The Cornish beach that inspired Virginia Woolf's novel To The Lighthouse has been sold for £80,000. A private buyer from London who originally hails from Cornwall bought Upton Towans beach in Gwithian, complete with a view of the Godrevy Island lighthouse, at auction.

All the proceeds will go to the Hall for Cornwall theatre in Truro because Dennis Arbon, a trustee of the performing arts venue who has owned the beach for the past 19 years, wants the sale to be of benefit to the people of Cornwall.

The guide price for the 76 acres of beach near Hayle was £50,000. Woolf's novel, published in 1927, was set in the Hebrides but drew on her childhood holidays in St Ives, where she stayed at a house from which Godrevy Island was visible. A landmark of early 20th century literature, Woolf called her most autobiographical work "easily the best of my books". She used the money garnered from sales to buy a car.

Planning restrictions mean the new owner is not allowed to build on the land or excavate minerals.

A study appearing in the August 5 NeuroReport suggests that four-letter words may help alleviate pain. "Swear words are unique," says Timothy Jay, a psychologist at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, who has studied the role of naughty words in linguistics. "They're really the link between the language system and the emotional system."

Inspiration for the new study came to psychologist Richard Stephens as he listened to his wife let loose with some unsavory language during the throes of labor. So he and his colleagues at Keele University in England conducted an experiment to test whether uttering emotion-laden choice words can actually change the amount of pain people feel. Undergraduate students (38 males and 29 females) each immersed a hand in cold water (about 5º Celsius) for as long as they could stand it, while repeating either a swear word or an innocuous word.

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When people had a swear word for their mantra (popular choices: the s-word, the f-word, two b-words and a c-word), they were able to keep a hand in the chilly water longer. What's more, after the ordeal, people who swore reported less pain.

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Swearing increased heart rate in both men and women, but had a greater effect on women. Researchers thought the heart rate increase might signal the beginning of a fight-or-flight response. Such a response may allow the body to tolerate or ignore pain, they say.

 

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans.

Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a "soliciting purr" to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.

Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a "cry", with a similar frequency to a human baby's.

The team said cats have "tapped into" a human bias - producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.

China's ministry of health has banned the use of electric shock treatment to cure internet addiction.

The move follows growing concern in the country about young people's compulsive use of chat rooms, websites and online gaming - but also the methods used to wean them offline.

Doctors released the first diagnostic definition of internet addiction late last year, based on a study of more than 1,300 intensive users. It says addicts are those who spend at least six hours online a day and have shown at least one of a range of symptoms - including yearning to get back online, fear of social contact, irritation and difficulty concentrating or sleeping.