Most people think of bees as simple insects, but they actually have a (1) _____ system of communication. When a worker bee finds a good source of food, she returns to the hive and performs what scientists (2) _____ a 'waggle dance'. By moving her body in specific patterns, she can (3) _____ her sisters about both the direction and the distance to the flowers.

What makes this even more (4) _____ is that bees adjust their dance based on the position of the sun. As the day (5) _____, the angle of their dance shifts to match. The (6) _____ of this discovery, made by Karl von Frisch in the 1940s, won him a Nobel Prize.

Recent research has gone further still. Some scientists now believe bees can (7) _____ basic mathematical concepts and may even understand the idea of zero. Whether or not we (8) _____ to fully understand them, bees clearly have far more going on than we ever imagined.

City dwellers across the world are discovering the joys of growing their (9) vegetables. Even (10) they only have a balcony or a tiny patio, many people are finding creative ways to produce fresh food at home.

Urban gardening is not a new idea, (11) it has grown enormously in popularity over the (12) decade. Part of the appeal is environmental: home-grown food has a much smaller carbon footprint (13) produce shipped from distant farms. There is also the satisfaction (14) knowing exactly where your food came from.

For those (15) live in apartments without outdoor space, vertical gardens and indoor herb walls are becoming increasingly common. Tomatoes, lettuce and herbs all grow well in small containers, (16) long as they receive enough light and water.

When my parents bought me a wooden chess set for my seventh birthday, they had no idea what they were starting. I remember unwrapping it on a quiet Sunday afternoon, more interested in the cardboard box than in the pieces inside. My father, who had played casually as a teenager, suggested we try a game. By the time my mother called us for dinner, three hours had passed and I had lost six games in a row — but I was completely hooked.

The months that followed are something of a blur. I read every chess book in the local library, then begged my parents for more. My father, who had at first delighted in our matches, soon found that he could no longer beat me. By my ninth birthday, I was playing in regional tournaments. By eleven, I had won the national junior championship. The newspapers started calling me 'the prodigy from Manchester' — a label I quietly hated, even then. I was just a kid who liked solving puzzles. But the attention brought sponsors, and the sponsors brought trainers, and suddenly I was being flown around Europe to compete in tournaments I barely understood.

My first international event was in Budapest, when I was twelve. I was the youngest player by several years, and I felt every inch of those years. The other competitors looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and pity. I lost my first three games badly. My trainer, a Russian woman called Irina, told me afterwards that I was thinking too much. 'Chess is not just calculation,' she said. 'It is also feeling.' I did not understand what she meant. I assumed I was simply not good enough.

Yet by the fourth game, something shifted. I stopped trying to remember the openings I had memorised and started playing more freely. I won. Then I won again. By the end of the tournament, I had finished fourth — beating two players ranked far above me. Irina nodded knowingly when I told her. 'You are starting to play like a chess player,' she said, 'not like a calculator.'

That tournament changed me. Not because of the result, which my parents proudly framed and which still hangs in our hallway, but because of what Irina had taught me. Chess, I realised, was not really about winning or losing. It was about thinking — really thinking — and being honest about what you saw on the board. The games I lost taught me far more than the ones I won.

Today, ten years later, I am a grandmaster. People still ask me what it takes to reach this level. They expect me to talk about hours of practice, or natural talent, or some mysterious gift. But the truth is simpler. You have to love the game enough to keep losing without giving up. Everything else follows.

Three years ago, Maria Garcia could barely run for ten minutes without stopping. Today, at the age of fifty-two, she has just completed her third ultramarathon — a 100-kilometre race through the Spanish mountains.

Maria's transformation began after a routine medical check-up. (37) —ABCDEFG Her cholesterol was high, her blood pressure was rising, and her doctor warned that she needed to make serious changes if she wanted to avoid heart problems in the years ahead.

At first, Maria found running painful and discouraging. (38) —ABCDEFG But she stuck with it, slowly building up her distance week by week. After six months, she could run five kilometres comfortably. After a year, she had completed her first half-marathon.

The shift from recreational runner to ultramarathoner was not planned. (39) —ABCDEFG It was a 50-kilometre trail race in the Pyrenees. Something about the description appealed to her — the idea of running through wild landscapes, far from roads and cars and noise.

She trained for the race for nine months. The training was demanding, but Maria found she enjoyed the rhythm of it: the long Sunday runs, the strength sessions, the gradual building of endurance. (40) —ABCDEFG She also began to notice changes in her mental state. The anxiety she had carried for years began to lift.

The race itself was harder than she had imagined. (41) —ABCDEFG But somewhere around kilometre forty, she experienced what runners call a 'second wind'. Her legs found a new rhythm, her breathing settled, and she finished the race in just under nine hours.

Now, three ultramarathons later, Maria has become an inspiration to other women her age. (42) —ABCDEFG Her message to them is simple: it is never too late to start.

Next year, she plans to attempt her first 100-mile race.