Alex Bellos's Monday puzzleMathematicsCan you solve it? The simple question almost everyone gets wrongThe stencil puzzle that revolutionised IQ testing
UPDATE: The answers can be read here
Today’s puzzles are an intelligence test for children invented a century ago by an American psychologist, Grace Arthur.
You will be presented with a patterned square. The challenge is to work out how to create this square by placing some of the available stencils and coloured blocks on top of each other.
Climate change is altering the face of the Himalayas but research seeking to confirm this is yet to catch up with the mountain communities sounding the alarm. After an 18-day trek with scientists, Suzanne Goldenberg finds the warning signs hard to ignore
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TV reviewTelevision & radioReviewIf you ever needed a sign that this comedy had reached classic status, this clever, spiky finale is it. It’s a perfectly-timed end to a show that will be sorely missed
And then, suddenly, it floated away: one of the finest British comedies of the century is over, and it’s ended with a Christmas special so light and so neat it barely seemed to be there at all.
LGBTQ+ rightsLettersPlease don’t use the Q-wordKarl Lockwood says he and many other gay people find the use of the word ‘queer’ insulting and derogatory
We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it | LetterRead moreYour report (England and Wales census counts trans and non-binary people for first time, 6 January) tells us that of the 1.5 million people who declared themselves non-heterosexual, only 15,000 referred to themselves as “queer”. I suspect that many of the others, like me, consider the term to be insulting and derogatory, and certainly not “reclaimed”.
The ObserverCultureEdwardian porn? Fantastic. Too bad everyone's doing it at 90 miles an hourVictoria Coren finds a series of short erotic films from 1910 liberating but they remind her of her own mortalityAn unfortunate realisation has just dawned: it is possible that I wasted the entire year of 2002. I spent it directing a porn film. I now think perhaps I need not have done so. I've been watching The Good Old Naughty Days, a compilation of erotic short films from 1910 which opens in a London cinema next week.
It was exciting to create these beastly, huge, grotesque women: the authors gender-swapping th
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Persephonus is dragged off by Hadea in Gender Swapped Greek Myths. Photograph: Karrie FransmanPersephonus is dragged off by Hadea in Gender Swapped Greek Myths. Photograph: Karrie FransmanClassicsInterview‘It was exciting to create these beastly, huge, grotesque women’: the authors gender-swapping the Greek mythsSam WollastonWith its heroic female leads and men who long to be fathers, Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett’s new book looks at modern mores through an ancient lens
“She is coming!
Ketamine reality
2024-04-17
Drugs This article is more than 13 years oldThis article is more than 13 years oldAs the government prepares to classify mephedrone as a class B drug, Dina Rickman uncovers the dangers of young people's current drug of choice; KetamineThree teenagers are huddled over a CD case in the corner of a Brighton squat. Rave music blares from the soundsystem as they cut lines of white powder from a crumpled wrap.
The ObserverAnna Nicole SmithNicole Smith's breast surgery video bannedA US judge has banned a doctor's wife from releasing a 1994 videotape showing a breast implant operation being carried out on former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, who died earlier this year.
Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff's preliminary injunction against Alana Johnson on Friday is similar to one he issued last month against her husband Gerald, from Texas, who performed the surgery.
Uber This article is more than 6 years oldUber boss Travis Kalanick's mother dies in boating accidentThis article is more than 6 years old Bonnie Kalanick, 71, was out on lake with husband Donald, 78, in Fresno, California, when boat reportedly hit a rock and sank The mother of Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, has died in a boating accident. Bonnie Kalanick, 71, died after the boat she and her husband, Donald, 78, were riding hit a rock in Pine Flat Lake in Fresno county, California, authorities said.