Ever heard of the names “kiko” and “bouba”?

These are made-up nouns that scientists invented to test how we link images to language. When people are shown a blobby shape and a spiky shape, then asked which one suits “kiko” and which is a better match for “bouba”, they overwhelmingly dub the round one “bouba”.

Its sharper sibling is often seen as more of a “kiko”, meanwhile. This result is consistent across languages and cultures.

And it seems a similar phenomenon called the “mil/mal effect” might even change how we choose our food.

This means that people usually associate sounds like “ee” and “t” with smaller sizes, while words with broader “b” and “oh” noises are perceived as relating to bigger objects.

For instance, people might be likelier to think a table called “mal” was larger than one arbitrarily named “mil”, without seeing either.

A paper that sought to find out how snack names changed our expectations of them used this theory.

The researchers asked people to describe what they thought about snacks with fictive names. Half of these (like Iskee, Keesee, Kitsip, and Spisiki) were expected to be seen as “smaller”, while the other half (Bromogaw, Gawdoe, and Gobo) were designed to sound “bigger”.

Scientists assigned these names to both healthier foods (like porridge and trail mix), and less-healthy items, like crisps. Participants were given different names for different products to review.

It seemed that regardless of snack type, people imagined snacks with “bigger” names – like Blorgo – as being heavier and more filling than those with “smaller” fake brands, like Iskee.

That didn’t seem to affect whether or not participants said they’d choose to buy the products in a supermarket, though. The biggest factor there was the would-be buyer’s goals: when asked which they’d pick for a friend who liked hearty fried food, people were likelier to choose a “big”-sounding snack name.

When asked to shop for a mate who prefers lighter meals, however, they tended to opt for something like a smaller-sounding Kipi.

In general, Teek was an especially popular choice, while it seems nobody wanted to consume poor Blorogo.

The research concluded: “Sound symbolism shapes our perception of the world. Sounds that are associated with information about size and weight can have an impact on food expectations – even through minimal exposure such as reading a food product’s brand name.

“The present research underlines the importance of considering language surrounding food products for expectation and purchase intentions.”

If you’re hoping to live a longer, better life, eating well, exercising, and avoiding habits like smoking are great places to start.

But according to a paper published in SLEEP Advances, the amount of shut-eye we get at night may be more strongly linked to our projected longevity than even diet and exercise.

This isn’t to say that neither of those metrics matter: they definitely do. Scientists think that improved diets could add 10 years to the lives of people in the UK, while a review of studies found that being physically active could increase our lifespan by about two to four years as a “conservative” guess.

As sleep physiologist Andrew McHill, who was involved in the new research, said: “I didn’t expect [sleep] to be so strongly correlated to life expectancy”.

The researchers looked at a huge US database of health survey data taken between 2019 and 2025, alongside state-level life expectancies.

They compared those figures by area while also looking for participants’ self-reported sleep duration.

Insufficient sleep (characterised as less than seven hours of sleep a night) was “significantly negatively correlated with life expectancy in most states from 2019 to 2025”, the paper reads.

This finding stood even when researchers looked at other variables such as diet, exercise rates, employment status, and education levels.

Only smoking seemed to be more of a significant risk factor when it came to longevity.

McHill told Oregon health & Science University: “We’ve always thought sleep is important, but this research really drives that point home: people really should strive to get seven to nine hours of sleep if at all possible.”

This absolutely doesn’t mean that a healthy diet and exercise, which decades of research have proven are key for great health, are optional if you want to live longer.

The study didn’t definitively prove that insufficient sleep led to the early deaths with which it was associated.

But McHill noted that getting enough sleep can help to improve our heart health and boost our immunity, and suggested we shouldn’t simply dismiss it as a “nice-to-have” extra.

“This research shows that we need to prioritize sleep at least as much as we do to what we eat or how we exercise,” he said. “Sometimes, we think of sleep as something we can set aside and maybe put off until later or on the weekend.”

But “getting a good night’s sleep will improve how you feel but also how long you live,” he ended.

Previously, a 2025 paper suggested that those who felt they had to choose between sleep and a workout saw better health benefits from their snoozy side win.

What a difference a year makes.

Labour members will start gathering in Liverpool this weekend for their annual conference with a noticeable spring in their step.

The party now has a confirmed, if slight, lead in the opinion polls as Andy Burnham continues to enjoy a honeymoon period after replacing Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister in July.

His optimistic talk of putting “hope in every heart” appears to have resonated with a beleaguered electorate weighed down by more than a decade of austerity, stagnant economic growth, rising prices and political turmoil.

The so-called “Burnham Bounce” has also coincided with a downturn in the fortunes of Reform UK, whose own poll numbers have fallen since May, when the party enjoyed election success in England, Scotland and Wales.

Investigations into the financial affairs of Nigel Farage and his party have cut through with a public who, just a few months ago, seemed to be preparing to elect a Reform government.

It is all a far cry from 12 months ago, when the Labour conference was a downbeat affair as Starmer’s government lurched from scandal to disaster.

Deputy PM Angela Rayner had been forced to quit just weeks before over her tax affairs, forcing Starmer into a clumsily-handled and deeply unpopular reshuffle.

That was swiftly followed by the sacking of Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington over his friendship with the convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Ironically, the high point of last year’s conference for Starmer was his success in seeing off Burnham’s own failed attempt to seize the initiative.

The then mayor of Greater Manchester was relentlessly attacked by Starmer loyalists for saying in a pre-conference interview that the UK must “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets”.

Although a chastened Burnham ended up leaving the conference early, just six months later he became MP for Makerfield and the PM-in-waiting.

Now, much of the talk going into this year’s event is not whether Burnham will become prime minister, but whether he would attempt to secure his own five-year mandate from the public by calling an early general election.

The PM sought to kill off the speculation by telling ITV Calendar on Friday that the next election will not be until 2029, the latest it can possibly be.

Nevertheless, that is unlikely to stop some from urging Burnham to go the country either next year or in 2028, should Labour’s poll lead grow.

According to the Telegraph, several of the PM’s No.10 advisers believe he should go to the country in the spring, but that was disputed by others in his inner circle.

“Utter bollocks,” said one senior Downing Street source when asked by HuffPost UK if an early election is on the cards.

“The PM is a man focused and determined to change the country. The only people raising the prospect of an early election are those conducting as a subtle-as-an-elephant Tory whispering campaign.”

Another No.10 source said reports of an early election were “worse than bollocks, it’s embarrassing clickbait”.

Those pushing an early election point to two mega-polls published in recent days which show Labour emerging from an early election as easily the largest party, ahead of the Tories and Reform.

However, in both scenarios, the party would lose its majority, leaving Burnham reliant on the support of the Lib Dems and other left-of-centre parties to get his programme through parliament.

Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, told HuffPost UK: “Labour going for an early election based on these latest polls means two things: Labour loses hundreds of seats compared to 2024, and it’s an admission from Andy Burnham that he doesn’t think he can further improve Labour’s fortunes.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Labour MPs – many of whom have only been in the Commons for a little over two years – are less-than enthusiastic about the prospect of an snap election that would see at least 100 of them lose their seats.

One Cabinet minister said: “If I was Andy, I would be very reluctant to call an election because right now he’s got 400 Labour MPs.

“No matter that happens, if you wake up every morning and you’ve got 400 MPs and a big guaranteed majority, you’re in a good place.

“If you look at the sweep of Labour history being in this position doesn’t happen very often, so I’d be very careful about gambling with that.”

A Labour backbencher was equally clear in his opposition to an election now.

“I don’t want to hear him announce a general election,” the MP said. “I don’t think the country’s ready for it and voters certainly wouldn’t thank us for it.”

Another minister said: “The polls are simply too volatile right now to justify an early election.”

A Labour source added: “I can see why an early election would be tempting when you’re caught up in party conference.

“But the public don’t want one, and voters wouldn’t thank Andy for calling one.”

Burnham is still writing his conference speech, which he will deliver to the party faithful on Tuesday afternoon.

He has been writing it himself “in snatched moments on trains, planes and in his car,” according to one No.10 aide.

The conference slogan is ‘Hope Again’, and the PM plans to deliver a message of optimism to the country, explaining how he plans to get a solve long-standing problems like youth unemployment and the housing crisis.

“People know what the problems are facing the country, but they want to know what the government is going to do about it,” said one Downing Street insider.

“They want to be given hope about the way forward and this is the PM’s opportunity to set that out.”

But a senior Labour figure warned that the real challenges for Burnham will come when the political caravan has packed up for conference season and gone back to Westminster.

“There’s no doubt Andy will have a great conference,” he said. “It’s in Liverpool, it’s his first one as leader and he’ll make a good speech.

“But the real business will happen when he gets back to Westminster the week after. That’s when things will get real for him.

“There’s the Budget next month, defence spending, the growing threat from Russia, and his 10-year plan.

“His diagnosis of the country’s problems has been good, but voters will judge him on how he plans to fix them.

“The danger of conference is that the party gets too high on its own supply. They shouldn’t mistake the conference hall for the country, because there’s a world of a difference between the two.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Lower back pain affects about 80% of us at one point or another, according to the NHS.

Thankfully, fewer than 1% of those cases require urgent medical attention. But the pain can still affect your quality of life, and might mean you’re less tempted to exercise.

That can be a shame, as the NHS explained, “keeping as active as possible can help you to recover and do the things that are important to you”.

Avoiding movement for more than a day or two in mild back pain cases might actually worsen your condition, the health service added.

According to a 2019 analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, four activities in particular seemed the most effective at treating “non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP)”.

NSCLBP means doctors can’t find one specific cause for back pain. This applies to the “vast majority of chronic low back pain cases,” the study’s lead author, associate professor Daniel Belavy, said.

This paper analysed 89 studies involving back pain and exercise.

Researchers found that staying active seemed to be more effective than rest for NSCLBP.

Belavy said: “There is a common misconception that if someone is in pain, they should be resting, but our research shows that when the pain has been there for a long time, exercise is an important part of treatment.”

They found four training styles were the “most effective” at treating NSCLBP. These were:

This seemed to be the joint “best” exercise for dealing with the condition.

Speaking to Healthline, Dr Courtney Gilbert, a physical medicine and rehabilitation expert, said: “Pilates teaches you how to articulate your spine and engage your deep core. Research has shown that Pilates can decrease low back pain compared to no exercise and non-specific exercise.”

This can include exercising with a pilates machine (Joseph Pilates, who invented the exercise, called this a Universal Reformer machine: now they’re used in Reformer classes), or doing pilates on a mat.

“There was evidence that Pilates and stabilisation or motor control exercise training were the best of these exercises for reducing pain,” Belavy said.

Stabilisation exercises can include strengthening your core and might involve crunches, bridges, and planks.

Motor control exercise training, meanwhile, typically aims to retrain the muscles near your spine to become more co-ordinated and stronger.

This can include balance training and other moves like hip bridges, sitting knee extensions, and even squats.

You might know this as strength training. It means using weights and resistance training at increasingly high loads to build your muscles up.

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how “tight” hips that you might think need stretching can actually be weak hips that would benefit from strengthening. A similar principle can apply here.

Some strengthening exercises include weighted squats, push-ups, deadlifts, bench presses, and more.

Basically, activities like walking and running.

You might want to build up your pace and distance if you haven’t exercised in a while – “our study provides evidence that active therapies where the patient is guided, actively encouraged to move and exercise in a progressive fashion are the most effective,” Belavy shared.

Interestingly, this paper found that “stretching and McKenzie exercises, which is a treatment approach that uses a classification system to prescribe exercise”, were found to be the “least effective” kinds of exercises.

The NHS advises you should always stop exercising if it makes your back pain worse. Speak to your GP if you’re worried about your back pain and/or aren’t sure about beginning new activity.

I don’t know whether I notice it more in the sunshine or if flies really do come out en masse in spring, but I feel like I’ve noticed a lot more of the unwelcome visitors on my houseplants recently.

And while I’ve found vinegar and washing-up liquid traps are a really effective way to manage a fruit fly bonanza, I can’t help but wish there was an easier, less deadly way to de-fly my ferns.

Luckily, plant educator Peyton, known online as Plant Caregiver, is one of a few voices to suggest a chemical-free method: in a TikTok video, the creator said, “a lot of your plant problems could be fixed by having a fan”.

Speaking to Homes & Gardens, Julia Omelchenko, an expert in plants for the Plantum app, explained that proper ventilation and air flow keep soil drier, preventing a buildup of, e.g., fungus gnats.

That can involve opening a window. But it can also include running a “fan on low speeds where your plants are situated,” so long as you “avoid cold drafts and don’t point the fan at the plants,” she added.

Aside from preventing wet soil, which fungus gnats love, using a fan also helps to create an environment in which fruit flies struggle to fly (they have quite weak wings).

An Ideal Homes writer put it to the test and was impressed with the result. And, more recently, a Guardian writer and houseplant expert tried it on a mildewy plant; she wrote, “It’s one of those hacks that sounds unnecessary until you try it”.

As we’ve mentioned before, soil that stays wet for too long can attract fungus gnats. Try watering your soil less often if that’s the case.

Adding a gravel mulch, using sticky traps, and even using predatory nematodes can all help, too, per BBC Gardener’s World.

You can also change the potting soil to that which has been specially formulated for houseplants.

Look, when it comes to high-end skincare that actually gets the job done, I’m always going to point you in the direction of Augustinus Bader.

I’ve written before about the brand whose products Dua Lipa famously reported that she ‘can’t live without’, so much so that their Eye Patches and The Rich Cream have a permanent place in her (and now my) handbag.

Their cult-favourite moisturiser cleared my period-spot riddled skin up in just seven days when I first tested it, so when Augustinus Bader announced that they were bringing its cell-renewing TFC8 tech to a brand-new, delicately scented Rose Geranium body range I couldn’t have said yes to testing it out faster if I could.

Before you say ‘what the heck is TFC8’, it’s the brand’s secret sauce: a proprietary blend of natural amino acids, high-grade vitamins and peptides that supports the body’s capacity to renew.

According to AB, the body cream is clinically proven to deliver firmer, smoother, deeply hydrated skin. In fact, a 12 week study carried out by the brand reports a 75% reduction in cellulite (with 92% of users saying they saw a visible reduction).

As someone who (thanks to a whole lot of weight lifting, spin classes, swimming and a passion for dinners out) has a battle with cellulite and stretch marks across my thicc thighs, I was hoping for big results.

I’ve also never been a body moisturiser girlie and now in my mid 30s, I’m definitely paying the price – as a recent convert to regular waxes my legs now permanently feel like they need a good long glass of water. Luckily for me, the body cream’s blend of shea butter and geranium and rose essential oils promise to “deeply hydrate and lock in moisture for plump skin with greater bounce back.”

Now just to see if it works…

As with any product testing here at HuffPost UK, we don’t do it half-arsed. Armed with a fresh wax, a slight tinge of sunburn and dryness from regular dunks in chlorinated water, my skin was not about to give the Augustinus Bader The Geranium Rose Body Cream an easy ride.

For thirty days solid I committed to applying the cream to my body twice a day every day – once after my morning shower, and once before bed.

The new scent is incredibly spa-esque and made for a strong and invigorating way to kick off the day. Despite how thick the cream comes out the tub, it soaked in quickly without leaving a greasy film (because god knows there’s nothing worse than post moisturiser clothes cling).

Thirty days on, my skin feels soft yet lifted, smooth yet firm – and if you’d told me a month ago that I wouldn’t think twice about going out without my beloved tights on, I’d never have believed you.

Alongside the longer term effects, the cream offers an almost blurring effect in the same way facial primer does – marks, bumps and rashy bits all immediately looked significantly less noticeable after my morning application.

Over time, my thighs’ dimpling has lessened dramatically and although it’s not gone completely (hey, no product can erase them altogether), I’ve found myself not giving it a second thought (a rarity!).

As with any Augustinus Bader product, this body cream doesn’t come cheap (£160 for 200ml) however, I will always bang the drum that anything the brand makes is worth the investment. More so because a little goes a long way, even with using the cream twice a day (probably worth noting at this juncture that I’m also almost 6ft, so there is PLENTY of leg to moisturise), I’ve still got plenty left in the jar after a month of near religious use.

Sorry tights, I may never need to pull you out my drawers again.