Expert comment provided by Prof Adam Hart, professor of conservation ecology at the University of Gloucestershire.

In the UK, hospitalisations from false widow spiders reached 100 in 2025.

That’s significantly higher than the figure from a decade before (47 hospitalisations in 2015).

Some have called the false widow spider the UK’s most “dangerous,” though speaking to HuffPost UK, Prof Adam Hart, professor and entomologist, said “serious reactions are rare”.

We asked him why these numbers are rising, how to spot false widow spiders, and what to do if we see them.

False widows are so called because they look like the more dangerous black widow spiders. They were probably introduced to the UK in the 1800s from the Canary Islands.

But their population has been growing here since the 80s, which the expert told us might be why we’re hearing a lot more about their bite.

“Reports of rising hospitalisations from false widow bites perhaps need a bit of context,” he explained.

“The noble false widow has spread widely across the UK in recent decades, so people are encountering them more often. At the same time, media coverage has raised awareness, meaning more people notice them and are more likely to seek medical advice. That could make the issue seem bigger than it really is.”

Additionally, they stay relatively close to humans: “They tend to live around buildings, in sheds, window frames, and sheltered outdoor spaces.”

That makes contact likelier as their numbers grow.

Though noble false widow spiders do bite, Prof Hart clarified that this is very rare and, in most cases, relatively harmless.

“Most bites, where they happen at all, are mild, causing local pain and swelling similar to a wasp sting. It’s also worth remembering that, often, suspected ‘spider bites’ turn out to be something else, such as skin infections or insect bites”.

“False widows are glossy, dark spiders with a rounded abdomen and long legs, often with pale cream markings on the back,” said Prof Hart.

They are usually 7-14mm in length, and the females are generally bigger than the males.

The Natural History Museum describes the pattern on their bodies as “skull-shaped”.

“If you see one, the best advice is simple: leave it alone. If needed, they can be moved with a glass and card,” Prof Hart told us.

“If someone is bitten, basic first aid is usually enough: clean the area, apply a cold compress, and keep an eye on it. Seek medical advice if symptoms worsen or don’t improve.”

And remember, if you can, that while false widows are “now a familiar part of UK wildlife… they really pose a very low risk to most people.”

A paper published in the Journal of Intelligence has found that people who listen to music with less emotionally positive lyrics appear to have slightly higher levels of projected intelligence.

Scientists tracked the smartphone activity of 185 participants over five months, creating a custom app to check the kinds of music they listened to.

The researchers also asked the people involved to take a test, which measured their fluid reasoning, vocabulary comprehension, and math knowledge. Combined, these gave the study authors a way to measure their cognitive ability.

By the end of the analysis, which involved advanced machine learning tasked with finding links between participants’ music taste and their cognitive test scores, they found “small but reliable associations”.

The participants listened to 58,247 songs overall.

Speaking to PsyPost, study author Larissa Susst said: “When we looked more closely at how our prediction models worked and which aspects of music listening were most informative, one finding surprised us.

“The lyrics of the songs people listened to were more useful for predicting cognitive ability than the musical features… In other words, the themes and language used in the lyrics seemed to matter more than aspects like tempo or musical key.”

She added that this finding went against previous research, which suggested genre might be a better predictor of predicted intelligence.

While the difference wasn’t huge, lyrics with a “less positive emotional tone” were more strongly linked to higher intelligence in this study. The study authors point out that other papers have linked this to introspection and self-reflection.

And songs whose lyrics focused on the present, those which seemed honest, and those which related to home were also associated with higher cognitive ability.

Those who liked lyrics with more social words and less certain language were likelier to have lower cognitive scores, meanwhile.

Bear in mind, though, that the paper said their “predictive performance was modest”, and that the variance in predicted intelligence was relatively small.

Another surprising finding was that those who listened to studio-recorded music tended to have higher cognitive scores than people who listened to live recordings.

Listening to more music, and lyrics not in German (this was a German study), was also associated with higher cognitive scores.

“In our study, patterns in people’s music listening contained small but detectable signals related to their cognitive ability, suggesting that the digital traces we leave behind in daily life could potentially help approximate intelligence,” Sust said.

But the differences were so small that she cautioned, “On their own, these effects are therefore likely not strong enough to be practically useful,” and were more likely to become “meaningful if combined with many other types of behavioural data”.

Undoubtedly the biggest story from this year’s Coachella surrounds Justin Bieber and his polarising performance.

Late on Saturday night, The Biebs took to the stage in the California desert for his first of two headlining slots at the iconic music festival, the second of which is due to take place later this week.

While the first half of his set was mostly devoted to tracks from his 2025 album Swag (and its poppier follow-up, Swag II) with stripped-back staging, echoing his performance at the Grammys earlier in the year, the second part is what has really got people talking.

Much has been made about the fact that this section of Justin’s performance saw the chart-topper sitting down to his laptop and pulling up songs from the early years of his career on YouTube, alongside old clips of himself and an assortment of other random viral videos he’s enjoyed over the years.

Since Saturday, there’s been a lot of debate on social media about whether or not fans got their money’s worth from Justin’s stripped-back show, particularly in light of reports that he’s the highest-paid headliner in Coachella history.

This was the opinion shared in The Guardian’s three-star review, which pointed out that “the double standard for effort for female and male pop headliners is… striking”.

“Depending on your level of fandom, the stripped-down vision, with minimal audience asides, read as either radically vulnerable or disappointingly self-interested from reportedly the highest-paid Coachella headliner of all time,” The Guardian’s reporter opined.

Rolling Stone also agreed that while “plenty of Beliebers” will have left the set feeling “satiated”, the star largely “missed the mark” with his efforts at Coachella.

However, it should be pointed out that even as headlines about the controversy over Justin’s Coachella show continue to roll in, plenty of critics were quick to praise the show immediately after it ended, with many claiming that there’s “one key point being missed” by his detractors.

This was the line taken in Mamamia’s review, which read: “Critics were baffled as to why a global icon would spend his set scrolling through YouTube like a bored teenager in a bedroom. But that is the point.

“This wasn’t designed to be a high-gloss, choreographed spectacle. We got that from Sabrina Carpenter the night before. This was something else entirely: a walkthrough of his memories. If you expected Justin to simply return to the stage and perform a greatest hits medley, you don’t know him at all.”

A take from a self-professed Belieber published in Vogue also took this stance, pointing out that playing his hits over YouTube “gave the fans what they wanted, in a way that felt cheeky and unserious, which was simply perfect”.

“This was how all of us original Beliebers first experienced him, surfing YouTube videos in barely 360p,” Vogue’s critic argued. “The concept just worked.”

Mashable’s review was also along these lines, claiming: “Bieber was not just revisiting old clips; he was revisiting the child the internet turned into Justin Bieber.”

It continued: “Many former child stars look back at old footage, and it feels a bit silly or even sad. Here, though, Bieber seemed genuinely at peace with it. He smiled at the videos. He harmonised with his younger self, treating him less like a brand asset and more like someone worth meeting again.”

Although USA Today praised Justin for creating an intimate environment in a festival setting that felt akin to “chilling at Bieber’s house with him watching videos on YouTube like so many 30-somethings of his generation used to do with their friends”, a piece in Vulture went as far as comparing the show to “performance art”.

“In keeping it simple, and reflecting on his old hits through the portal where he was discovered, the persona of Justin Bieber was reassessed and deconstructed in real time after years of mythos and controversy,” Vulture’s critic claimed.

They then pointed out that by taking fans back through his time in the spotlight – from “heartthrob to millions” to “the world’s punching bag” – the set represented a “career-spanning victory lap and a big step forward in both artistic vision and the performance of self-mockery”.

Vulture’s piece also claimed: “To call his performance lacking in effort is a shallow read.”

“Seeing a baby-faced Bieber on screen at Coachella was a stark reminder of just how long he’s been famous, and while YouTube karaoke felt low-effort compared to a more involved production, it did make for a compelling visual to see the fully grown Bieber sing these songs as his childhood played in the rear view,” The Hollywood Reporter’s own review also claimed, although it went on to claim that the set “became more confounding than profound” as it went on.

Justin will return to Coachella this coming weekend, alongside fellow headliners Sabrina Carpenter and Karol G.

Back in February, he caused a similar buzz at the Grammys, where he delivered another low-key performance that saw him taking to the stage in just boxers from his own fashion brand.

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

You know what it’s like when you’re shopping for furniture. You think you’ve found the best option out there, only to click onto another page and find five more contenders.

Then you click on to Instagram or Pinterest, and lo and behold: another thirty ads showing you another iteration of what you’ve been looking for. Thanks, cookies!

If you’re anything like me, plagued by decision paralysis, it takes months of open tabs, waiting for sales, and constant side-by-side comparison to actually make a purchase.

That’s speaking as someone who does a lot of shopping (it’s kinda in the job description) and even then, if I can do anything to make the process of furniture shopping easier, that is as big a blessing as I can ask for.

Pinterest has been my saving grace up until now: I love making boards of what I want my space to look like and using its shopping feature to find products.

But even that is flawed: often, the pieces I fall for aren’t even available to ship to the UK, or they come from some dodgy website I’m not willing to risk losing my money to.

So when I came across ShopHomeStyles, I was completely smitten.

Instead of having to guess what keywords would best describe the armchair I’m currently looking for in my room (I’m not exactly an interiors expert) the platform allows you to upload your inspo photos.

Sourcing from over 100 furniture and homeware brands like M&S, OKA, and Soho Home, the platform then matches the closest products to your inspo or keyword search in seconds.

So you don’t have to keep millions of tabs open, you can like the products you’re into and organise them into collections, making it easy to come back to them later.

Plus, if you’re not sure what style tickles your fancy, the website has its own inspiration page and breaks furniture and decor into easy to browse categories, so you can browse trends and shop by item, or look at what’s new in at your favourite stores, too.

Basically, if you want anything new for your house and want to save on scrolling through the sometimes hundreds of pages on every furniture site you come by, ShopHomeStyles seriously whittles your options down based on what you like.

The result? Less wasted time scrolling, and a place to curate your own design style for your home.

If I had known about this platform sooner, it could have saved me oodles of time. That armchair I’ve been looking for has been the subject of probably a years’ worth of Pinterest searches.

You see, I’m after a very specific retro Scandi-inspired shape, preferably in pink, red, or baby blue.

At the time of writing this, I have 167 tabs open on Safari on my phone, with various iterations of said chair.

But after simply uploading some Pinterest inspo photos to ShopHomeStyles, there’s one clear contender for my purchase: this Juno armchair from Graham and Green.

Don’t get me wrong, the price tag is definitely something to work towards. But at least now I can live in peace not having to go back and forth between this option and that.

I’m also shopping for a side table and magazine rack, so I’ve started building a separate collection to find the perfect ones.

While I’m sure I’ll spend as much time deliberating about what to go for in the end, at least my final decision will be based off results from 11 pages on ShopHomeStyle, rather than hundreds, or even thousands.

Honestly, all I can say is: phew.

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

There are many harsh realities we face as adults: cheese is actually really expensive; the worst person you know is probably being told by their therapist that they’re really reasonable; and that we are doomed to spend the rest of our lives forever trying to find the answer to ‘what’s for dinner?’.

But one I didn’t anticipate is just how difficult it is to buy a sofa.

I’ve spent the last six months renovating a 150 year old flat in Edinburgh and thanks to that being one endless stress, I officially only want to walk the path of least resistance where I can.

Unfortunately the road to getting a sofa is full of potholes. First of all you’ve got the time element. I don’t have it in me to assemble anything after spending all day stripping walls, replastering and wielding a sledgehammer around my 9-5. Spending hours in a showroom testing out sofas? Not so bloody likely.

Then there’s the logistical nightmare of actually getting the sofa into your home once you’ve made a choice. Some companies have lead times of over six months (something I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for) and when you’ve got a twisty turny stairwell leading to your flat, there’s the worry that it won’t ever actually make it INTO THE HOUSE.

But it turns out there is an incredibly straightforward answer to my couch conundrum – enter one of the UK’s fastest-growing online sofa retailers, Sofa Club.

Offering next day delivery (!!!) on the majority of their sofas, Sofa Club sends you your new seating in boxes. Yup, quite literally, they send you a sofa in a box.

The site offers over 400 different sofas to choose from but they’re all split into different shape and size categories – so you can get straight to the point without endless scrolling. Moreover, they all come in strictly neutral tones (think stones, greys, browns and sands), meaning there isn’t a living room out there your sofa won’t suit.

It almost sounds too good to be true, right? Well, the good folks at Sofa Club asked me to try out their service for myself to find out. It’s certainly a brave decision to let a frazzled, renovating-overloaded editor pass judgement on your furniture company, so team HuffPost were immediately impressed.

I opted for The Cloud Left Corner Sofa Bed with Chaise Storage – and it was an easy decision that took less than fifteen minutes. Sofa Club has a super interactive site (I was able to click and see what the sofa bed element looked like folded out, as well as the ottoman) with loads of images of each product and the option ‘to view the sofa in your space’ using your phone’s camera.

However, if you’re worried about what the fabric really looks like in person, you can get up to four free swatches delivered to your door the next day. Off white was a sensible choice as someone who at the time was yet to paint their walls, you can’t really go wrong with a neutral.

Depending on where you are in the UK you can also opt to go to one of Sofa Club’s six showrooms – but I felt completely confident in my choice. Decision fatigue? Gone. Now just to see one, if it really matched the onsite images and two, if the deliverers could actually get it in my home.

Price wise The Cloud is normally £1699 (all three metres of it, she’s a big’un!) – which when you consider the fact that Loaf’s most similar model comes in at £3995, is a fair price point.

True to their word, just 24 hours later my buzzer went, announcing the arrival of my brand new sofa and with a little bit of effort (and impressive pivoting) the two boxes were through the door and plonked in my living room.

Had the room not been covered in a wet undercoat of white paint at the time, the delivery people would have taken the packaging away and assembled it for me.

Now, despite the renovation I’m doing right now, if there’s one thing I’m categorically useless at, it’s assembling furniture. I am in fact so useless at it , IKEA fears me.

Fortunately The Cloud came in just two pieces (one for each box) and all I had to do was unwrap it, clip the two parts together and screw the feet on. If I can do it, anyone can.

The sofa was firm, but writing this three months on from its arrival (and with it having had many, many bottoms upon it), it’s softened into a delicious middle ground – not so soft I’m sinking, not so firm that I can’t lounge.

The sofa bed element has made me popular with all my guests (no sore backs in the morning here) and I love the fact I can whack all the bedding in the storage ottoman section.

The verdict? There couldn’t be an easier option when it comes to sofa buying than Sofa Club’s service – if only the rest of the renovation as straightforward.

You can view Sofa Club’s full range here.