Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Laura Barton

Creator

Laura Barton

You can't start a fire worryin' about your little world falling apart Laura Barton has over 8578 followers on Twitter.

How much sleep people need differs widely and the eight hours mantra is a myth.

Pill-popping insomniacs need an urgent wake-up call

One in 10 Britons regularly take a drug to help them to sleep. But is it time to stop popping zopiclone, temazepam and other tablets?

Sanitisers score hand over fist

The popularity of saniters has as much to do with health as fashion and the jury is out over their efficacy, writes Laura Barton.

A world awash with germs

A world awash with germs

Only one in 10 people wash their hands after going to the toilet yet as a society we have never found the idea of germs more disgusting.

The truth about health drinks

The truth about health drinks

They’re big business, but not all consumers seem to be aware that some health drinks contain more sugar than a bottle of Coke.

Idle tittle-tattle not so idle

"Gossip," the grande dame of rumourmongers, Liz Smith, once noted, "is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress."

The business of sleep

The days following Heath Ledger’s death have swirled with speculation, with tales of hard drugs and prescription pills, of anti-depressants and sleeping tablets. Amid all the…

Murderous monk

Since its inception, the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s conspiracy novel, The Da Vinci Code, has been the subject of so much anticipation and controversy, Laura Barton reports.

The big squeeze

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had lunch. Indeed, to be in with even a cat-in-hell’s chance of mustering the waspish proportions of Kylie Minogue, pictured on stage recently twirling a…

From lonely heart to online tart

For Suzanne, it was also about sexual experimentation. ”I wanted to try out some things I’d never done before. Maybe I wanted to be a bit perverted, a bit dirty, but I didn’t…