The race to develop robotic hands, memories of legendary gigs and the sea as medicine for the brain

Published 11 July 2026 · india

1. China wants to solve the hardest problem in robotics – making hands View image in fullscreen Photograph: Emmanuel Wong/The Guardian Our nimble, nerve-filled appendages

1. China wants to solve the hardest problem in robotics – making hands View image in fullscreen Photograph: Emmanuel Wong/The Guardian Our nimble, nerve-filled appendages are the most flexible part of the human skeleton. Many tasks that most people can do largely without thinking, from tying a pair of shoelaces to buttoning up a shirt, in fact require a complex set of neurological instructions and precise choreography. Amy Hawkins reported from Beijing on how the race to develop “embodied AI” focuses on creating dextrous hands to transform humanoid robots from gimmicks into useful products. Read more 2. How AI is changing language View image in fullscreen Illustration: Pete Reynolds/The Guardian double quotation mark The problem is that not only does AI train on human writing, but humans are stylistically influenced by AI, the interplay creating a kind of linguistic hall of mirrors. Short of an author admitting it, it’s hard to say for certain whether an individual piece of writing is AI or not.

That uncertainty is a recipe for paranoia. As allegations of LLM use rock the literary and media worlds, David Shariatmadari spoke to linguists about what really distinguishes human and machine writing, and asked novelists including Jennifer Egan and Jeanette Winterson to reflect on the future of fiction in the age of ChatGPT. Read more 3. ‘He hadn’t been trying to scare us. He’d been trying to kill us’: how stalker neighbours turned our dream home into a nightmare View image in fullscreen Amanda Hutton and Richard Burton outside Fox Hill farmhouse in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. Photograph: Leia Morrison/The Guardian Amanda Hutton and Richard Burton were busy doing up a dilapidated Welsh farmhouse when a young couple bought the land next door. They seemed odd yet basically harmless – but their increasingly troubling behaviour soon escalated into a full-blown campaign of terror. They recounted the ordeal in this gripping feature.

Read more 4. The rise of blue-space therapy: how the sea is helping people deal with trauma, anxiety and addiction View image in fullscreen Photograph: Cavan Images/Getty Images double quotation mark When we go to the water, our shoulders drop, our eyes and face soften. We start breathing more slowly. We’re concentrating but we’re not concentrating … we’re in a state of drift. The ocean has long framed restorative practices for better health around the world, from Victorian-era doctors prescribing “sea cures” for patients to the modern-day trend of cold-water swimming. But the idea that exposure to oceans, rivers and lakes can be medicine for the brain is gaining traction. Tamara Davison wrote about the draw to water, which is known as the theory of blue space, or blue mind. Read more 5. Kill zones and drone nets: a journey through Ukraine’s fortress belt View image in fullscreen Composite: Prina Shah for the Guardian/Getty Images double quotation mark Technology has turned everything upside down.