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Foetuses are being aborted for minor and treatable imperfections such as cleft lip and palate or club foot every year in the UK. New research suggests that dozens of abortions are carried out but the reasons are not being officially recorded. Health bosses have admitted there may be 'discrepancies' in their records after European monitoring group Eurocat found the number of abortions for minor abnormalities could be up to three times as high as official statistics show. According to Eurocat, 157 foetuses were aborted in England and Wales between 2006 and 2010 for cleft lip and palate. However, the Sunday...

New and exciting evidence has been found at a threatened archaeological site on the Severn Estuary that seems to show Mesolithic people knew how to adapt their environment to suit their needs... Researchers from the University of Reading found 7500 year-old worked flint tools, bones, charcoal and hazelnut shells while working at Goldcliff, near Newport, south Wales, in September 2012. Charcoal remains discovered on the site suggest these people used fire to encourage the growth of particular plants, such as hazelnuts, crab apples and raspberries. This evidence may indicate that Mesolithic people were deliberately manipulating the environment to increase their...

Welsh restaurant Frankie and Benny's served booze to toddler A RESTAURANT chain has apologised for accidentally serving alcohol to a toddler in Wales, calling it a case of human error. The BBC reported that two-year-old Sonny Rees was taken to a hospital emergency room after drinking whisky at his second birthday party at a Frankie and Benny's restaurant in Swansea. His mother, Nina Rees, said he was clearly intoxicated. She said she tasted his drink, which was supposed to be lime juice and water, after noticing that he was making a funny face. "It was whisky, I would say a...

In Dublin, Ireland, stands an estate reminiscent of old folklore, complete with its own dragon! Of course, dragons are mythical creatures, so this home only has a dragon made of steel which acts as its gatekeeper. The property, known at Harlech House, was originally built in 1798 by a Welsh immigrant. (The estate is actually named after a town in Wales called Harlech and the national flag has a dragon on it.) Harlech House sits on less than an acre of land but is full of enchantment. It features religious iconography and fairy-tale motifs throughout the seven-bedroom home, but it's...

A girl aged 16 was rescued by Prince William after being swept out to sea trying to save her sister. Rescuers said her sister, aged 13, had been swept away on a riptide while body-boarding and the girl had swam out to help her. But she got into difficulties as she became exhausted and was close to drowning when she was winched to safety by an RAF rescue helicopter captained by Prince William. The RAF said it was one of its 'fastest and shortest' operations, taking 38 seconds to arrive at the scene at Silver Bay, Anglesey, north Wales.

Caer Caradoc at Mynydd y Gaer, Glamorgan, is one of the most important locations in all of ancient British history. It is the fabled fortress city of King Caradoc 1, son of Arch, who fought the Romans from 42-51AD. And now, a small team of dedicated researchers working with historians Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett, have been able to pinpoint the location of this site. "It is great news for the local, regional and national economy," said Alan Wilson today. "We have been making these discoveries for many years and with the Electrum Cross discovered at nearby St. Peter's in...

From studying the present day population of the Orkneys, a small archipelago off the northeast coast of Scotland, geneticists from University College, in London, have gained a deep insight into the earliest inhabitants of Europe. Of the medley of peoples who populated Britain, neither the Anglo-Saxons nor the Romans ever settled the distant Orkneys. The Romans called the islands' inhabitants picti, or painted people. The Celtic-speaking Picts dominated the islands until the arrival of the Vikings about A.D. 800. The islanders then spoke Norn until the 18th century when this ancient form of Norse was replaced by English, brought in...

A BBC journalist is urging helpful linguists to come forward to help solve a mystery - why the Hindi (India's official language, along with English) accent has so much in common with Welsh. Sonia Mathur, a native Hindi speaker, had her interest sparked when she moved from India to work for the BBC in Wales - and found that two accents from countries 5,000 miles apart seemed to have something in common. It has long been known that the two languages stem from Indo-European, the "mother of all languages" - but the peculiar similarities between the two accents when spoken...

The Roman control over Britain stretched even further than first thought, the discovery of a new villa suggests. Archaeologists have discovered a 4th Century villa near Aberystwyth, the first time they have found evidence of Roman occupation of North and mid Wales. Findings indicate Abermagwr had all the trappings of villas found further south, including a slate roof and glazed windows. The villa is likely to have belonged to a wealthy landowner, with pottery and coin finds on the site indicating occupation in the late 3rd and early 4th Centuries AD. It was roofed with local slates, which were cut...

Irish, Scots and Welsh not Celts - scientists September 09 2004 at 08:15PM Dublin - Celtic nations like Ireland and Scotland have more in common with the Portuguese and Spanish than with "Celts" - the name commonly used for a group of people from ancient Alpine Europe, scientists say. "There is a received wisdom that the origin of the people of these islands lie in invasions or migrations... but the affinities don't point eastwards to a shared origin," said Daniel Bradley, co-author of a genetic study into Celtic origins. Early historians believed the Celts - thought to have come from...

History books favor stories of conquest, not of continuity, so it is perhaps not surprising that many Englishmen grow up believing they are a fighting mixture of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Vikings and Normans who invaded Britain. The defeated Celts, by this reckoning, left their legacy only in the hinterlands of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. A new genetic survey of Y chromosomes throughout the British Isles has revealed a very different story. The Celtic inhabitants of Britain were real survivors. Nowhere were they entirely replaced by the invaders and they survive in high proportions, often 50 percent or more, throughout...

Who were the Celts? The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings with other cultures that bordered the lands occupied by these peoples, and even though there is no written record of the Celts stemming from their own documents, we can piece together a fair picture of them from archeological evidence as well as historical accounts from other cultures. The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy around 400 BC, when a previously unkown...

Professor Peter Donnelly, of Oxford University, said the Welsh carry DNA which could be traced back to the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. The project surveyed 2,000 people in rural areas across Britain. Participants, as well as their parents and grandparents, had to be born in those areas to be included in the study. Prof Donnelly, a professor of statistical science at Oxford University and director of the Wellcome Trust centre for human genetics, said DNA samples were analysed at about 500,000 different points. After comparing statistics, a map was compiled which showed Wales and Cornwall stood out. Prof...

The Health Service has removed the word ‘dad’ from a pregnancy handbook for fear of offending gay and lesbian parents. Officials decided to use the term ‘partner’ throughout the 200-page guide, titled Ready Steady Baby, after receiving a complaint that ‘dad’ was discriminating against same-sex couples. But the omission of the word has angered some campaigners who claim that traditional family values are being undermined. Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘This is all part of an agenda to present as natural a type of family that cannot be created by natural means. ‘The NHS should not be...

UK Prime Minister David Cameron should tone down his euroskeptic rhetoric and avoid a repeat of the diplomatic failure of last December’s European summit, Wales’ First Minister Carwyn Jones has told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. The leader of the devolved Welsh government, who is from the Labour party, distanced himself from Cameron, a Conservative, saying that he is less euroskeptic and more at ease with notions of European federalism. Whilst agreeing with the substance of the veto cast by Cameron at the last summit, the chief of the Cardiff-based Senedd—or Welsh Parliament—said the UK premier had got the "mood...

A chef at a restaurant in Wales admitted he shoved a kitchen worker down the stairs after a critic called the food they had served "disgusting." Charlie McCubbin, 51, is the owner-chef of The River Cafe in Glasbury-on-Wye, which was visited by Sunday Times critic AA Gill. Bruce Gray, defending, told the court that at the end of his meal Gill was asked whether he enjoyed it. "Iin his rather flippant manner, his response was: 'Disgusting'," the BBC quoted Gray as saying. "I say this to give you some idea of the stress of working in an environment where reputation...

Archaeologists are launching a new dig to try to unearth the secrets of a 9th Century stone monument on a prehistoric mound. Bangor and Chester university experts will begin excavations at the Pillar of Eliseg near Llangollen, Denbighshire... Last year excavations focussed on the mound, which was identified as an early Bronze Age cairn. It followed on from one in the 18th Century. Professor Nancy Edwards from Bangor University told BBC Radio Wales: "...This year we are going back to the cairn to one particular trench because we discovered evidence last year of the dig into the top of the...

For more than 2000 years a suburb of monumental Roman buildings lay undiscovered beneath a modern South Wales town, but now archaeologists from Cardiff University hope to reveal the secrets of this fascinating ancient site. In spring 2010, staff and students from the School of History, Archaeology and Religion located a complex of buildings outside the Roman fortress at Caerleon. The 'Lost City of the Legion' -- as it has been called -- was completely unknown and is a major addition to our knowledge of Roman Britain. Geophysical surveys taken by the Cardiff team at the time of the discovery...

Recent discovery of a stylized reindeer engraving in a South Wales by Dr George Nash from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, now has been scientifically dated. The date of the flowstone that covers the head of the reindeer is 12,572 +/- 659 years Before Present, and the rock-art below may be much earlier. It is now confirmed that the carved reindeer is one of Britain's earliest examples of engraved figurative rock art. Dr Nash discovered the faint engraving while visiting the Gower Peninsula caves near Swansea in September 2010 with students and members of the Clifton...

...The hoard of copper alloy coins, dating from the 3rd Century, was unearthed in Montgomery, Powys, several weeks ago. About 900 were found by a member of a Welshpool metal detecting club, with the rest of the discovery made with help from archaeologists. The exact location is being kept secret to protect the site. The Powys coroner will determine whether they qualify as treasure. Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT), which helped unearth the coins, said the discovery had the potential to reveal more about Roman life in mid Wales in the late 3rd Century. The find in Montgomery is a few...