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Hitchens' perspective stems from his travels to Iran almost two decades ago - a visit that, he reveals, profoundly changed how he sees the nation.

ChatGPT-assisted writing dampened brain activity and recall in a controlled MIT study [PDF] of 54 college volunteers divided into AI-only, search-engine, and no-tool groups. Electroencephalography recorded during three essay-writing sessions found the AI group consistently showed the weakest neural connectivity across all measured frequency bands; the tool-free group showed the strongest, with search users in between. In the first session 83% of ChatGPT users could not quote any line they had just written and none produced a correct quote. Only nine of the 18 claimed full authorship of their work, compared with 16 of 18 in the brain-only cohort. Neural coupling in the AI group declined further over repeated use. When these participants were later asked to write without assistance, frontal-parietal networks remained subdued and 78% again failed to recall a single sentence accurately. The pattern reversed for students who first wrote unaided: introducing ChatGPT in a crossover session produced the highest connectivity sums in alpha, theta, beta and delta bands, indicating intense integration of AI suggestions with prior knowledge. The MIT authors warn that habitual reliance on large language models "accumulates cognitive debt," trading immediate fluency for weaker memory, reduced self-monitoring, and narrowed neural engagement.

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Katarina Polonská, an Oxford-educated relationship coach, said that intimacy between two partners breaks down due to one particular behavior.

This is no ordinary gang - and since its founding in the late 1990s it has risen to become one of Merseyside's most feared and powerful criminal outfits.

Land Rover has unveiled a new special-edition Defender to pay homage to a classic model that proved the incredible off-road capabilities of the British 4X4s in the 1980s.

After buying a mansion for £3.6million, flattening it and rebuilding it over five long years, Calvin Harris has discovered that a bus route roars right past - allowing anyone on board to look right into his house.

The Japanese car firm announced it was pulling out of the UK market - and Europe as a whole - in 2020 following a sales crash triggered by the pandemic. But it could soon return...

The Air India plane that crashed and killed at least 270 people last week had one of its engines recently replaced, the airline's chairman has revealed. 

Ryanair has hit back at a couple who vowed they will 'never fly with the airline again' after their decision to not pay extra to reserve seats ended up getting them kicked off the flight.

Royal Ascot is one of the highlights of the racing season and the prestigious Berkshire event is often bookmarked in calendars and this year the style stakes were high.

Fire crews have prevented a van fire at an A12 petrol station near Feering from spreading to the pumps.

A psychic who has accurately predicted a number of monumental world events has made a new forecast about Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos ' relationship.

Pope Leo XIV still holds close ties to his homegrown roots in the city of Chicago where he was born and raised. One of the ways he does this is through his love of the MLB's Chicago White Sox.

The man was then rushed to hospital

Failed Albanian asylum seeker Meklant Braha, 20, who struck a man with a corkscrew in a fracas outside a nightclub has walked free from court.

A man, in his 20s, was reportedly assaulted

Turki Al-Jasser, who was in his late 40s, was put to death on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, after the death penalty was upheld by the nation's top court.

Going through a split can be extremely stressful. Thankfully, decluttering expert Lesley Spellman shared tips to organizing your life, mind, and home post-breakup exclusively with the Daily Mail.

More than two years after the outbreak of Covid-19, North Korea finally declared it had recorded its very first case of the virus. In reality, North Koreans had been suffering worse than anyone else

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Foreign students will be required to unlock their social media profiles to allow US diplomats to review their online activity before receiving educational and exchange visas, the state department has announced. Those who fail to do so will be suspected of hiding that activity from US officials. The new guidance, unveiled by the state department on Wednesday, directs US diplomats to conduct an online presence review to look for "any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States." A cable separately obtained by Politico also instructs diplomats to flag any "advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to US national security" and "support for unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence." The screening for "antisemitic" activity matches similar guidance given at US Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Department of Homeland Security and has been criticized as an effort to crack down on opposition to the conduct of Israel's war in Gaza. The new state department checks are directed at students and other applicants for visas in the F, M and J categories, which refer to academic and vocational education, as well as cultural exchanges. "It is an expectation from American citizens that their government will make every effort to make our country safer, and that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing every single day," said a senior state department official, adding that Marco Rubio was "helping to make America and its universities safer while bringing the state Department into the 21st century."

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