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Accessible Salon Opened in UK by Balcony Fall Survivor

Maddi Neale-Shankster made the decision to open the salon after struggling to access beauty treatments
Maddi Neale-Shankster made the decision to open the salon after struggling to access beauty treatments
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Accessible Salon Opened in UK by Balcony Fall Survivor

Maddi Neale-Shankster made the decision to open the salon after struggling to access beauty treatments
Maddi Neale-Shankster made the decision to open the salon after struggling to access beauty treatments

A beautician left paralyzed after a balcony fall has opened an accessible salon in the UK where people should "not feel like a burden for needing extra support,” BBC reported.

Maddi Neale-Shankster, from Coventry, made the decision after struggling to access beauty treatments, BBC said on Thursday.

Neale-Shankster hoped the salon would be a sanctuary for wheelchair users and the able-bodied alike. A place where people did not feel judged, she said.

Neale-Shankster was injured last year after falling 18.2m while holidaying with friends on the island of Ko Pha Ngan in Thailand.

Recalling an attempt to use a sunbed in the city with a friend's help, the 22-year-old said it could only be allowed if a door was left open.

The experience drove the beautician to open her own salon that she hopes will be a sanctuary for wheelchair users and able-bodied people alike, "where you don't feel judged, out of place, a burden for needing extra support."

"There's absolutely nothing that's ever gonna stop me from getting my lashes done and having a sunbed."

She had often been left with no option but to carry out catheter care at the back door of a former business premises, she said.

"I didn't fit in the toilet, I didn't fit down the corridor, I didn't fit in the nail desk," she told BBC CWR.

Now, her purpose-built salon features wider nail desks, rooms, doorways, and access via a slow inclining ramp.

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Eggs Are Less Likely to Crack When Dropped on Their Side, According to Science

Fresh eggs are delivered along with chickens and a portable chicken coop to a client’s house as part of the "Rent The Chicken" service in La Crescenta, California, on April 21, 2025. (AFP)
Fresh eggs are delivered along with chickens and a portable chicken coop to a client’s house as part of the "Rent The Chicken" service in La Crescenta, California, on April 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Eggs Are Less Likely to Crack When Dropped on Their Side, According to Science

Fresh eggs are delivered along with chickens and a portable chicken coop to a client’s house as part of the "Rent The Chicken" service in La Crescenta, California, on April 21, 2025. (AFP)
Fresh eggs are delivered along with chickens and a portable chicken coop to a client’s house as part of the "Rent The Chicken" service in La Crescenta, California, on April 21, 2025. (AFP)

Eggs are less likely to crack when they fall on their side, according to experiments with over 200 eggs.

What does this mean for the best way to crack an egg for breakfast? Not much, since a break around the middle is the best way to get the golden yolk and runny whites to ooze out.

But scientists said it could help with hard-boiling eggs in a pot: Dropping eggs in horizontally may be less likely to cause a stray crack that can unleash the egg's insides in a puffy, cloudy mess.

It's commonly thought that eggs are strongest at their ends — after all, it's how they're packaged in the carton. The thinking is that the arc-shaped bottom of an egg redirects the force and softens the blow of impact.

But when scientists squeezed eggs in both directions during a compression test, they cracked under the same amount of force.

"The fun started when we thought we would get one result and then we saw another," said Hudson Borja da Rocha with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped run the experiments.

The researchers also ran simulations and dropped eggs horizontally and vertically from three short heights up to 0.4 inches (10 millimeters).

The egg result? The ones dropped horizontally cracked less.

"The common sense is that the egg in the vertical direction is stronger than if you lay the egg down. But they proved that's not the case," said materials scientist Marc Meyers with the University of California, San Diego who was not involved with the new study.

Scientists found that the egg's equator was more flexible and absorbed more of the energy of the fall before cracking. The findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Physics.

Eggs are also usually nestled top-down into homemade contraptions for egg drop challenges as part of school STEM projects, which partially inspired the new study. It's not yet clear whether the new results will help protect these vulnerable eggs, which are dropped at much loftier heights.

It's a bit counterintuitive that the oblong side of an egg could hold up better against a tumble, said study co-author Tal Cohen with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Countless broken eggs show "the courage to go and challenge these very common, accepted notions," Cohen said.