The Church of England has seen a rise in the proportion of under-30s entering training. We speak to the clergy for the 21st century

McDiarmid's portrait journey around the UK, entitled Crossing Paths, manages to be both a personal project and a document of modern Britain

Background noise. Yes, you need this. In 2005, Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota built an anechoic chamber that absorbs 99.99 per cent of the sound in it. The room is composed of three-foot-thick fibreglass wedges, double walls of insulated steel, and 12-inches-worth of concrete. The noise level of the interior measures at -9.4 decibels, and it has been certified as the quietest place on Earth*.

1. I was counting on my 42nd birthday to enlighten me about life, the universe and everything. Or anything. But until that happens, this is all I've got.

The stunning property looks like the type of mansion you'd expect to find in London, except for one thing...

A woman’s face transforms from a skull to a sky full of shooting stars and even a growing embryo in this incredible video.

The Harvard University professor says the country paid too high a price in terms of the lives lost and the vast debts that were run up during the conflict

18th-century diarist Horace Walpole collected gossip because he thought it was a good indication of character. The research seems to prove him right, says Andy McSmith

To most of us, lions are African, but many of the great beasts of legend were Indian. Now a zoo plans to breed more of them

There is the woman who dreamt of being a goalkeeper for Arsenal Football Club but was discouraged; the mother who was so short she had to sit on pillows to drive ambulances in the Second World War; and the bull-fighting grandmother who was born a maid, in a stately home.

Fighting, football, feminism… The singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, 57, and the theatre director, writer and film-maker Topher Campbell, 42, discuss what it means to be a man today

There is a pub on Borough High Street, just south of London Bridge, called The Barrowboy and Banker, which ought to be the secret HQ of the internet campaign called Tautologywatch, run by Amol Rajan, editor of The Independent. To curry favour with him, I offer this list.

Archaeologists are thrilled at the blood-thirsty findings

Jonny Benjamin is searching for the man who saved his life and kick-started his recovery

Adam Smith  called an ambulance and knew to show the paramedics his grandfather's medicine