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Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Meet the Galway photographer with a passion for insect portraits – ‘Exotic, mad-looking yokes right in my garden'
Lisa Clancy has captured thousands of insect portraits since discovering her passion during her studies in Nottingham Today at 13:00 A Galway-based insect photographer has explained the secret behind her unique passion ahead of the launch of her latest portrait book. Clare-born photographer Lisa Clancy has been taking photos of insects since 2009, when she embarked on a master's degree in Biological Photography and Imaging at the University of Nottingham.
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Common condition plaguing 1 in 6 Brits ‘increases the risk of deadly dementia'
FROM diabetes to high blood pressure, several health conditions have been linked to dementia over the years. And now there's new evidence for another one to be added to the list - as scientists have found depression increases the risk of the mind-robbing disease in both mid and later life. 1 The potential links between depression and dementia include chronic inflammation Credit: Getty Previous studies have shown that people with depression are more likely to develop dementia later in life. But there's been a lot of debate about when depression matters most, whether it's depression that starts in midlife - in your 40s or 50s, or depression that appears later in life - in your 60s or beyond. The new research, led by Jacob Brain and Maha Alshahrani from the Institute of Mental Health and School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, University of Adelaide and the Dementia Centre of Excellence at Curtin University in Australia, brings together all the existing evidence and adds new analysis to examine this timing in more detail. Mr Brain said: "Our study shows that depression is linked to an increased risk of dementia in both midlife and late life. "This highlights the importance of recognising and treating depression across the life course, not just for mental health, but also as part of a broader strategy to protect brain health. "Public health efforts need to place greater emphasis on preventative brain health, including scaling up access to effective mental health care." The research team gathered and reviewed all the best available data from systematic reviews with meta-analyses (a statistical method that combines results from multiple studies to provide a more reliable overall estimate), that had already looked at the link between depression and dementia. They then went a step further by extracting and re-analysing data from the individual studies within those reviews, plus they added in newer studies that were missed in the earlier work. Mr Brain added: 'We specifically focused on the timing of when depression was measured, whether it was measured in midlife or in later life, and calculated how much it increased the risk of developing dementia. "This essentially allowed us to provide a more accurate and up-to-date picture of how depression at different life stages is linked to dementia risk.' There are many treatments available on the NHS to help with low mood and depression The potential links between depression and dementia are complex and may include chronic inflammation, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation, vascular changes, alterations to neurotrophic factors and neurotransmitter imbalances. Shared genetic and behavioural related changes may also increase the risks. In Autumn 2022 it was found about 16 per cent of adults (around one in six) in Great Britain experienced moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Depression can also be a symptom of dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease, which can cause mood changes. The challenges of living with dementia, such as memory loss and difficulty with daily tasks, can also contribute to feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Dementia affects over 57 million people globally. There's currently no cure, so identifying and treating the factors to reduce the risk, such as depression, should be an important public health priority, stress the researchers.
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Who is Francis Bourgeois and when will the YouTube star present The Grand Tour with Thomas Holland and James Engelsman?
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) FRANCIS Bourgeois is an influencer known for his trainspotting videos. The locomotive enthusiast and fashion icon is joining the new cast of Amazon Prime's The Grand Tour. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 3 Francis Bourgeois is known for his adorable Instagram videos Credit: Getty Images 3 Francis and James Englesman will be presenting The Grand Tour Credit: Instagram 3 Thomas Holland will be joining the pair on the show Credit: Instagram A fascination with trains Born on July 9, 2000, in north-west London, Francis had a love of trains from a young age. He revealed in an interview that he would often go to Willesdon Junction train station as a child to watch the trains pass by. Then, he would return home and draw pictures of the vehicles from memory. He explained: 'I was just fixated by these big machines. 'Ever since, I've had a passion for trains, cars, planes.' However, he was bullied terribly at school for his hobby which prompted him to sell his huge collection of train sets. Eventually, he decided to chase his dreams and went on to study engineering at the University of Nottingham. Finding fame The star rocketed to fame in 2021 when he started sharing videos about trains. They featured a distinctive style, with Francis attaching a fish-eye lens to his head. Within months, he went viral and built a fanbase of over 2.5 million followers as of May 2025. James May issues brutal response to working with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond again after Grand Tour stars split Opening up about why he shared his now famous videos, he said: 'I love to show how awesome trains can be as well as trying to make you smile, laugh and just try and bring joy. 'I want to contribute my passion for trains and also engineering to make the railway network a better place for everyone.' The influencer started partnering with iconic fashion brands, including Gucci, which include train imagery in his photoshoots. Joining the Grand Tour Francis will be presenting the brand new series of The Grand Tour with two other famous influencers. He will be joined by Thomas Holland and James Engelsman, who both run the Throttle House channel on YouTube. The trio will be replacing James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson who left the show after a special episode named The Not Very Grand Tour. The BBC have not yet confirmed when the new series will launch.
The Irish Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Who is Francis Bourgeois and when will the YouTube star present The Grand Tour with Thomas Holland and James Engelsman?
FRANCIS Bourgeois is an influencer known for his trainspotting videos. The locomotive enthusiast and fashion icon is 3 Francis Bourgeois is known for his adorable Instagram videos Credit: Getty Images 3 Francis and James Englesman will be presenting The Grand Tour Credit: Instagram 3 Thomas Holland will be joining the pair on the show Credit: Instagram A fascination with trains Born on July 9, 2000, in north-west London, Francis had a love of He revealed in an interview that he would often go to Willesdon Junction train station as a child to watch the trains pass by. Then, he would return home and draw pictures of the vehicles from memory. He explained: 'I was just fixated by these big machines. Read More on Train News 'Ever since, I've had a passion for trains, cars, planes.' However, he was Eventually, he decided to chase his dreams and went on to study engineering at the University of Nottingham. Finding fame The star rocketed to fame in 2021 when he started sharing videos about Most read in News TV They featured a distinctive style, with Francis attaching a fish-eye lens to his head. Within months, he went viral and built a fanbase of over 2.5 million followers as of May 2025. James May issues brutal response to working with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond again after Grand Tour stars split Opening up about why he shared his now famous videos, he said: 'I love to show how awesome trains can be as well as trying to make you smile, laugh and just try and bring joy. 'I want to contribute my passion for trains and also engineering to make the railway network a better place for everyone.' The influencer started partnering with iconic fashion brands, including Gucci, which include train imagery in his photoshoots. Joining the Grand Tour Francis will be He will be joined by The trio will be replacing The BBC have not yet confirmed when the new series will launch.
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- General
- Irish Examiner
How falling deeply for someone could point to unresolved emotional issues
When you fall for someone, even if they barely know you exist, is it all-consuming? Do you ache for them, obsess over them, believe that you are meant to be together? Does an innocuous text from them make —or ruin — your day? Does your nervous system go haywire in their presence, reducing you to a stammering wreck? Do you have an acute need for them to reciprocate your feelings? Do you deify their good points, while ignoring their more mortal aspects? There are two common reactions to the above scenario, says neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy : 'That's not normal, these people are neurotic'; or 'That's just love'. If you identify with the second reaction, you could be, like Bellamy, a limerent — someone who falls in love obsessively. 'These people are a broad demographic — 'male, female, young, old, gay, straight, bi, asexual, poly, religious, atheist' — and Bellamy, having studied the area in depth, believes they make up about half of the general population: 'All ages, personality types, genders, sexualities, and ethnicities are susceptible.' Around 25% of those who have experienced limerence have found it 'so disruptive that it affected their enjoyment of life'. So is limerence a fancy word for love-sick? It was coined by psychology professor Dorothy Tennov in her 1979 book Love & Limerence: The Experience of Being In Love, and she defined limerence as 'a mental state of profound, involuntary, obsessive romantic infatuation with another person (termed the 'limerent object')'. For eight years, Bellamy, an honorary associate professor at the University of Nottingham, has been blogging anonymously about limerence, creating a community where others share similar experiences. The 49-year-old has recently published a book Smitten: Romantic Obsession, The Neuroscience of Limerence, & How to Make Love Last. It's dedicated to his wife — here's why. 'When my wife and I first met, we fell in to mutual limerence very strongly,' he says. 'We both had that consuming desire and intimate connection. Inevitably, the limerence wore off, and we navigated through that — we're very compatible, with companionate, affectionate love replacing the fireworks. We got married, had children, and were very happy.' Until Bellamy developed unwanted feelings for a colleague. Neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy: "I have a wife and family I love dearly — why was I obsessing about this other woman? By then, I'd found Dorothy Tennov's book, so I was able to tell my wife what I was going through.' 'It was such a shock to me to become limerent for someone else,' he says. 'It wasn't born of dissatisfaction. I was — and am — happily married. 'So it was a problem for me to solve. I have a wife and family I love dearly — why was I obsessing about this other woman? By then, I'd found Dorothy Tennov's book, so I was able to tell my wife what I was going through.' She related, identifying with the feelings of limerence she had experienced during the early stage of their relationship. 'That was transformative,' he says. 'It meant we were solving the problem together, as a team. "Obviously, it was painful, a difficult conversation, but she was able to understand the feelings, because she'd gone through it herself and recognised I was seeking support to deal with it, rather than doubting the marriage. I was being accountable. 'We were dealing with it from a mature and sober perspective. We got through it, the marriage continued, and we are still happy and in many ways stronger. We have a deeper understanding of how love changes and develops over time. It doesn't have to be giddy fireworks all the time.' Bellamy says that 'through benign neglect, you can make yourself vulnerable' to developing infatuations outside of your partnership. But he also acknowledges a 'midlife element' to his experience. 'It's not exactly a revelation that you have to look after a relationship,' he says. Nor did he ever disclose his feelings to the object of his limerence, but recognised them for what they were: One-sided and in his head. 'I realised very early on [these feelings] were a threat to my happiness rather than a thrilling, exciting adventure,' he says. 'But because it was a colleague, I couldn't go 'no contact' — I had to find a way to manage the limerence feelings.' Limerence is a mental state. 'You need to address it at that level,' Bellamy says. 'You're probably not going to be able to solve an unwanted limerence episode by engineering your environment or getting other people to fix the problem for you — it really is down to you to understand why you're responding to this person. They're obviously touching something deep in you to provoke this powerful response, this romantic infatuation.' He sees limerence as a person addiction: 'So it's about figuring out what you're doing that reinforces that addiction, and then disrupting it. That's what I was doing — finding ways to have a good professional relationship, and reverse the romantic infatuation, get things back on track.' The stuff of literature From childhood fairy tales to classic literature to contemporary cinema, our culture is built on stories that capture this intense yearning for blissful union. The foundation is limerence. From Rapunzel to Sleeping Beauty to Cinderella, handsome princes risk all for damsels in distress; from Cathy and Heathcliff to Connell and Marianne, we share the romantic agony of characters who pine for each other — often disastrously, in the case of Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, Madame Butterfly, and Lolita's Humbert Humbert. Limerence drives movies from Brokeback Mountain to Notting Hill, Dr Zhivago to Truly Madly Deeply. The Martha character in Baby Reindeer, played by Jessica Gunning, embodies limerence gone badly wrong. Bellamy emphasises that 'limerence is an altered state of mind'. It is a psychological phenomenon, not a behaviour. Smitten by Dr Tom Bellamy 'Probably about half the population has the capacity to fall in to this altered mental state of addictive desire that changes the way they perceive the world,' Bellamy says. 'How any individual person responds to [limerent feelings] depends on their personality, their life experience, their relationship history, and childhood bonding experiences.' So while some people experiencing limerence may act upon their feelings (anything from instigating a positive relationship based on mutual limerence to stalking), others may pine from a distance, sometimes for decades. Bellamy terms this 'limerence limbo' — spending years stuck in an unrequited obsession, unable to move forward, but not wishing to relinquish hope. 'There isn't an archetypal limerent behaviour; it depends on the person going through it,' he says. 'The universal aspect of limerence is the neuroscience basis of it — our reward system, bonding system, arousal system can get pushed in to this hyperactivated state.' Most remember their first crush — exhausting, exhilarating, all-consuming. Pure limerence. Is it essentially juvenile, something we outgrow? 'Limerence usually first manifests in adolescence, so if you have this capacity, it's when you first feel it,' says Bellamy. 'It's more than a crush. Crushes tend not to flip over in to an involuntary, intrusive state, like an addiction. "Not everyone can self-regulate, because the reward is so powerful — with addiction, the brain's reward circuit gets strengthened, while at the same time the brain's executive feedback, which should be regulating and moderating our desire, gets weakened. 'So maybe people who maintain limerence in to adulthood never adapt, never manage moderation. But if you are emotionally mature and secure, you can weather limerence.' Initially, this was not his experience. 'I wasn't entirely in control — I was in an addiction, and it was a struggle to resist and moderate it. Another contradiction is that you can realise intellectually that you don't want to be with that person and yet are drawn to them with a powerful sense of attraction and connection.' Casual sex or something more? Despite limerence sounding like the drawing-room pining of 19th-century literature, it can be exacerbated by contemporary online dating culture. 'It's a lot easier to connect with people and then ghost them, and that kind of emotional whiplash can make limerence worse,' says Bellamy. 'The thing that drives limerence in to that state of addiction and fixation is a combination of hope and uncertainty. "If you've got hope that the other person may reciprocate, then you'll continue to seek that reward — and if there's uncertainty, you can't psychologically adapt to the situation, because you're never quite sure about the strength of the connection, which can drive you in to rumination.' The hook-up culture is a powerful reinforcement, 'especially if you have sex and all the physiological things happen — oxytocin release and so on', he says. 'But if they then treat you casually or ghost you, you end up in a situationship. Is this a special bond or a booty call? 'You'll be getting periodic hope, reinforcement and reward, but it's unpredictable and mixed with occasional disappointment. 'That's almost the perfect combination of factors to drive you in to a state of addiction — you can't adapt to it, your reward system never habituates, so you feel anxious and uncertain.' So, how to stop developing limerent feelings for others? A third of Bellamy's book is devoted to getting rid of limerence, breaking the habit, overcoming it with a specific person, and moving on. He suggests cognitive behavioural therapy for individuals, and couples therapy if the limerence spills in to your relationship. 'First solve the crisis, then figure out why it happened,' he says. Getting rid of limerence involves remembering that it is happening in your head, not real life; that you are making your limerent object special (it's all about you, not them). So manage your instincts — your rational brain needs to step in and take charge — and don't self-medicate, he advises. You're in charge. Anticipate some pain during the recovery process, and believe that a better life awaits. Remember, it's all in your head. For a deeper dive, visit Bellamy's blog, where you'll find other limerent people, at Or check out or the private Facebook support group
