French researchers on Tuesday dealt a blow to folklore that says mothers are better than fathers in recognising their baby's cry. The "maternal instinct" notion gained scientific backing more than three decades ago through two experiments, one of which found that women were nearly twice as accurate as men in identifying the cry of their offspring. But the new study says men and women are equally skilled at this -- and accuracy depends simply on the amount of time that a parent spends with the child.

There is a Russian proverb, “If you go to war pray once; if you go on a sea journey pray twice; but pray three times if you are going to be married.” One lawyer, who specializes in divorce cases, couldn’t agree more. “Everyone gets married to be happy - nobody expects a divorce to end their marriage. But, if you see how many couples end up divorcing, the number is just startling,” Lee In-chul, 39, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. According to Statistics Korea, 320,000 couples tied the knot in 2010 and 120,000 pairs divorced.

Footballer Cha Du-ri is going through divorce procedures, according to legal industry sources Wednesday. Ending a five-year marriage, the 33-year-old footballer filed for divorce mediation with the Seoul Family Court against his 34-year-old wife, Shin Hye-seong, on March 12, they said. Meditation during divorce is a way of finding solutions to issues such as child custody and spousal support without formal court trials.

It's hard enough for same-sex couples to marry in the United States, but divorce is a headache as well, and one that supporters of gay marriage hope the US Supreme Court can resolve. "Divorce is the new frontier for gay couples," said Susan Sommer of Lambda Legal, a legal advice service for homosexuals. "They had to fight to be together, and they have to fight to get a divorce." Like marriage, divorce laws are determined by each of the 50 states, only nine of which -- in addition to the federal capital Washington -- so far allow couples of the same sex to wed.