Seven days

A glance at the week that was

The numbers

€48The average amount given to charity per head per year in Munster, the least generous in Ireland.

€3,500The sum fetched at auction in Co Meath by the decapitated head of St Vitalis of Assisi, a 14th-century Italian saint.

30.6The gigatonnes of CO2 emitted by humans last year, a new record, according to the International Energy Agency.

251The number of journalists killed "with impunity" in the past decade, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

541The number of people jailed last year for failing to pay parking, television-licence and other fines.

160,000The number of eligible families expected to benefit from a new €82 million back-to-school clothing- and footwear- allowance scheme.

We now know

Radiation from mobile phones has been classified as “possibly carcinogenic” by the World Health Organisation.

St Colman’s College in Co Mayo is replacing schoolbooks with iPads.

Paul Scholes has retired as a player at the age of 36 but will remain in football as a Manchester United coach.

Wings of desire

Japanese scientists have discovered that female small copper butterflies have a simple way of avoiding sexual advances: they close their wings. According to a study at Kurume Institute of Technology in Fukuoka, the females are too delicate to cope with “persistent mating attempts” and close their striking wings as a “harassment-avoidance strategy”. Dr Jun-Ya Ide notes, however, that virgin females leave their wings open because they have not yet copulated and want to remain conspicuous.

Most read this week on irishtimes.com

1 Gilson warned she could face jail over car sales firm

2 Why can’t we find the cheapest place to live in Ireland?

3 Gravy train still stops at all the right stations

4 Obama’s waffle feeds Irish taste for fantasy

5 Air France crash bodies recovered

6 Final minutes of Air France flight 447 revealed

7 Schmidt admits Facebook ‘failure’

8 No light at end of the tunnel for Greece means dark clouds on Ireland’s horizon

9 Irish fraud suspect ‘found dead’

10 From 1798, a Monkstown landmark for 1.3m