Other cartoons by Tom Gauld can be found here. Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox! We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

I like to break my books up into the smallest possible units. “Writing Tools” set the standard: 50 chapters at about 1,000 words per chapter. (Total: 50,000-plus words.) Let’s do the math again: 200 ...

Just over a decade ago, Cassandra Pride decided to upend her life and retrain as a high school English teacher. She graduated ...