Education watchdog Ofsted says poor children are now let down by schools in rural areas, leafy suburbs and deprived coastal towns - not the inner cities.

England's NHS regulator is to review a decision not to name those behind a possible "cover-up" after a series of baby deaths at a Cumbria hospital.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is set to reopen the debate about genetic modification by calling for the reform of crop licensing at EU level.

George Osborne uses his Mansion House speech to the City to announce the government is preparing to sell its Lloyds Bank stake back to private investors.

Too many mentally ill people are being held in police cells, say four watchdog bodies.

A study by Reuters suggests more people are becoming willing to buy online news, but warns that social media may be eroding brand recognition.

Providers of the government's flagship Work Programme tell ministers the costs of helping sick and disabled jobseekers into employment cannot be met under the scheme.

The families of missing people are set to get more power to deal with legal and financial issues in the initial months after the disappearance.

Voters are set to go to the polls in the Aberdeen Donside Holyrood by-election, after the death of the SNP MSP Brian Adam.

jQuery is definitely a great tool when it comes to front-end web development. Today, I'm sharing with you a bunch of super useful jQuery snippets from my personal favorites.

Spam is a nuisance and every blogger have to deal with it. As a WordPress user, I bet you already use Akismet, which is definitely a great way to reduce spam. But several other tricks can definitely help. Here are my favorite WordPress hacks and code snippets to reduce spam on your blog.

Every web developer should keep useful code snippets in a personal library for future reference. Today, I'm showing you the 10 most useful snippets and functions I have added to my snippet library from the past 3 months.

Want to enhance your website with the latest tools available? In this article, I have compiled a bunch of super useful tools to enhance your website and take it to the next level.

If you run a blog, you probably already had to face the problem of content scraping: Some people steal your content to display it on their own blog, usually with lots of Adsense ads. Here are a few useful code snippets to help protect your blog against scrapers.

WordPress built-in search engine is often cited as one of the weak points of the popular blogging platform. In this article, I have compiled several code snippets to make WordPress search engine a lot better.

For years, Flash has been the most popular solution for playing videos on the web. But the HTML5 specification is bringing a new solution, HTML5 videos. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to use HTML5 to display videos on your website.

When building responsive websites, jQuery can be very helpful. In today's article, I have compiled a list of jQuery plugins that will definitely help you building more responsive and usable websites.

WordPress is my favorite tool for building blogs and websites. In this article, I have compiled the most useful resources for WordPress developers I came across in the past 3 years.

How do you prepare for a lifetime of renting?

As witnesses die, will the Holocaust be forgotten?

The 13-year-old taking fashion blogging by storm

The strange linguistic legacy of the telegram

The street that's peppered with 18 betting shops

How often do children die of hunger?

Why were there no ties at the G8 summit?

People who survived dramatic plummets

Why are so many of UK's missing children Vietnamese?

England prop Alex Corbisiero is the surprise inclusion in the Lions team for the first Test against Australia on Saturday.

Royal Ascot feature race could go to Queen-owned filly.

England cruise into the final of the Champions Trophy with a convincing seven-wicket victory over South Africa at The Oval.

Chris Froome says he is coming into his prime as he bids to emulate Sir Bradley Wiggins by winning the Tour de France

Italy defeat Japan 4-3 to win a pulsating match that seals their place in the last four of the Confederations Cup.

A Neymar-inspired Brazil defeat Mexico to secure the hosts' place in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup.

Australia name Israel Folau among three debutants for Saturday's first Test against the British & Irish Lions in Brisbane.

Readers offer their best tips for fixing blurry shots from your Android camera, turning off annoying Windows 8 gestures, and tricking your kids with Jedi mind techniques.Read more...    

Whether everyone's on your case, you aren't feeling motivated, or you just feel like you suck at something, we all feel a little discouraged from time to time. This English proverb reminds us that discouragement isn't for naught.Read more...    

If you've read our features on how to protect your privacy and stop everyone from tracking you on the web, you've heard us mention Ghostery. It's a solid privacy tool, but Mashable reports that you should stay away from its opt-in "GhostRank" feature, which sells data on the ads you block to the ad companies themselves.Read more...    

Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!Read more...    

Kotaku Microsoft Is Removing Xbox One DRM | Gawker Paula Deen Says 'Of Course' She Uses the N-Word | Jezebel This Week in Tabloids: Kanye Didn't Give Kim a Blingy Push Present | Lifehacker Why You're Not a Morning Person (and How to Become One) | Valleywag Jenn Allen Not Backing Down on Michael Arrington Rape ClaimsRead more...    

At 6 AM, most of us are lucky if we have the energy to reach for a cup of coffee. Mornings may be rough, but hold off on sleeping in. There are perks to waking up with the sun, and we've got some tips on making it easier. Read more...    

Summer's upon us and it's the best time of year for a road trip. If you can't go yourself, go for a drive via your desktop with these road-friendly wallpapers.Read more...    

This could be the biggest backtrack in gaming history: Microsoft will reverse course on their DRM policies for Xbox One, dropping their 24-hour Internet check-in requirement and all restrictions on used games.Read more...    

We've all seen those little feet that extend out of our keyboards, but did you ever ask what they're really for? It turns out, they're not there for ergonomics.Read more...    

Welcome to our next Hacker Challenge! Each week, we issue a new challenge. You get until Sunday to prepare your submission and send it to us. That gives you a few days to think about it and a whole weekend to work it up. Our editors pick the best submissions and our favorite will win a copy of the Lifehacker book!Read more...    

A new study has found that dim lighting may actually boost your creativity. But here's the best part. The test subjects' creativity was assessed by having them make up a science fiction story and draw aliens. Yes, really.Read more...    

Make a parcel from baking parchment and let your fish steam to perfection while infusing with garlic, ginger, chilli and lime Read more

A savoury Turkish pastry that's actually made with bread. Stuff with lamb, feta, raisins and pine nuts and serve with pomegranate dip Read more

Learn to fillet this sustainable fish with our step-by-step guide, then serve with fragrant Asian flavours Read more

Love stir-fries? Try this one-pot with coconut basmati, shellfish, plenty of veg and green curry paste Read more

These little green beans go really well with grains like pearl barley - for a light touch, serve cold with goat's cheese, mint and nuts Read more

A refreshing and punchy ginger-beer based cocktail with vanilla vodka, limes, ginger and apple slices Read more

Love it or hate it, Marmite works beautifully with cheese and onion when baked up in shortcrust parcels Read more

Bring the flavours of an English summer to your table with this clever twist on a traditional favourite Read more

You don't have to own an ice-cream maker to enjoy a homemade, freezer friendly staple Read more

The Soviets open a new phase in space exploration with the launch of the world's biggest space station, Mir.

Two 10-year-old boys are charged with the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool.

Hundreds of people are reported to have died in Assam as fierce fighting rages in the run-up to Indian elections.

Police are hunting two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, lands safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

The government announces one the oldest naval dockyards in the UK will be shut down.

Max Temp: 18°C (64°F), Min Temp: 13°C (55°F), Wind Direction: E, Wind Speed: 9mph, Visibility: good, Pressure: 1011mb, Humidity: 77%, UV risk: n/a, Pollution: n/a, Sunrise: 04:39BST, Sunset: 21:29BST

Max Temp: 18°C (64°F), Min Temp: 11°C (52°F), Wind Direction: W, Wind Speed: 9mph, Visibility: good, Pressure: 1008mb, Humidity: 84%, UV risk: n/a, Pollution: n/a, Sunrise: 04:39BST, Sunset: 21:29BST

Max Temp: 16°C (61°F), Min Temp: 12°C (54°F), Wind Direction: SW, Wind Speed: 21mph, Visibility: good, Pressure: 1003mb, Humidity: 74%, UV risk: n/a, Pollution: n/a, Sunrise: 04:39BST, Sunset: 21:29BST

In today's selection -- a growing number of early Americans -- including James Madison and other founding fathers -- became deists, people who did not believe in the divinity of Christ and instead viewed reason as the source of religious knowledge. From the perspective of today, this seems unsurprising and in keeping with the Enlightenment philosophy of the time. But at the time it was highly controversial -- with Christian pastors excoriating deists as heretics and "infidels," and some deists actively asserting their deist faith in opposition to Christianity -- taking actions designed to taunt Christians and attending "infidel conventions": "[While] individual proponents of deism stressed different principles, ... nearly all deists agreed on two basic points. They accepted the existence of a God in one form or another, but they rejected Trinitarian theology. Jesus, in their view, was only a human, not the son of God. Second, all deists de­nied that the Christian Bible contained a special, divine revelation of God's will. At its core, deism was a complete rejection of supernatural revelation in favor of reason as the only source of true religious knowledge. Some deists used these positions to offer moderate calls for the reformation of Chris­tianity. Yet others hoped that deism would entirely overturn Christianity; indeed they believed that deism would destroy all religious systems that included supernatural or metaphysical teachings. ... "[And] by all accounts, [the] infidelity [of deism] was on the rise. Specifically, more, not fewer, Americans publicly announced their deism be­tween the 1770s and 1830s. "Thomas Thompson was one such deist. He was born in 1775 on the eve of American independence and by 1829 had abandoned Christianity. Perhaps he embraced deism after reading Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, published in 1794 when Thompson was nineteen. Or maybe Thompson reacted to Fed­eralist attacks on Thomas Jefferson's [lack of] piety during the contentious election of 1800 by committing himself to the very opinions that the Federalists feared. Thompson may have even found the emotional highs of evangelical revivals and their demands for new birth experiences too psychologically taxing. Re­gardless, by 1829 he was moderator at the Hall of Science, a prominent two-story building with Greek columns on Broome Street in New York. "Located in a former church, the Hall of Science was a venue for critics of Christianity to debate their ideas and a site where Sunday morning gatherings were held as alternatives to church services. The hall's proprietors adorned its win­dows with pictures of Thomas Paine and William Godwin in order to taunt visitors and employees of the Bible repository located directly across the street. Before Thompson died in Brooklyn in 1852, he had attended 'infidel conventions' in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1836 and much larger ones in New York City in 1845 and 1846, where he was appointed manager of the organization that hosted the meetings. Thompson also served as trea­surer of the Paine Monument Fund, and as trustee and treasurer of the Free Enquirer's Library Association. The latter organization formed to counter Christian tract societies by publishing and circulating inexpensive editions of writings critical of Christianity, including The Age of Reason and atheistic works by eighteenth-century French philosophes. ..."

In today's selection -- the decoy effect. Suppose, according to psychologist Daniel Ariely, someone is given a choice between two vacations -- a week in either Paris and Rome at the same price with free breakfast each day -- where they are equally likely to choose either one. Then further suppose that a third choice is added -- Rome at the same price without free breakfast -- then that same person will become much more likely to select the option of Rome with the free breakfast. This is because relativity helps us make decisions in life -- he or she now has a better basis for assessing the value of the Rome package: "it's the same price plus I get free breakfast so it must be a good deal." This is known as the "decoy effect," and knowledgeable psychologists and marketers realize it extends to most choices in life -- from buying a house to selecting someone to date: "I asked [25 MIT students] to pair the 30 photographs of MIT men and the 30 of women by physical attractiveness (matching the men with other men, and the women with other women). That is, I had them pair the 'Brad Pitts' and the 'George Clooneys' of MIT, as well as the 'Woody Allens' and the 'Danny DeVitos' (sorry, Woody and Danny). Out of these 30 pairs, I selected the six pairs -- three female pairs and three male pairs -- that my students seemed to agree were most alike. "Now, like Dr. Frankenstein himself, I set about giving these faces my special treatment. Using Photoshop, I mutated the pictures just a bit, creating a slightly but noticeably less attractive version of each of them. I found that just the slightest movement of the nose threw off the symmetry. Using another tool, I enlarged one eye, eliminated some of the hair, and added traces of acne. ... "For each of the 12 photographs, in fact, I now had a regular version as well as an inferior (-) decoy version. "It was now time for the main part of the experiment. I took all the sets of pictures and made my way over to the student union. Approaching one student after another, I asked each to participate. When the students agreed, I handed them a sheet with three pictures. Some of them had the regular picture (A), the decoy of that picture (-A), and the other regular picture (B). Others had the regular picture (B), the decoy of that picture (-B), and the other regular picture (A). ... After selecting a sheet with either male or female pictures, according to their preferences, I asked the students to circle the people they would pick to go on a date with, if they had a choice. ... "What was my motive in all this? Simply to determine if the existence of the distorted picture (-A or -B) would push my participants to choose the similar but undistorted picture. In other words, would a slightly less attractive George Clooney (-A) push the participants to choose the perfect George Clooney over the perfect Brad Pitt? "There were no pictures of Brad Pitt or George Clooney in my experiment, of course. Pictures (A) and (B) showed ordinary students. ... Would the existence of a less perfect person (-A or -B) push people to choose the perfect one (A or B), simply because the decoy option served as a point of comparison? "It did. Whenever I handed out a sheet that had a regular picture, its inferior version, and another regular picture, the participants said they would prefer to date the 'regular' person -- the one who was similar, but clearly superior, to the distorted version -- over the other, undistorted person on the sheet. This was not just a close call -- it happened 75 percent of the time (out of a sample of 600). ... "Let's take a look at the decoy effect in a completely different situation. What if you are single, and hope to appeal to as many attractive potential dating partners as possible at an upcoming singles event? My advice would be to bring a friend who has your basic physical characteristics (similar coloring, body type, facial features), but is slightly less attractive (-you). "Why? Because the folks you want to attract will have a hard time evaluating you with no comparables around. However, if you are compared with a '-you,' the decoy friend will do a lot to make you look better, not just in comparison with the decoy but also in general, and in comparison with all the other people around. It may sound irrational (and I can't guarantee this), but the chances are good that you will get some extra attention. Of course, don't just stop at looks. If great conversation will win the day, be sure to pick a friend for the singles event who can't match your smooth delivery and rapier wit. By comparison, you'll sound great. ... "Relativity helps us make decisions in life."

In today's selection -- unlike in Africa, where the primary danger for early explorers had come from lions and other large mammals, the primary dangers of the Amazon rainforests were from insects. Insect life there is so vast, powerful and diverse that a single tree can serve as home to forty different species of ants, hives can number as many as a million members, and some beetles are so strong that it requires two men to pry them off a human limb: "To witness the devastating ... danger [of the Amazon forests, explorers] needed to look no further than the insects that filled the air around their faces, and swarmed over every tree, vine, and leaf they touched. [Legendary Brazilian explorer Colonel Candido] Rondon, who had for decades watched his men be tortured, infected, and driven to the brink of madness by the jungle's multitude of insect pests, knew better than most what power such small creatures could wield. [He] regarded the threat that even jaguars posed as 'utterly trivial compared to the real dangers of the wilderness -- the torment and menace of attacks by the swarming insects, by mosquitoes and the even more intolerable tiny gnats, by the ticks, and by the vicious poisonous ants which occasionally cause villages and even whole districts to be deserted by human beings. These insects, and the fevers they cause, and dysentery and starvation and wearing hardship and accidents in rapids are what the pioneer explorers have to fear.' "So important and ubiquitous are insects in the ecology of the Amazon that, notwithstanding their generally small size, ants alone make up more than 10 percent of the biomass of all the animals in the rain forest. From tiny parasitic red mites to cyanide-squirting millipedes to giant six-inch beetles with legs so powerful that they require two men to pry them off if they grip a human arm, the insects of the rain forest have achieved an unparalleled degree of specialization, seeking out every possible source of sustenance and advantage. They accomplish this through adaptations that extend far beyond mere physical attributes and individual behavior, and reach into the realm of complex social relationships that involve not only other members of their own species but sophisticated alliances with other forms of life as well. "Like that of other rain forest organisms, the physical form of insects has evolved to accomplish a spectacular range of survival-related feats, from living upside down on canopy leaves to flying almost invisibly on transparent wings to biting with pincerlike mandibles so large that they are sometimes used by Indians to suture wounds. The Brazilian wasp Mischocyttarus drewensi secretes a chemical repellent from its abdomen that, when slathered onto the stem that holds its nest, forces marauding ants to turn back and abandon their plans of attack. Ants of the neotropical genus Basiceros have made themselves all but invisible on the forest floor both by camouflaging their bodies in fine particles of soil that collect in two layers of hair and by learning the value of slothlike immobility. When foraging, the ants move extremely slowly, and if disturbed, they stand perfectly still for minutes at a time, disappearing into the rotting litter around them. "More than any other rain forest creatures, insects have extended and refined their individual capabilities through elaborate social structures. As [explorers] discovered from their first moments on the [Amazon tributary called the] River of Doubt, the powerful influence of ants, termites, wasps, and other highly regimented insects comes not only from the particular traits of any single individual, but from the collective, coordinated activities of colonies and hives that can number as many as a million members. Acting in concert, but with highly specialized roles, columns of hundreds of thousands of army ants can fan out in raiding parties fifty feet across at their front lines, harvesting huge numbers of tarantulas, roaches, beetles, scorpions, snakes, lizards, birds, and nearly anything else in their path before returning at dusk with the bodies of their prey to their common bivouac. "Insects have also developed highly refined, mutually beneficial relationships with other rain forest organisms. Many tropical trees and plants have special sheltering cavities or nectar-producing structures for the benefit of ants, which in return then patrol them vigilantly, defending them against herbivores, tending their leaves, and eating the eggs and larvae of other potentially damaging insects. As a result of such relationships, virtually every growing thing teems with insects; a single tree in the Amazon can serve as home to more than forty different species of ant, rendering even the most casual contact with it a nightmare of painful bites."

In today's selection -- financial incentives, or "pay-for-performance," have been demonstrated as effective for improving productivity in jobs that are repetitive or transactional. But as the type of work in our society increasingly evolves toward creative work -- such as designing new software, creating new marketing campaigns or inventing new products -- it is worth noting that not only are financial incentives less effective in eliciting improved performance for this type of work, they can actually impede performance: "Behavioral scientists often divide what we do on the job or learn in school into two categories: 'algorithmic' and 'heuristic.' An algorithmic task is one in which you follow a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion. That is, there's an algorithm for solving it. A heuristic task is the opposite. Precisely because no algorithm exists for it, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution. Working as a grocery checkout clerk is mostly algorithmic. You do pretty much the same thing over and over in a certain way. Creating an ad campaign is mostly heuristic. You have to come up with something new. "During the twentieth century, most work was algorithmic -- and not just jobs where you turned the same screw the same way all day long. Even when we traded blue collars for white, the tasks we carried out were often routine. That is, we could reduce much of what we did -- in accounting, law, computer programming, and other fields -- to a script, a spec sheet, a formula, or a series of steps that produced a right answer. ... The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. estimates that in the United States, only 30 percent of job growth now comes from algorithmic work, while 70 percent comes from heuristic work. A key reason: Routine work can be out sourced or automated; artistic, empathic, nonroutine work generally cannot. The implications for motivation are vast. Researchers such as Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile have found that external rewards and punishments -- both carrots and sticks -- can work nicely for algorithmic tasks. But they can be devastating for heuristic ones. Those sorts of challenges -- solving novel problems or creating something the world didn't know it was missing -- depend heavily on ... the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity, which holds, in part: 'Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity.'!' In other words, the central tenets of Motivation 2.0 [external 'carrot and stick' motivation] may actually impair performance of the heuristic, right-brain work on which modern economies depend. "Partly because work has become more creative and less routine, it has also become more enjoyable. That, too, scrambles Motivation 2.0's assumptions. This operating system rests on the belief that work is not inherently enjoyable -- which is precisely why we must coax people with external rewards and threaten them with outside punishment. One unexpected finding of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ... is that people are much more likely to report having 'optimal experiences' on the job [in heuristic work] than during leisure. But if work is inherently enjoyable for more and more people, then the external inducements at the heart of Motivation 2.0 become less necessary. Worse, as [Edward L.] Deci began discovering forty years ago, adding certain kinds of extrinsic rewards on top of inherently interesting tasks can often dampen motivation and diminish performance. ... "What happens when you give people a [complex] conceptual [problem] and offer them rewards for speedy solutions? Sam Glucksberg, a psychologist now at Princeton University, tested this in the early 1960s by timing how quickly two groups of participants solved the ... problem. He told the first group that he was timing their work merely to establish norms for how long it typically took someone to complete this sort of puzzle. To the second group he offered incentives. If a participant's time was among the fastest 25 percent of all the people being tested, that participant would receive $5. If the participant's time was the fastest of all, the reward would be $20. Adjusted for inflation, those are decent sums of money for a few minutes of effort -- a nice motivator. "How much faster did the incentivized group come up with a solution? On average, it took them nearly three and a half minutes longer.' Yes, three and a half minutes longer. (Whenever I've relayed these results to a group of businesspeople, the reaction is almost always a loud, pained, involuntary gasp.) In direct contravention to the core tenets of Motivation 2.0, an incentive designed to clarify thinking and sharpen creativity ended up clouding thinking and dulling creativity. Why? Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus. That's helpful when there's a clear path to a solution. They help us stare ahead and race faster. But 'if-then' motivators are terrible for [complex conceptual problems]. As this experiment shows, the rewards narrowed people's focus and blinkered the wide view that might have allowed them to see new uses for old objects."

In today's encore selection -- the hydrogen bomb, first tested in 1952, was 750 times more powerful and destructive than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just seven years earlier. The Russians had stunned the Americans by developing their own atomic bomb by 1949 -- much sooner than the world expected -- and President Harry Truman authorized the development of the hydrogen bomb as a means of staying ahead in the arms race. Operation Castle Bravo was a subsequent, more powerful 1954 test made on the Bikini atoll in the Pacific Ocean. (Frenchman Louis Reard had named a new bathing suit he designed in 1946 the "bikini" in reference to earlier U.S. atomic bomb tests on the Bikini atoll -- he chose the name in reaction to a competitive French bathing suit design called the "Atome" and presumably because of the stir he thought it would create): "Truman made his decision [to authorize the hydrogen bomb] on the dubious grounds that all these bomb-building decisions were made: If the Russians could build one, the United States had to build one also. (Critics would say that if the United States had enough bombs to create a catastrophe in the Soviet Union -- as indeed it did -- then it had enough bombs, without building any new ones.) But Truman decided to make the big bomb, and the Americans exploded the world's first hydro­gen bomb at Eniwetok, an atoll in the South Pacific, on November 1, 1952, just two and a half months before the end of Truman's presidency. This explosion, set off from a control ship thirty miles away, was in an alto­gether different realm from the atomic bomb; and even those who had wit­nessed atomic blasts were stunned by this explosion. The fireball reached 57,000 feet; the cloud, when it had reached its farthest extent, was about one hundred miles wide. The eruption wiped the island of Elugelab off the face of the planet, leaving only a crater behind, and it destroyed life on the surrounding islands. Human beings who saw it were particularly struck by what happened to birds for miles around: They were inciner­ated, singed, sick, grounded, struggling to fly. The blast yielded 10.4 megatons of explosive energy, 750 times greater than the explosion that leveled Hiroshima. ... "The ... explosion came ... just at the end of the Truman administration, not much more than two months before Ike [Dwight Eisenhower] became president. The world was just begin­ning to assimilate that event when Ike took over. And ... in March the Soviets would have new leaders when Stalin died. These new men in the Kremlin would then have their first thermonuclear explo­sion, in a remote area of Kazakhstan, on August 12, 1953. And the effect on those who saw it would be the same as that of the American explo­sion nine months earlier: awe and wonder. Those Russians who actually saw the tests found themselves staggered, overwhelmed, awestruck, just as the Americans at Eniwetok had been. Ideologies differ, but the impact of raw physics is universal. The effect of the earlier atomic bombs had not necessarily been so great on those who saw the explosions, but it was on those who actually witnessed the explosions of the vastly more powerful H-bomb. These explosions were so profound as to have a psychological effect; the Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov said 'something within you changes.' Another key Soviet scientist, after seeing the actual effect of a thermonuclear explosion he had worked to produce, vowed to work on it no more. Castle Bravo Thermonuclear Device (15 megatons) "The American test code-named Bravo, on Bikini, an atoll in the Pacific, on March 1, 1954, carried the impact to another level; it was the largest blast with which human beings had ever assaulted their earthly habitat to that point, and showed the damage the tests themselves would do. Bravo had been planned to yield five megatons but yielded fifteen. It led to the first human illness and death produced by nuclear weapons since Naga­saki; the radioactive fallout spread hundreds of miles from the huge blast site, and affected some Americans, some Marshall Islanders, and the crew of a Japanese fishing boat, one of whom died. Among those deeply affected by the huge destructive explosion was Georgy Malenkov, for a moment the Soviet leader, himself. The impact was powerful enough to move him to reject, for a time, the received Marxist line that there had to be a war with the capitalist world. Another staggered by the new bomb, reversing previous positions, was the aging Winston Churchill, who noted that it would not take many such explosions to obliterate Great Britain (eight bombs, Harold Macmillan would say repeatedly at a later stage)."

In today's selection -- New York City is designed as a grid. At a time when iconic cities such as London and Rome had been designed around hills and waterways, and the new city of Washington, D.C. had adventurous circles and diagonals, New York City's plan plowed all nature's features into flat ground and paved all the streets in right angles. Though viewed by many today as a planning triumph, when originally published the complaints were immediate: "In 1811 the Commissioners of Streets and Roads in the City of New York published a map that planned for the Manhattan of the future. The commissioners' plan, sometimes referred to as the Randel plan for its chief engineer and surveyor, showed a rectilinear grid of numbered east-west streets and numbered and lettered north-south avenues imposing machinelike order from Houston Street all the way up to 155th Street. As with so much else in New York City's history, real estate interests had top priority in the commissioners' thoughts. In the report published with the map, they noted that 'one of the first objects which claimed their attention was the form and manner in which the business should be conducted; that is to say, whether they should confine themselves to rectilinear and rectangular streets, or whether they should adopt some of those supposed improvements by circles, ovals, and stars, which certainly embellish a plan, whatever may be their effect as to convenience and utility.' (This is surely a disparaging reference to Pierre L'Enfant's more fanciful and, to this day, traffic-bedeviling plan for the new District of Columbia.) 'In considering that subject they could not but bear in mind that a city is to be composed principally of the habitations of men, and that straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in. The effect of these plain and simple reflections was decisive.'  Full Randel map (100 × 30") pen and ink map accepted by Mayor Dewitt Clinton on 4 May "From the day it was published the plan drew harsh criticism. Where were the utilitarian back alleys, the monotony-relieving plazas, the breathtaking hilltop vistas that befit a great city? 'These are men who would have cut down the seven hills of Rome,' one New Yorker griped in 1818. He was not far off; much of the once hilly island would be flattened as the grid marched inexorably uptown. In 1893 a Harper's Monthly writer complained: The magnificent opportunity which was given to the Commissioners to create a beautiful city simply was wasted and thrown away. Having to deal with a region well wooded, broken by hills, and diversified by watercourses -- where the very contours of the land suggested curving roads, and its unequal surface reservations for beauty's sake alone -- these worthy men decided that the forests should be cut away, the hills levelled, the hollows filled in, the streams buried; and upon the flat surface thus created they clapped down a ruler and completed their Boeotian [i.e., dull-witted] programme by creating a city in which all was right angles and straight lines.' "The writer summed up the plan as 'a mere grind of money making in stupid commonplace ways.' "One small area on the map bucked the precision-tooled order. Just above Houston Street on the Hudson flank of the island lay a maze of crooked, angled streets, a small eruption of eccentricity and disorder: the former Bossen Bouwerie, now called Greenwich Village."

1. Alex Corbisiero ? I?ve never seen him get stopped by anyone with the ball in his hands. He?s also the best rapper I?ve met. He?s great entertainment off the pitch. 2. Tom Youngs ? He?s done so much in just one year, to go from where he was to being out with the Lions.  [...]

Richard Hibbard came home from Australia this time last year fearing the worst, that he would never play for Wales again. The management blamed their substitute hooker for conceding the late penalties in Melbourne which enabled the Wallabies to win a close-run series.  They promptly removed him from the bench for the closing match in [...]

Warren Gatland wanted standout performances to cement Test selection and he certainly got some against the Waratahs. A handful of guys have made a big impact so far on tour ? notably Leigh Halfpenny, George North, Brian O?Driscoll and Mako Vunipola ? and yesterday half a dozen more stated their case, especially Tom Croft and [...]

Ahead of the first Test between the British & Irish Lions and Australia, Matt Stevens, Richie Gray and Justin Tipuric talk about getting ready for the game.

Last night England U20s qualified for the Junior World Champions final after beating New Zealand 33-21. Read the full report here. Watch the highlights below. England will now face Wales in the final after the Welsh claimed a last-gasp 18-17 win over reigning champions South Africa. Watch the highlights below.

George North has been passed fit to face the Wallabies on Saturday. The Wales winger sustained a hamstring injury last week against the Combined Country and missed out on the last two games against the Waratahs and the Brumbies. Following the loss to the Super Rugby leaders yesterday, this is a major boost for the British [...]

Warren Gatland has backed himself into a corner by naming Sam Warburton as Lions captain according to Jim Telfer, who believes Justin Tipuric is the man who would make the biggest impact against the Wallabies. The Ospreys flanker has been arguably the standout player on the tour so far, shining against the Barbarians both on the floor [...]

England will meet Wales in the final of the IRB Junior World Championships on Sunday after they beat New Zealand and South Africa in the semi-finals today. The final will be the first between two teams from the Northern Hemisphere and guarantees a new name on the winner?s trophy. Playing against the most successful side [...]

Being Public Enemy No.1 in one country is bad enough. But two? That takes some doing, but Delon Armitage appears to have managed it with consummate ease. Armitage has revealed his regret over becoming embroiled in a Twitter row with ex-England hooker Brian Moore following last month?s Heineken Cup final in Dublin. His wave to [...]