‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

In 2021, Harold Price, now 82, broke a vertebra while cycling with a friend, leaving him barely able to use his legs. Then a chance recommendation changed his life

• ‘It took time to love my soft, larger shape’: the body-positive writer who recovered from an eating disorder

Before the accident, Harold Price, 82, loved being on two wheels. A retired engineer from Griffithstown in Wales, he cycled about 95 miles a week on his road bike. “Not bad for 78,” he says. On other days he’d be out on one of his restored motorbikes, as he was in June 2021, with a friend. They were riding at 10 miles an hour on a narrow road when his friend pulled out in front of him. “I had nowhere to go,” Price says. He remembers his head snapping back into his helmet before he blacked out.

Price spent months in hospital. He had broken the fifth vertebra in his neck, resulting in compression of his spinal cord. He was told he wouldn’t walk again. “That was a bit of a downer, obviously,” he says. He was determined to prove the doctors wrong. “My mind told me I could get up and walk out. But when I tried, I collapsed.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:00 pm

Is it true that … you lose most body heat from your head?

This 1970s notion is a bit of a myth – but it’s still a good idea to wear a hat if it’s cold out

‘Always keep your head covered. You can lose 40–45% of body heat from an unprotected head.” That’s the advice in a 1970s US Army Survival Manual, which is probably where this myth originated, says John Tregoning, a professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.

The reality is that there is nothing special about your head. When you go out in the cold, you lose more body heat from any area you leave exposed than from those parts protected by clothing. Out in a snowsuit but no hat? You’re going to lose heat quickly from your face and head, while the suit slows down the cooling of your body.

Published: January 19, 2026, 8:00 am

‘I was bullied in school for being different. At 16, I hit a crashing point’: the awkward kid who became the world’s strongest man

As a boy, Tom Stoltman was diagnosed with autism and bullied at school. When he became depressed in his teens, his older brother, a bodybuilder, suggested a trip to the gym

• ‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

Tom Stoltman was a skinny kid: 90kg, 6ft 8in, with glasses and sticking‑out teeth. Diagnosed with autism as a young child, he felt he didn’t fit in. “I was really shy,” he says. “I got bullied in school for being different.” Back then, the boy from Invergordon didn’t like what he saw in the mirror. He lived in baggy hoodies. “Hood up. That was my comfort.” He loved football but “I used to look at people on the pitch and think, ‘He’s tinier than me, but he’s pushing me off the ball.’”

By 16 he’d hit a “crashing point”. He went from football-obsessed to playing Xbox all day. He’d skip meals in favour of sweets. “Sometimes it was four or five, six bags.”

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

‘It felt amazing to be on the start line again’: the rugby pro who became paralysed – and is aiming for the Paralympic Games

Aged 20, Taylor Gough had a car accident. Five years later, he’s hoping to compete in the 2028 Paralympics. How did he do it?

• ‘I was bullied in school for being different. At 16, I hit a crashing point’: the awkward kid who became the world’s strongest man

From the age of 16, Taylor Gough’s body was a finely tuned machine. A professional rugby player who came up through the youth team at Leicester Tigers, his weeks revolved around training: heavy weights, tactical drills, contact sessions, cardio. “My body served a purpose and I ate to fuel it.”

Then, aged 20, he woke up in hospital unable to move or talk. “I had to mime to the nurse, ‘What happened?’ And it was during Covid – I didn’t have any family there, which made it 10 times worse.”

Published: January 18, 2026, 4:00 pm

How can we learn from unrequited love?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s readers’ replies: Should speed cameras be hidden?

How can we accept that what feels like overwhelming love for someone is unrequited, and how can we get over it? HH, Suffolk, by email

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Published: January 18, 2026, 2:05 pm

I adore my husband but I feel a fraud at his church | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

Couples not sharing religious beliefs or going to each other’s places of worship isn’t unusual, but perhaps there’s something else going on here

When I met my husband eight years ago, I knew he was churchy, but as a low-church Protestant, I thought this wouldn’t be a problem. Outside church, I am comfortable with our religious differences. I sort of believe in God, and find immense spirituality in nature, but think Christ was simply a good man, whereas my husband believes it. He respects my beliefs and has never imposed his on me.

The problem I have is with the church we attend. I often feel a fraud as I don’t share the beliefs of the rest of the congregation. I feel alienated by the emphasis on theology over Christ’s teachings, and the hymns and rituals. I resent having to sacrifice my Sundays mouthing words I do not believe.

Published: January 18, 2026, 6:00 am

E.ON cancelled £13,000 bill it sent to my late mother, but still owes £3,360

A bereaved young customer was baffled by the wildly fluctuating balances the energy supplier claimed on a family’s account

When my mother died of cancer, my aunt adopted me. She, too, died of cancer in 2024. At 26, I am now alone and struggling to deal with enormous, nonsensical energy bills from E.ON Next.

In 2022, I discovered my aunt had been paying massively inflated bills for the flat I shared with her, so I had the account closed and a new one set up in my name. An E.ON agent took meter readings, a smart meter was installed, and a final bill sent showing the account was more than £6,000 in credit. E.ON wouldn’t let me have it in cash, so the credit was transferred to the new account and used to pay the bills for the next two years.

Published: January 19, 2026, 7:00 am

Cancer charity to expand nutrition lessons after trial cut NHS waiting lists

Maggie’s describes approach that uses food to help patients with recovery as ‘win-win’ and calls for collaboration in new government strategy

A leading cancer charity will offer nutrition lessons to patients across Great Britain after a trial showed the classes help them to negotiate the disease’s dietary challenges – and cut NHS waiting times.

Many people with cancer find that the disease or their treatment changes the taste of their food, dulls their appetite or leads to them losing weight.

Published: January 18, 2026, 4:23 pm

Ed Zitron on big tech, backlash, boom and bust: ‘AI has taught us that people are excited to replace human beings’

His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he’s no longer the outsider he once was

If some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about “how the AI bubble burst”, Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He’s the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who’s become one of big tech’s noisiest critics.

This is not to say the AI bubble will burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron’s blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where’s Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he’s a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself – one user describes him as “a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit”.

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 am

More than 60 Labour MPs urge Starmer to back under-16s social media ban

Exclusive: Letter signed by figures on right and left of party says UK should follow Australia’s example by enacting ban

More than 60 Labour MPs have written to Keir Starmer urging him to back a social media ban for under-16s, with peers due to vote on the issue this week.

The MPs, who include select committee chairs, former frontbenchers and MPs from the right and left of the party, are looking to put pressure on the prime minister as calls mount for the UK to follow Australia’s precedent.

Published: January 18, 2026, 3:00 pm

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow

AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

I am a science-fiction writer, which means that my job is to make up futuristic parables about our current techno-social arrangements to interrogate not just what a gadget does, but who it does it for, and who it does it to.

What I do not do is predict the future. No one can predict the future, which is a good thing, since if the future were predictable, that would mean we couldn’t change it.

Published: January 18, 2026, 2:00 pm

‘Still here!’: X’s Grok AI tool accessible in Malaysia and Indonesia despite ban

Experts warn use of VPNs makes it hard to limit access to technology that can create nonconsensual explicit images

Days after Malaysia made global headlines by announcing it would temporarily ban Grok over its ability to generate “grossly offensive and nonconsensual manipulated images”, the generative AI tool was conversing breezily with accounts registered in the country.

“Still here! That DNS block in Malaysia is pretty lightweight – easy to bypass with a VPN or DNS tweak,” Grok’s account on X said in response to a question from a user.

Published: January 18, 2026, 9:39 am

I tested the best US pizza makers costing $129 to $2,800. Here's what was worth the price

I spent weeks testing popular at-home pizza tools. Here’s what I found was worth the money, no matter your budget

• Far from ‘upcharged grape juice’: the 13 best nonalcoholic wines in the US

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

It’s never been easier to make pizza at home. And today’s pizza-making gear is more capable and approachable than you might think.

The price range for at-home pizza gear is as wide as the topping choices. On the simple, affordable end, there is the humble carbon-steel slab that slides into the oven you already own – it’s like a basic cheese pie.

Best budget pizza maker:
Baking Steel’s Baking Steel Original

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:00 pm

Readers reply: should speed cameras be hidden?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: How can we learn from unrequited love?

What’s the point of having speed limits if camera-warning signs and apps allow drivers to slow down in advance – then just continue speeding? Maybe the UK government in its new consultations on road safety should add the question of hiding speed cameras to their list of concerns. I’m a driver, but also a pedestrian and cyclist and get fed up with seeing cars zooming down local roads at way more than 20 or 30mph. There are flashing lights that tell drivers what speed they’re doing, but there’s no penalty for going over at those points. Amy, Cornwall

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

Published: January 18, 2026, 2:00 pm

How can we defend ourselves from the new plague of ‘human fracking’?

Big tech treats our attention like a resource to be mercilessly extracted. The fightback begins here

In the last 15 years, a linked series of unprecedented technologies have changed the experience of personhood across most of the world. It is estimated that nearly 70% of the human population of the Earth currently possesses a smartphone, and these devices constitute about 95% of internet access-points on the planet. Globally, on average, people seem to spend close to half their waking hours looking at screens, and among young people in the rich world the number is a good deal higher than that.

History teaches that new technologies always make possible new forms of exploitation, and this basic fact has been spectacularly exemplified by the rise of society-scale digital platforms. It has been driven by a remarkable new way of extracting money from human beings: call it “human fracking”. Just as petroleum frackers pump high-pressure, high-volume detergents into the ground to force a little monetisable black gold to the surface, human frackers pump high-pressure, high-volume detergent into our faces (in the form of endless streams of addictive slop and maximally disruptive user-generated content), to force a slurry of human attention to the surface, where they can collect it, and take it to market.

Published: January 18, 2026, 12:00 pm

Why the Lumie Bodyclock Glow sunrise alarm clock is the best wake-up under the sun

Our reviewer loved this wake-up light more than any other he’s tested – it’s even knocked his previous best sunrise alarm off the top spot

• Read the full ranking in our sunrise alarm clock test

Since I first tested sunrise alarm clocks last winter, I’ve come to suspect that there’s no such thing as getting up on the wrong side of bed. What we ought to be worried about is waking up on the wrong side of dawn.

During summer (and other times of the year, for late risers), the sunrise begins to rouse us before we wake up. The brain kicks into gear and sends signals to initiate all sorts of bodily processes, from metabolism to hormone release, which helps us to feel ready for the day. It’s a fundament of our circadian rhythm – and we miss out on it whenever we wake before it gets light.

Published: January 18, 2026, 7:00 am

A beginner’s guide to Arc Raiders: what it is and how you start playing

Embark Studios’ multiplayer extraction shooter game has already sold 12m copies in just three months. Will it capture you too?

Released last October Arc Raiders has swiftly become one of the most successful online shooters in the world, shifting 12m copies in barely three months and attracting as many players as established mega hits such as Counter-Strike 2 and Apex Legends. So what is it about this sci-fi blaster that’s captured so many people – and how can you get involved?

So what is Arc Raiders?

Published: January 19, 2026, 3:35 pm

Positive thinking could boost immune response to vaccines, say scientists

People picturing positive experiences found to produce more antibodies, hinting at future clinical potential

Positive thoughts may boost the immune system according to research that points to a connection between the mind and our body’s natural defences.

Scientists have found people who used positive thinking to boost activity in the brain’s reward system responded better to vaccination, with their immune systems producing more antibodies than others after having the shot.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:08 pm

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows

Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use.

Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker from a small town in Carinthia near the Italian border, keeps Veronika as a pet and noticed that she occasionally played with sticks and used them to scratch her body.

Published: January 19, 2026, 4:00 pm

Simple blood test can predict which breast cancer treatment will work best, study finds

Exclusive: DNA test means patients could be offered most effective treatment first, boosting their chances of beating the disease

Scientists have developed a simple DNA blood test that can predict how well patients with breast cancer will respond to treatment.

More than 2 million people globally each year are diagnosed with the disease, which is the world’s most prevalent cancer. Although treatments have improved in recent decades, it is not easy to know which ones will work best for which patients.

Published: January 18, 2026, 3:26 pm

Scientists warn of ‘regime shift’ as seaweed blooms expand worldwide

Study links rapid growth of ocean macroalgae to global heating and nutrient pollution

Scientists have warned of a potential “regime shift” in the oceans, as the rapid growth of huge mats of seaweed appears to be driven by global heating and excessive enrichment of waters from farming runoff and other pollutants.

Over the past two decades, seaweed blooms have expanded by a staggering 13.4% a year in the tropical Atlantic and western Pacific, with the most dramatic increases occurring after 2008, according to researchers at the University of South Florida.

Published: January 19, 2026, 10:00 am

15 years after Fukushima, Japan prepares to restart the world’s biggest nuclear plant

A return to nuclear power is at the heart of Japan’s energy policy but, in the wake of the 2011 disaster, residents’ fears about tsunamis, earthquakes and evacuation plans remain

The activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is reaching its peak: workers remove earth to expand the width of a main road, while lorries arrive at its heavily guarded entrance. A long perimeter fence is lined with countless coils of razor wire, and in a layby, a police patrol car monitors visitors to the beach – one of the few locations with a clear view of the reactors, framed by a snowy Mount Yoneyama.

When all seven of its reactors are working, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa generates 8.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power millions of households. Occupying 4.2 sq km of land in Niigata prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, it is the biggest nuclear power plant in the world.

Published: January 19, 2026, 1:46 am

Starwatch: Watch the crescent moon pass Saturn as dusk gathers

Earth’s satellite will be visible in conjunction with the ringed planet as twilight gives way to darkness

A slender crescent moon slides past Saturn this week, offering a rewarding conjunction. It will be the perfect way to start your evening, a little quiet contemplation of the night sky as the evening twilight gives way to full darkness.

The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 18:00 GMT, although the pair will have been visible from the moment dusk begins to gather.

Published: January 19, 2026, 6:00 am

The sudden rise of scabies: ‘I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy’

These microscopic mites, which burrow under your skin and cause ferocious itching, are incredibly hard to get rid of – and cases in the UK have soared. What is causing the outbreak, and is there anything we can do about it?

Louise (not her real name) is listing the contents of a bin liner she has packed with fresh essentials in case of emergency. Clothes, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, a teddy … “Although it should be two teddies,” she re-evaluates, quickly. I can hear her trying to quell her panic.

A diehard survivalist preparing for catastrophe? Actually, a beleaguered 44-year-old mother recovering from scabies – an itchy rash caused by microscopic mites that burrow under human skin. Far-fetched as it sounds, emergency evacuation is exactly what she, her partner and children (six and four) resorted to in November in a desperate bid to beat the bugs. She is now on tenterhooks in case they return.

Published: January 18, 2026, 2:00 pm

Nasa moon rocket creeps to its launchpad in preparation for astronaut flight

First journey around moon with astronauts in more than 50 years could blast off in February

Nasa’s giant new moon rocket has moved to the launchpad in preparation for astronauts’ first lunar fly-around in more than half a century. The trip could blast off in February.

The 98-metre (322ft) rocket began its 1mph (1.6km/h) creep from Kennedy Space Center’s vehicle assembly building at daybreak. The trek of 4 miles took until nightfall.

Published: January 18, 2026, 9:44 am

The Guardian view on microplastics research: questioning results is good for science, but has political consequences | Editorial

Errors in measuring microplastic pollution can be corrected. Public trust in science also needs to be shored up

It is true that science is self-correcting. Over the long term this means that we can generally trust its results – but up close, correction can be a messy process. The Guardian reported last week that 20 recent studies measuring the amount of micro- and nanoplastics in the human body have been criticised in the scientific literature for methodological issues, calling their results into question. In one sense this is the usual process playing out as it should. However, the scale of the potential error – one scientist estimates that half the high-impact papers in the field are affected – suggests a systemic problem that should have been prevented.

The risk is that in a febrile political atmosphere in which trust in science is being actively eroded on issues from climate change to vaccinations, even minor scientific conflicts can be used to sow further doubt. Given that there is immense public and media interest in plastic pollution, it is unfortunate that scientists working in this area did not show more caution.

Published: January 18, 2026, 5:58 pm

Weight-loss drugs do nothing to address the troubled relationships we have with our bodies | Susie Orbach

The food, beauty and pharmaceutical industries poison our self-image. GLP-1 drugs will only make them richer – and strengthen the hold they have over us

Fifty years ago, I started thinking about the demand for women to look a certain way and the rebellions against the narrow ways in which we were supposed to display (and not display) our bodies. For a while, there was a conversation about the strictures. Some young women refused to conform. Some women risked being in the bodies they had rather than embodying the dominant images of being Madonna or the whore. But troubled eating abounded, even if it wasn’t always visible, stoked by the food and diet industries and their bedfellows in the beauty and fashion industries. These industries targeted appearance as crucial to girls’ and women’s identity and their place in the world.

Today, a new kind of troubled eating is stalking the land, entirely induced by the new GLP-1 weight-loss drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies and promoted by their willing agents on social media. It is totally understandable that people want relief from obsessive and invasive thoughts about their bodies and food. The explosion of GLP-1 drugs has provided a kind of psychological peace for many who feel less frightened of their appetites.

Susie Orbach is a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst and social critic. She is the author of many books, including Bodies and Fat Is a Feminist Issue

Published: January 18, 2026, 10:00 am

Nasa boldly goes as far away as possible | Brief letters

Alien lifeforms | Power of prayer | Corned beef | Remembering birthdays | Celebrity old-age home

Your article (Nasa moon rocket creeps to its launchpad in preparation for astronaut flight, 18 January) quotes the crew commander of Artemis II, Reid Wiseman: “They are so fired up that we are headed back to the moon. They just want to see humans as far away from Earth as possible.” I imagine that most of Earth’s lifeforms would agree.
Pete Stockwell
St Buryan, Cornwall

• Ravi Holy’s thought-provoking article on the power and purpose of prayer (19 January) reminded me of a favourite cartoon. Two monks are sitting on either side of a chess board and about to start a new game, with one of them saying: “Right, this time praying’s cheating.”
Matthew Newman
Leeds

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:53 pm

Did you solve it? Are you cut out for these puzzling slices?

The answers to today’s puzzles

Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Bonnie Tiler

Published: January 19, 2026, 5:00 pm

Can you solve it? Are you cut out for these puzzling slices?

Or will they have you in pieces?

Today’s puzzles are all geometrical, and all from the mind of the UK’s most enduring and eloquent popular maths writer, Ian Stewart.

1. Bonnie Tiler

Published: January 18, 2026, 7:10 am