Celia Haddon

Legitimate question

My father believed – wrongly – that I wasn’t his child. If only there had been DNA tests to reassure him In this magazine two weeks ago, Melanie McDonagh suggested that DNA testing is tough on children whose apparent fathers turn out not to be anything of the kind. In particular, she had sympathy for

Are octopuses just like us?

The publicity frenzy over Paul the octopus, who accurately predicted the results of the World Cup by opening boxes labelled with team colours, has concealed something much more interesting than his apparent psychic powers. Here is an animal with a third of his nervous system outside his brain and no central spinal column who is