However, it’s not real Martians they’re after. They're looking for four plucky volunteers to spend a year living on Mars. Don’t do it. I’m not expert but I saw a film with Matt Damon in it and you have to poo on your potatoes or something.
Not only are they not looking for real Martians it’s not the actual Mars, it’s a 3D-printed replica of it. In reality they’re looking for four people who hate people so much they want to lock themselves away. And who wouldn’t want to spend a year locked up with people like that?
It’s for NASA's Chapea programme (that's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog for those of you who love a good acronym). The aim? To develop and test the systems that will be used by the first astronauts to visit Mars, with missions planned for the 2030s. So, best case scenario, you DON’T go mad.
The lucky (or should that be brave?) volunteers will be living in a cosy 1,700 sq ft habitat called Mars Dune Alpha. The might seem small for some so they should recruit from people who live in London who would love that much space.
It's designed to simulate the challenges of a Mars mission, including resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays. It’s like being on the 3 mobile network.
The crew will undertake simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and even crop growth in the computer-generated reconstruction of the Martian surface.
It might seem silly doing all of this pretend stuff, but remember many people spend their evenings playing computer games pretending they’re answering the Call of Duty, so it’s not too bad.
There are a few requirements. You'll need a university degree in engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science, and subsequent experience in those fields, or 1,000 hours as a pilot.
If you are a qualified pilot and you want to spend a year grounded, trapped in a space that’s too small to fly in, you probably weren’t a great pilot anyway.
It seems like a faff now but imagine how good that gig would have been to get just before the pandemic.
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It's the "silver surfers" who are keeping the photocopiers warm with their, ahem, extracurricular activities. That could possibly be explained by the fact that young workers like to work from home these days. It is much harder to have a romp in the stationery cupboard when you only Zoom in once a week.
You’d have to travel in specially, book the stationery cupboard out, find someone who’s up for some fun in there. It’s a big faff.
In the poll of 2,000 office workers, a whopping 9.5% of those aged 65-75 confessed to getting, ahem, "friendly" with a colleague in the office in the past year. And that’s just the ones that can remember it.
That's almost ten times the number of Gen Z-ers who admitted to the same.
While the young people get flack for their “quiet quitting” at least they spend their time at work doing some work, not doing someone from accounts.
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The study, commissioned by an app called Lingo, found that the average person gets only six hours of shut-eye a night, two hours less than the NHS recommends. Although I don’t know if you have ever tried to get sleep in an NHS ward. They need to get their own house in order.
But why are we so bad at sleeping? Is it the stress of work, the lure of Netflix, or the constant fear of missing out on something more exciting than counting sheep? It depends on if you’re into sheep, I suppose.
According to Dr Noreen Nguru, a doctor and sleep specialist, there are ten common bedtime habits that are ruining our chances of a good night’s rest. And some of them might surprise you. But I hope not because I surprise can’t help you sleep either.
Did you know that reading before bed can actually keep you awake? Dr Nguru says: “Anything that elevates your heart rate and stress hormones – even a passionate discussion – can make it tough to fall asleep.” You need a boring book? I’m still selling mine on Amazon.
Another thing you might be doing wrong is using the wrong toothpaste. Apparently, strong mint-based products can stimulate your brain and make you alert, just like a cup of coffee. Try rohypnol flavour instead.
But don’t get too cosy in bed, especially if you have a partner. Dr Nguru warns that having lots of sex before bed can actually make you too hot to sleep. But on the other hand you would have just had some sex, so stop complaining.
And finally, don’t skip the cuppa. Contrary to popular belief, drinking tea won’t stop you from sleeping, as long as you don’t drink it too close to bedtime. In fact, a 2020 study found that tea drinkers in Northern Ireland slept longer and better than those in the South West, who drank less tea. Dr Nguru says that tea contains properties that reduce stress and promote relaxation.
Hang on. Surely sex also reduces stress and promotes relaxation though. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. Or making tea wrongly.
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It’s a fool’s plan. What’s the incentive for your child? Lose as many teeth as possible and you’ll get nice things?
According to a recent survey by Delta Dental, the average amount of money that children receive for a lost tooth has tripled in the past two decades, from $1.88 in 2001 to $6.24 in 2023. We keep looking for the source of the painful inflation that has hit us hard. I think we’ve got it.
Some parents are also leaving behind expensive items such as video games, iPhones, and even designer jewellery. Why? Is the tooth fairy trying to fence some stolen goods?
Mark Burhenne, a former dentist who runs the website AsktheDentist.com, attributed this trend to parental competition and guilt.
As a parent I have felt guilty from time to time but never enough to buy a new iPhone. What the hell have those parents done that means they have to do that? Buy some flowers and be better.
Mark said of the parents, “They feel bad that they don’t spend enough time with their kids, so they try to make up for it with extravagant gifts.”
From the point of view of the child, I think it’s a good deal. If you go to work but buy me nice stuff, I’d be OK with that. But why do I have to lose teeth first?
Meanwhile, in the UK, known for its dentistry but not in a good way, Natasha Evans, from Cheshire, said that she gave her daughter three one-pound coins and two chocolate coins.
There’s nothing like giving sugar to your child when they are just about to get their adult teeth. Sadly, when you have a tooth pulled by a dentist when you’re a fully grown adult, YOU have to pay THEM.
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I suppose the difference is that on a self assessment form you make it look like you’re earning less so you pay less tax, Donald made it look like he had more money.
Trump was found guilty of business fraud by Judge Arthur Engoron, who also banned him from being a company director or borrowing money from banks in the state for three years.
That part of the punishment won’t bother Trump at all. He won’t need to borrow money for three years, his release date won’t be till 2036.
The judge said Mr Trump and his cronies had inflated the worth of their properties by hundreds of millions of dollars to secure favourable loans and tax breaks, while deflating them to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
This kind of thing is what business people probably do all the time but it’s either (I) you expect better from elected leaders or (ii) don’t get caught.
In a scathing 92-page ruling (which means Trump won’t read it), Judge Engoron said Mr Trump and his co-defendants, including his two adult sons Donald Jr and Eric, had shown "complete lack of contrition and remorse" and were likely to continue their "fraudulent ways" unless he imposed a "significant" penalty.
Mr Trump, who narrowly escaped having some of his companies dissolved, which could have led to bankruptcy, said he would appeal the ruling, calling it a "political witch hunt" by the "crooked" judge.
So they nailed that “lack of contrition and remorse” bit.
Speaking from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he spends most of his time golfing and ranting on social media, Mr Trump said: "I'm the best president ever, and everyone knows it. I won the election by a landslide, but they stole it from me. They're all very bad people. Very bad."
That last bit might not be true but it’s a good guess.
Trump supporters say this will make him even more popular. They’re probably right, so I’m sure they’ll stop moaning about it. Maybe.
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Walkers has just released two new flavours of crisps that fans can't stop raving about on Facebook. It makes a change from using your time on Facebook to claim that climate change/COVID/Meghan Markle doesn’t exist, so let’s take it as a win.
One of the new flavours is Crushed Sea Salt and Black Peppercorn. That story again: “Walkers invents… salt and pepper!” They’ll be working on the wheel next.
But what they have actually done is take the words “salt and pepper” and add a lot of middle-class words to them. It’s like adding value but not really. Middle-class people like extra words on their food. They don’t want chicken, they want locally sourced, free-range, corn fed chicken. If it has a CV longer than mine they want to eat it.
The only problem is that middle-class people don’t want to eat crisps. If they do they’ll put them in a bowl and serve them with dips, which makes the brand of the crisps rather pointless.
The other new flavour is Mature Cheddar and Chilli Chutney. At least they made a bit of a change to cheese and onion there.
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The trouble is, this survey has looked at who wants to have offspring for the rest of their lives. If these stats are true we risk dying out.
The reasons given are interesting. Some girls are scared of pregnancy and childbirth. As a father, I have recently witnessed these stages and I can say that childbirth was easy. I mainly sat there and had snacks. I hope that advice helps.
He pregnancy was harder for me. For some reasons dads seems to gain weight as the mothers-to-be do but we don’t get to push 8lbs out of a hole at the end of nine months, which makes getting your pre-birth weight harder for the fathers. I know, there’ll be so much sympathy for that.
The other reason given for not wanting children is the "turbulent state of the world" and climate change. But if you don’t have children, who can go on to study, become clever and solve the worlds problems, how will the mess ever be fixed. Obviously if you come from a family of people who don’t do much in the brain department feel free to sit this one out.
Also on the list of reasons is that teenagers think that children are a nuisance. Well, that one is hard to defend against. They are. I currently have a toddler and a newborn. One will drop to the floor to have a tantrum if he hears the word no and the other poos herself all day. You can’t get away with those behaviours when you’re not a child. I know, I’ve tried.
So what does this mean for the future of humanity if our teenagers will never reproduce? Do we only have one generation left?
Well, there are decisions I would have made as a teen that I wouldn’t make now. I see old pictures of me and those glasses frames I picked showed I wasn’t to be trued to make big decisions.
Also, Mother Nature has a trick up her sleeve. Most animals don’t choose to have children, but they reach a stage in their lives when they quite fancy a bit of sex.
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As soon as Doctor Who’s credits had finished on Christmas Day the shops were already stocking their shelves with chocolate eggs. That’s a three month stretch of eating like it’s Easter weekend. This year is a leap year too so there’s another day of eating Creme Eggs.
This calorific year quarter has been made even less healthy thanks to a team up between Cadbury’s and Domino's. They’re selling a cookie that contains a whole Creme Egg. It’s the kind of food item you’d normally only make for a pregnant woman.
It’s even upset people in the House of Lords. Lord Bethell posted scathing tweets calling this Frankenstein dessert “disgusting”. He added, “These are serious corporate food companies. What are they thinking?"
I can answer that. They are thinking of making food that is full of fat and sugar that we want to buy so they can make a lot of money. It’s what they all do.
I know Lord Bethell means well but you have Domino’s, a company that makes its money from telling topped bread to people in 13.5-inch slabs, and Cadbury’s, a company that sells us chocolate. You can’t expect them teaming up to make a salad.
The Lord went on, “It’s not illegal. But it’s harmful,” which is almost Phillip Schofield’s excuse.
A spokesperson for Domino's tried to defend the move saying, “We know our customers love to share our existing cookies, and we expect they will do the same with the new Creme Egg cookies."
That takes the biscuit, pun intended. These companies that flog sugar to us always pass the blame for the gluttony onto us. They add the words “to share” on their bags of chocolates even though they know we aren’t going to share. It’s as bad as the “drink responsibly” tags on alcohol moving all the blame onto us.
While his complaints are well meaning there has to be personal responsibility and if two companies that sell you bad food team up to make a super-treat, don’t go thinking it’s health food.
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It’s early days but it seems like good news. I can only imagine how many of those blue pills they’re cramming down Joe Biden at the moment.
At last year’s Edinburgh Fringe my solo show was all about my late parents and their Alzheimer’s. I wish this news had broken before I put that show together. It’s hard to write jokes about such an experience but if I had the option of having material about Viagra I would have been doing the, “Can you get it over the counter,” jokes.
It’s important to note that the research has only found a statistical link. The men who used Viagra seem to have less Alzheimer’s but they haven’t found a causal link. It could be that having less chance of Alzheimer’s means you’re more likely to use Viagra, which is a fair swap.
In researching my show I found other things that are linked to keeping a healthier memory as you age. It might not be the drug itself, it could be the romantic result. Being sexually active is good for you. In 2014 researchers at the University of Maryland found middle-aged rats made more brain cells in the hippocampus after mating. I don’t find rats that attractive so I’ll rule that one out.
Research from Kyoto University found a link between standing on one leg and having better brain health. You have to pick a lane here. It’s either standing on one leg or taking Viagra. You can’t really do both.
There are some suggestions that are more useful. They say that eating chocolate can improve brain function. If that were really the case I’d be like Einstein but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.
Red wine has flavonoids, which are good for us too. Plus grapes are technically one of your five-a-day. So that’s the health food sorted.
Listening to power ballads has been shown to boost brain performance. With some of the slow, overly sentimental songs from the 1980s I assume this evolved so our brains could quickly work out how to turn the radio off before Mariah kicks in.
In conclusion, if you want to keep your brain in good health for years to come there are some simple steps you can take. Put on some soft music, get out the wine and chocolate and have some Viagra. With advice like that I trust your Valentine’s Days will be memorable too.
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The research found that drivers who tune in to speech-based radio rather than music may be more likely to crash. One theory is that it’s the made dash to change the channel as soon as you hear The Archers theme tune.
Researchers found volunteers drove too fast, drifted out of their lane and frequently forgot to indicate when they were distracted by radio chatter. It seems hard to believe as not much of the chatter on Radio 4 is that gripping. If listening to someone moan about the returns policy on their new blender on You And Yours gets you distracted you were not really paying attention to the road in the first place.
Although tuning into musical stations also increased the error rate, it was to a much lesser extent. That is worrying. As someone who presents a music-based radio show every weekday I am concerned about my death toll.
It was experts at the National Institute of Technology in India who recruited 64 young men and got them to repeatedly complete a seven-mile journey in a built-up area using a driving simulator.
Hang on. They were in India. If they were listening to Radio 4 the size of the aerial will be part of why they drove so badly.
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It’s like she’s trying to make her career collapse faster that a RAAC school.
Thanks to some of our schools being made out of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete some schools are at risk of collapse. Why was this type on concrete used? Apparently one of the reasons is that it’s lighter than standard concrete. Yeah, that’s the big problem we’d been having with schools. They were just too heavy. Thank god they fixed that.
Some classes have been moved into temporary spaces, and instead of being contrite about the mess, Gillian has claimed that pupils actually prefer it. She said, “In the first school I went to the children were all petitioning me to stay in the portacabin because they actually preferred it to the classroom.”
Now, she may be right. Let’s remember, the choice the kids are facing here is a portacabin or a building that might collapse on you. Out of those two, yeah, you’d prefer the portacabin.
It’s actually quite easy to get people to say they prefer option A when the other option is having a building collapse on them.
When you see those adverts that say 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskers, in the small print it explains, “...to having a building on them.” Cats are smart like that.
Also, these are kids. They’d prefer most things to being in a classroom. “Another day in school learning about trigonometry, or a day sat in a sweaty box like you’re a construction gang working on some new builds?”
Downing Street defended Ms Keegan. The PM’s official spokesman said she was simply “reflecting a conversation”. The Education Secretary was relaying the chat she had with a child. Thanks for the useful information.
What were we meant to do with that news? Are we to think, “What’s that, children like portacabins? Well, in that case, I’m actually glad the situation was handled so badly it was left till days before the term started that some children found out if they’d be getting an education.”
The spokesperson also said that PM Rishi Sunak still had full confidence in her, which is an omen on a par with saying you can’t wait to get home to your pregnant wife in a war film.
It’s not like Gillian Keegan has been know for responding with contrition before. She was recently in the news when she was caught on mic after an ITV interview saying, “Does anyone ever say: ‘You know what, you’ve done a f***ing good job, because everyone else has sat on their a*se and done nothing?’ No signs of that, no?"
Yes, Gillian. People do say that. But they say that to people who have done a f***ing good job. I wonder why you haven’t heard it.
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It’s Pamela Schilderman who spent two years working on Ecology Now, which is the exhibit that she really put herself into. It’s a comment of the concept of humans being the height of evolution. Although you could also spin it as a comment on the cost of living crisis and a top tip on how to save money on pencils and paint.
We’re all lucky she’s not going through her brown period.
Of all of the works I feel that the one with her fingernails is the most impressive. We can all churn out a pint of blood (the equivalent to an armful in old measures, you’ll remember) and if you want to produce a lot of saliva you can train yourself with a bell (which is an even more dated cultural reference).
Getting a lot of fingernails takes dedication. Sure, you can take a multivitamin to help but it’s still a long-term project.
Give it a few weeks and this will turn into one of those stories when a cleaner saw some muck, cleared it up, and accidentally threw away a work of art.
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I suppose it is impressive that we can eat things we have printed. You were always able to do this if you really wanted to but it would have tasted a bit like paper.
While this is good news for a few nerds and probably great news for some real squid who will be happy to be replaced by the printed variety, this probably won’t affect many of us.
It’s actually a protein concoction that’s made from algae and beans or something that’s very Holland and Barrett, but they claim it tastes like squid.
The problem with this claim is that squid doesn’t really taste of anything, so it’s easy to copy. In a blind taste test it’s hard to tell squid rings from the little beige elastic bands that postmen leave everywhere. It’s basically the salt that saves them.
I’m still wary of trying 3D-printed food. I’m no Luddite but I know what it’s like try to print with my normal 2D laserjet. I’m worried that I’ll die of hunger while still trying to get the WiFi to connect.
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