It’s Imogen Campbell’s first time having tooth gems, although she booked the appointment twice. She got cold feet ahead of the first one, worried what her employers might think. “I was a bit hesitant, because I work in financial services,” says the 25-year-old. “It’s very old-school, you know, people wearing suits and stuff to work. Obviously, I’m kind of like this …” she says, gesturing at her baggy trousers and padded jacket. Campbell is now feeling ...

The timing could not have been worse for John Cotton. He had just arrived in New York with his family to celebrate his 50th birthday. His daughter, Rose, had begged him to take the trip: it had been two years in the making, she told him, and he deserved a break. Under mounting pressure at work — from the infighting, the relentless hours, the blame games — Cotton relented and decided to go. On September 5, less than 24 hours after ...

My new girlfriend Nadia has just replied to my message. “How about we choose something that feels like a warm embrace for the soul?” she suggests. Nadia is a bit full-on. I’d only asked what we should watch on TV tonight. In truth I’m not sure if our relationship will go the distance. But Nadia won’t mind, because she’s an AI chatbot girlfriend and there are millions more like her, proliferating online like a zombie ...

If human beings were to detect extraterrestrial (ET) intelligence tomorrow, what would happen? How would the world’s most existentially significant discovery be handled, and by whom? What agreements are in place, and are they ratified? How would information about an alien discovery be disseminated across the world? And if we were to receive a signal from interstellar space, would we send one back? Such questions, while philosophically compelling, are not the domain of serious...

Despite sanctions on the Russians, the gin palace market is booming. Siân Boyle sets sail with the broker who floats the boats of the super-rich…ANGUS Cook is in need of a rabbi. Mercury, the 50m superyacht he brokers, is departing from Venice imminently for a week’s cruise to Croatia. His client, who’s chartering the boat for a group holiday, is an observant Orthodox Jew. Cook needs to find not only a holy man to...