Articles

When Sasha Szafranski connected with a stranger on a genealogy website, she uncovered a mistake that had been hidden for 30 years.

It was a match Sasha Szafranski never saw coming.

In 2025, she sent a sample of her DNA to Ancestry.com — a website that helps people trace their genealogy.

The mother-of-two had been hoping to learn more about her father's Eastern European heritage.

But when her results came back, she found a connection much closer to home.

Sasha matched with Elizabeth*, a stranger from the same coastal city she grew up in.

Elizabeth: Hi Sasha, I see you're a close DNA match with me. Do you know how we are related?

Sasha: Hey I am trying to work that out myself, I can't place anyone

Elizabeth: I'm happy to help if you need. I'm coming up as your Aunt.

The pair started a conversation, sharing information about their families to try to solve the mystery.

i When Sasha revealed she was a twin, the conversation took a life-altering turn.

Elizabeth: This is a personal question, but you wouldn't happen to be IVF babies by any chance?

Sasha: Yes! My twin and I were IVF!

• No Paywall
• No JavaScript needed.

In his work on republicanism as a living idea, J G A Pocock showed that contesting history is part of a robust civic life

Until recently no Hollywood studio had ever released two movies with the same name at the same time. At most studios, such a strategy would be unthinkable. Audiences might accidentally buy tickets to the wrong film, and the PR fallout would be disastrous: snipes from trade-magazine writers; angry calls from investors questioning the studios’ business acumen; angrier calls from agents demanding to know why their clients’ images were being intentionally sabotaged.

Netflix, however, is not most studios. On April Fools’ Day, 2022, the company released a Judd Apatow comedy titled The Bubble, which takes place on the set of a Hollywood dinosaur franchise that’s forced to quarantine in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Four weeks later, it released an animated film by Tetsurō Araki, director of the popular Japanese anime shows Death Note and Attack on Titan, about a postapocalyptic world in which the law of gravity ceases to exist. Araki’s film was called Bubble.

Neurologists have grappled with a cluster of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis cases in France, where a fondness for a toxic wild mushroom may hold the answer

Short-distance moves dominate global migration patterns. Most migrants don’t cross oceans or continents; they cross nearby borders, staying close to home.

Moldy mattresses, 24/7 lights and constant noise contribute to a persistent health and safety crisis in prisons and jails.