children at the time, were his nieces, who lovingly referred to him as “Uncle Bob.” Known as The Womack Sisters, BG, Zeimani and Kucha, come from an illustrious musical lineage. In addition to their famous uncle, whose more than 60-year career gave the world songs like “Across 110th Street” and a haunting rendition of “California Dreamin’,” their maternal grandfather is celebrated Chicago singer and songwriter Sam Cooke, who was dubbed “King of Soul.” Cooke was fatally shot by a motel manager in South Central Los Angeles in 1964 under mysterious and contentious circumstances. His death robbed the Womack Sisters of a grandfather, …