You're not an adult until you're 30, says a new study

You don't become an adult until you reach your thirties, according to research. So if you're twenty-something but still find yourself scratching your head about how to cook a roast chicken, or how many towels you should own, then go ahead and blame it on the fact that you're not yet a fully-fledged adult. According to the legal system in England and Wales, you're an adult when you hit the age of 18. However, the latest research from Cambridge University has found substantial developmental changes occur in the brain long after this time, continuing for the first "three decades" of life.

"What we're really saying is that to have a definition of when you move from childhood to adulthood looks increasingly absurd," Professor Peter Jones, from Cambridge University, told journalists at a press briefing in London. Rather than becoming an adult at a certain age, Jones suggested the journey from childhood to adulthood is " a much more nuanced transition that takes place over three decades."

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