Kara Hayward is the latest in a line of child actresses who have brains as well as talent. The 13-year-old star of Cannes opening-night film Moonrise Kingdom has been a member of Mensa since the age of nine. Some of the Massachusetts native's artwork and poems have been published. So she looks odds-on to join the club of brainy actresses who, having taken Hollywood by storm, decide to take a career sabbatical to study. 

Facebook's first public investors sent its value to $105bn in New York yesterday but there was disappointment that the shares failed to go much higher than their opening price of $38.

Researchers have hit on a formula to work out why certain quotes stay with us

A couple of years ago, on an evening that I was regrettably absent from, a few friends of mine ended up partying with Andrew W.K. If you’re familiar with the 32-year-old rock star/celebrated hedonist/motivational speaker, you’ll know that this is a big deal. A very big deal. Because no-one parties quite like Andrew W.K. The man has made it his mission to party; it’s his religion. Why just live, when you can party?

I arrived back in Blighty this morning to find the wires full of the news that my boss at Dartmouth College, Dr Jim Yong Kim, whom I know pretty well, had been nominated by President Obama to replace Robert Zoellick as president of the World Bank.

I call it "the island". A friend prefers "petit chapeau", which makes it sound almost desirable in his native French. But it isn't desirable, just the sorry remainder of a forelock that was once so thick my barber of 20 years joked he needed shears to hack through it. The same barber now snips charitably at a tuft during a haircut that takes him six minutes.

"The Hollywood sign may be unique among American icons," writes Leo Braudy at the start of this dazzlingly enjoyable exposition. "Its essence is almost entirely abstract."

Dmitri Nabokov, the son of the Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov, tried to escape the shadow of his father's legacy, pursuing interests as diverse as opera singing and racing-car driving. But it was to the translation, preservation and championing of his father's work that he returned time and again.

Claims by a leading sports-clothing company, Speedo, to have invented a swimsuit fabric that emulates the surface properties of shark’s skin are not supported by experiments with real shark skin, scientists said.

From lace-ups to loafers and from brogues to boots, there are plenty of new styles to step out in...

It's a very good swing, just not quite knocked out of the park

Nicotine patches are no better than willpower alone in helping smokers quit their habit, a study has found.

A university professor is claiming that he lost his job after he gave James Franco an embarrassing 'D' grade in a course he was teaching on account of the knock-'em-dead actor and perennial student showing up for only two out of the 14 lectures he was expected at.