Sudoku variant that mixes logic and arithmetic is an online hitA new type of Sudoku is whetting the appetites of puzzle fans.Sandwich sudoku follows the same rules of sudoku but includes extra clues outside the grid like this: Continue reading...

Some families hand down money to the next generation; others bequeath fat. Guess which mine didMy nana once said: “You can never be too rich or too thin.” I don’t think she’ll mind me saying that she’s never been too much of either. Nevertheless, her sage words have become something of a family motto, so we decided to have them written in Latin beneath our heraldic crest (a pair of hair-straighteners mantling a brimming ashtray, leopard-skin shield). Unfortunately none of us can read Latin, so the translation turns out to be something like: “The rich man is either too thin or too much, nor are you able to, so there isn’t.”The reason my family ain’t so au fait with classical Latin is that, like more than 45% of the country, we are all werkin’ clahss. Classified somewhere charming between grades C2 and E, the social stratum my lot comes from has meant that, for many reasons, being thin (in a healthy way at least) is highly improbable. Continue reading...

People who drink one to two standard drinks a day are the healthiest overall. But moderate drinking isn’t an isolated behaviourAs a society, we love drinking. There are people who abstain, but by and large we love to drink alcohol – it’s part of our social culture, part of our collective identity, and so pervasive that it can be hard to escape from even if you try. As anyone who’s attempted a Dry July can attest, booze is something that we are all connected to in myriads of ways.So stories about drinking make us stop and take notice. In particular, moderate drinking. We all know that boozing too much is bad for us – it’s no surprise that 20 beers a week is probably not great for your health – but it is much more confusing that we are constantly being told that moderate drinking is either good or bad for us depending on the week or even the day that different studies are announced. A recent study just last month concluded that moderate drinking might be preventing depression, which seems incredibly unlikely for a number of reasons. Continue reading...

The waxing crescent moon will appear close to Mars in the western sky, with Gemini aboveSky watchers have a pretty view to look forward to this week on Wednesday evening. A thin waxing crescent moon will appear close to Mars. The moon will be just 16% illuminated, making it appear as a sliver in the sky. It acts as a useful signpost for finding the constellation of Gemini, which is standing upright in the western sky by mid-late evening. Mars will be slightly lower and to the north. The chart shows the view looking west at 21:30 BST on 8 May 2019. There will still be some twilight close to the horizon but this should not hamper your view of either target. Those who like a challenge can look the day before. The moon will be an even thinner crescent but will be right next to Mars. The red planet is currently getting lower each night as it heads behind the sun. It will finally be lost to the summer sunset glare in July, reappearing in October in the morning dawn sky. Continue reading...

The cannabis-derived compound is popping up in everything from mineral water to bath bombs. We ask experts and users if it actually worksAaron Horn first came across cannabidiol, or CBD, about three years ago in Glastonbury – the town, not the festival. “I found it at this amazing hemp shop, Hemp in Avalon,” recalls Horn, a musician who is now 35. “It’s run by a guy called Free. His last name is Cannabis. He changed his name by deed poll to Free Cannabis.” Horn bought a tube of high-concentration CBD paste – “it comes out like a brown toothpaste, almost” – and it was recommended he put a tiny dot on his finger and pop it in his mouth.Horn’s adult life had been spent in the shadow of a horrific accident that took place when he was 22. In June 2006, he had been shooting at a target with an air rifle in the garden of his family home; his parents are the music producers Jill Sinclair and Trevor Horn. Horn didn’t realise his mother was nearby, and a stray pellet lodged in her neck and severed an artery. Sinclair experienced hypoxia, which caused irreversible brain damage, and she spent years in a coma before dying in 2014. Continue reading...

There is too little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to work on treatments for diseases of low-income countries

We’re besieged by people promising to improve our lot. My self-help programme is slightly different...Some of the most malevolent legacies of the Margaret Thatcher era for British society have been grievously self-evident. Some people have included the deadly sin of greed among them but I’m afraid we can’t lay that one at her feet. Like its six fraternal vices, greed has always been with us. All Thatcher did was turn lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride into attributes. To this day, these are pillars upon which stands the modern Conservative party.You may be surprised at the inclusion of sloth on this list. Didn’t even her enemies concede that the Iron Lady always proclaimed the rewards of hard work? I would contend that her acolytes certainly all did believe in hard work, so long as it was only the working class that would be made to do it. Under her, the capitalist dream of being granted the means to make money in exchange for doing as little as possible became a reality. Continue reading...

Conveying our deepest desires, likes and dislikes, to our most intimate partner is essential. Here’s how…“Yes,” I say, surprisingly firmly, to the man I have never met before, whose name I do not even know, who is massaging my back and shoulders. “Yes. Yes, please.”I am lying on a mat on the floor of a conference room in a London hotel and around me three people – complete strangers – are rubbing my back. “Zero,” I say suddenly, which is the code word for stop. It’s not because I want the massage to end – in truth, it feels rather soothing – but because we have been encouraged to try saying “no” as well as “yes”. That, after all, is the point of the exercise. According to the leader of this workshop, intimacy and relationships expert Jan Day, we find “no” extremely difficult to say, and our lives would be better if we could bring ourselves to say it more readily. Instantly, the people surrounding me draw back, and I revel in the afterglow of both having articulated the difficult message I wanted to convey, and having it acted upon. Continue reading...

New mobile system to be launched this year ‘will put lives at risk’The introduction of 5G mobile phone networks could seriously affect weather forecasters’ ability to predict major storms.That is the stark warning of meteorologists around the world, who say the next-generation wireless system now being rolled out across the globe is likely to disrupt the delicate satellite instruments they use to monitor changes in the atmosphere. Continue reading...

All her life, the South African athlete has been portrayed as a freak. Her case is as much about ethics as about sport or scienceWhen she was a girl, growing up in rural South Africa, the runner Caster Semenya would sometimes face a humiliating ritual before a race. She grew accustomed, her coaches once said, to having to retreat to the bathroom with a member of a suspicious rival athletics team and physically show them that she was not a boy. From her childhood, people had gossiped about her body; by the time she had begun competing internationally she must have been used to the whispers, the open stares in changing rooms.Related: Caster Semenya loses landmark legal case against IAAF over testosterone levels Continue reading...

Scientists analyse whether gravitational wave detectors picked up signs of collisionAstronomers may have spotted a neutron star being swallowed by a black hole for the first time, marked by a belch of gravitational waves rippling across the cosmos.If confirmed, the detection by the twin Ligo detectors in the US and the Virgo detector in Italy would be the first evidence that black holes and neutron stars can pair up in binary systems. The observations could also reveal new details about the nature of such dramatic mergers, including whether the neutron star was ripped apart before crossing the black hole’s threshold or whether it slid seamlessly into oblivion. Continue reading...

The ruling against Caster Semenya is discriminatory, argues Malcolm Ferguson-Smith, while Jane Singer says it breaches the founding spirit of the Olympics. Sarah Mulholland fears for the futureIt is far from clear that testosterone is responsible for the athletic success of Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand (Caster Semenya loses testosterone legal case but may launch new appeal, 2 May). They are elite female athletes whose high level of testosterone is genetic and due to failure of the tissues to respond to testosterone secreted by the testes. Therefore treatment to reduce testosterone is unlikely to affect their condition, although the side-effects of the therapy may adversely affect performance.It is known from the Atlanta Games that athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) maintain Olympic levels of performance even after removal of their testes. Unbiased evidence confirming this is held by the IAAF, which has confidential records from previous gender verification tests. The IAAF has a responsibility to reveal the anonymous data which could help in Semenya’s appeal against the verdict from the court of arbitration for sport. Continue reading...

Before the school run, or commuting to work, increasing numbers are taking tiny doses of psychedelic drugs in the UK. Why?

Church of Scientology vessel held in port after contagious disease detected onboardA cruise ship quarantined for a reported case of measles has left the Caribbean island of St Lucia after health officials supplied 100 doses of vaccine to the ship, according to reports.The Church of Scientology cruise ship was confined to port this week by island health officials after the highly contagious disease was detected onboard. Continue reading...

Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson concludes a three-part journey into the sonic environment of the ocean examining the possible threats caused to marine life by noise pollution. In this final episode he looks at solutions and discovers an unlikely role for sound artists such as himselfAs wildlife recordist Chris Watson looks for solutions to ocean noise pollution, he hears from Tim Gordon, whose long-awaited trip to the Great Barrier Reef became a devastating experience when he heard the eerie silence of a dying coral reef, caused in part by global warming.

Wildlife recordist Chris Watson is joined by award-winning sound artist Jana Winderen on a voyage around Norway’s Austevoll islands, aboard a research vessel recording the grunting of spawning codContrary to popular belief, or the writings of Jacques Cousteau, life under the ocean surface is not a silent world but in fact a dense and rich sonic environment where sound plays a fundamental role to all known life.In episode two, the pioneering nature sound recordist Chris Watson and sound artist Jana Winderen meet a team from Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and climb aboard a research vessel setting sail around the Austevoll islands. Continue reading...

Wildlife recordist Chris Watson begins a three-part journey into the sonic environment of the ocean, celebrating the sounds and songs of marine life and investigating the threat of noise pollutionContrary to popular belief, and the writings of Jacques Cousteau, life beneath the ocean surface is not a silent world but a dense and rich sonic environment where sound plays a fundamental role in life.In episode one of this three-part series, pioneering nature sound recordist Chris Watson begins a journey driven by his fascination with recording the songs and signals of life under the ocean surface. He will meet scientists examining the possible impacts of noise pollution, from the likes of shipping noise and seismic explosions used in the search for oil and gas. He will also talk to sound artists trying to raise awareness of the issue through their art. Continue reading...

Hormonal contraceptives potentially reduce risk of tear to anterior cruciate ligamentWomen on the combined pill appear to be less likely to tear a key ligament in their knee, research suggests.Injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee are common, particularly in people taking part in sport, where such injuries sometimes end careers. Continue reading...

End of transmission may be in sight after nearly three decades of medical advances

Paper says risk between male partners is zero if virus fully suppressed by antiretrovirals

If confirmed, faint signals would be first detection of seismic activity on MarsNasa’s InSight Mars lander has detected signals of what could have been a marsquake. The signals were recorded on 6 April and if confirmed would be the first detection of seismic activity on Mars.Although the signals are only faint, they fit the profile of moonquakes that were detected with seismometers left on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts 50 years ago. The apparent marsquake produced readings that were bigger than the shaking of the spacecraft due to the martian wind, but smaller than the vibrations caused by the movement of the spacecraft’s robotic arm. Continue reading...

The internet has been captivated by Sugriva and her use of Instagram, but some animal experts haven’t been so impressedChimpanzees are known to use at least 22 types of tools in the wild but in captivity a less rudimentary device now appears to be within ape capabilities – Instagram.Last week, a video showing a chimpanzee casually swiping through Instagram on a smartphone was posted on the photo-sharing application by Kody Antle, son of Mahamayavi Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, who is founder of Myrtle Beach Safari, a 50-acre wildlife reserve in South Carolina. Continue reading...

Murmur, which depicts the mathematician’s ordeal after he was convicted for having a gay lover, is hailed by judges as ‘a future classic’Will Eaves’s fictionalised account of the chemical castration of Alan Turing, Murmur, was hailed as “a future classic” as it won the £30,000 Wellcome book prize on Wednesday night, only the third novel to win the award for science-related writing.Published by Charles Boyle’s one-man-band press CB Editions, Murmur was up against both fiction and non-fiction for the prize, which goes to the book that best “illuminate[s] the many ways that health and medicine touch our lives”. It beat titles including Thomas Page McBee’s memoir Amateur, about becoming the first transgender man to box at Madison Square Gardens, and cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar’s Heart, a history and memoir of the organ. Continue reading...

Scientists extract proteins from a molar to uncover details of mysterious species’ originsA human jawbone found in a cave on the Tibetan plateau has revealed new details about the appearance and lifestyle of a mysterious ancient species called Denisovans.The 160,000-year-old fossil, comprising a powerful jaw and unusually large teeth, suggests these early relatives would have looked something like the most primitive of the Neanderthals. The discovery also shows that Denisovans lived at extremely high altitude and, through interbreeding, may have passed on gene adaptations for this lifestyle to modern-day Sherpas in the region. Continue reading...

30 August 1997 Forced sterilisations in Scandinavia have shocked the world. But the great founding fathers of British socialism, reports Jonathan Freedland, had dreams almost as vile as those of the NazisThey will be searching their souls in Stockholm tonight. And in Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen, too. All over Scandinavia, people are facing up to the stain now spreading across their snow-white self -image, as they discover that their governments spent decades executing a chilling plan to purify the Nordic race, nurturing the strong and eradicating the weak. Each day victims of forced sterilisation, now deep in middle age, have stepped forward to tell how they were ordered to have “the chop”, to prevent them having children deemed as racially defective as themselves.Related: Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left's closet | Jonathan Freedland Continue reading...

Largest survey of its kind uncovers suspicion of vaccines in big part of world population

All political parties have said research and innovation can help raise living standards. A good start would be to invest in staffAmid the turbulence of Brexit deadlines and extensions, you might be pleased to know that there are at least some long-term plans afoot. A good news story in government, with major investment attached, has the potential to create a new type of future for the UK. You may not have heard of it but, in a time of fiscal constraint, the government has given a staggering boost to the UK’s capability in research and innovation, paving the way for science investment to reach £65bn. This is the biggest uplift in about 40 years. Why would the government do this? Is it a good idea? And what do you want out of it?Science is part of a social justice agenda that is likely to persist through different governments Continue reading...

Fears raised about miscarriages of justice and unsolved crimesA crisis in forensic science has brought some of the country’s largest private laboratories to the brink of collapse, risking miscarriages of justice, an inquiry has warned.The House of Lords science and technology committee has called for urgent reforms to forensic science provision, warning that declining standards could lead to crimes going unsolved and an erosion of public trust in the criminal justice system. Continue reading...

Jellyfish’s sting carries enough venom to kill more than 60 peopleAn antidote has been discovered for the world’s most venomous creature, the Australian box jellyfish.Researchers at the University of Sydney have found an antidote for the sting of the jellyfish – which carries enough venom to kill more than 60 people. Continue reading...

SpaceX delivery delayed after old power-switching unit malfunctionsThe International Space Station has been hit by a major power shortage that has forced a delivery from SpaceX to be delayed.SpaceX was supposed to launch a shipment on Wednesday. But an old power-switching unit malfunctioned at the space station on Monday and knocked two power channels offline. The six remaining power channels still worked normally, according to Nasa. Continue reading...

Rock deposits show there have been many times when the planet has been covered in iceOnce upon a time, about 650m years ago, our planet was covered in ice. Glaciers stretched as far as the tropics, and equatorial regions were as cold as modern day Antarctica.Life clung on, huddling around geothermal springs and in pockets of liquid water under the ice caps. Ancient rock deposits suggest our planet entered this snowball state multiple times. Continue reading...

Heatwave of 2018 will become the capital’s new normal, claims Green party in reportHundreds of schools, hospitals and tube stations in London are at risk of flooding or overheating as the climate crisis accelerates and global temperatures continue to rise, according to a study.The report, commissioned by the Green party on the London Assembly, paints a bleak picture of life in the capital as global temperatures increase by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a conservative estimate based on current projections. Continue reading...

Impaired smell in later life can be an early warning of neurodegenerative and heart diseases, research suggestsOlfactory tests could help doctors spot older adults who are at greater risk of developing dementia, researchers say.The sense of smell is known to deteriorate with age. However, researchers have previously found it might also hint at health problems: older adults who struggle to identify odours have a greater chance of dying in the near future regardless of how old they are. Continue reading...

Hair tagged as polymath’s in US collection to be tested against remains in French graveTwo Italian experts are set to perform a DNA test on a lock of hair that they say might have belonged to Leonardo da Vinci.The hair strand was found in a private collection in the US and will go on display for the first time at the Ideale Leonardo da Vinci museum in Vinci (the Tuscan town where the artist was born), from 2 May, the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. Continue reading...

An Oxford lecturer claims that a secret breeding programme to create alien-human hybrids will save humanity from environmental disasterName: Alien abductions.Appearance: Vague. Continue reading...

Dame Sally Davies calls for Extinction Rebellion-style campaign to raise awarenessProtests against climate change should be extended to the other greatest threat facing humanity, according to England’s chief medical officer, who says an Extinction Rebellion-style campaign is needed to save people from antibiotics becoming ineffective in the face of overuse and a lack of regulation.The threat of antibiotic resistance is as great as that from climate change, said Dame Sally Davies, and should be given as much attention from politicians and the public. Continue reading...

Study found bags were still able to carry shopping despite environmental claimsPlastic bags that claim to be biodegradable were still intact and able to carry shopping three years after being exposed to the natural environment, a study has found.The research for the first time tested compostable bags, two forms of biodegradable bag and conventional carrier bags after long-term exposure to the sea, air and earth. None of the bags decomposed fully in all environments. Continue reading...

The moon and Venus are in conjunction this week, but in June Venus, the morning star, will disappear, and return as evening star in OctoberThe month ends as it began with a conjunction between the moon and Venus at dawn. The chart shows the view looking east at 0515 BST on 1 May, when the moon and Venus will both rise shortly before the sun. The moon will be a slim crescent, with just 14% of its surface illuminated. To make the most of this opportunity, start looking the morning before, when the moon will be a little further from Venus, and its crescent will be a little fatter. Make sure you have an excellent eastern horizon as the pair will not rise very high before the sun appears and washes them away. Although the moon will be gone by 2 May, Venus will remain visible in the morning sky until the middle of June. Its orbit will then carry it behind the sun, rendering it invisible throughout the summer. The planet will return to visibility in October but will appear in the evening sky, and remain there until the end of the year. The ancient Greeks named Venus differently depending on whether they saw it in the morning or evening sky. It was known as Phosphoros, the morning star, or Hesperos for evening star. Remember, never look directly at the sun, it is so bright that it can cause permanent eye damage. Continue reading...

Girls with autism are often misdiagnosed, but a new graphic novel aims to put them in the pictureAt secondary school, they become the “leftover girls”, drifting, alienated and often miserably lonely because the other teenage girls won’t accept them. It’s not that autistic girls don’t want friends – they are as desperate for friends as any teenager – but in a world which denies, rejects and ignores them, they are simply not wired to understand the only social role available to them: that of a neurotypical girl living an ordinary life.Dr Sarah Bargiela wants to reach these girls. With illustrator Sophie Standing, she has written Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women, a graphic novel that transforms the growing mass of dry, scholarly research on autism and women into intriguing science facts and moving personal accounts. Continue reading...

An investigation into the sports-related brain disease CTE and a history of climate change denial were essential listeningThe Beautiful Brain | Audible

Why using a white spoon can be preferable to a black one when eating yoghurt and other quirks of human perceptionResearchers in Philadelphia revealed last week that tastebuds also bear odour-detecting proteins, calling into question the idea that smell and taste come together in the brain to produce flavour. According to Dr Mehmet Hakan Ozdener, his findings open up the possibility of using smells to trick us into healthier eating, for example by adding a low-concentration odour to food to make it taste sweeter and thereby reduce sugar intake. Continue reading...

Psychologist Peter Fonagy tells of his own struggles in early life as the Anna Freud charity that he heads opens a major new centre for traumatised childrenIn 1967, a young Hungarian refugee sent to live in Britain planned on ending his life. “At 16 I was a very depressed adolescent, I had suicidal ideation, I had suicidal plans,” Peter Fonagy recalls. “If I was assessing myself now I would be very worried about me, because I knew exactly how I was going to do it. The reason is not that subtle or surprising: I was a Hungarian boy, who had landed in England and was not able to speak English.”Lodging with a family in Kew Gardens, west London, the young Fonagy did not want to eat, or leave his room. He hated talking to people and was struggling academically. “I was massively inhibited. I was at a secondary modern school with kids who failed the 11-plus whose main interest was football.” Continue reading...

It turns out that numbers don’t necessarily tell the whole story

Activists are changing the discourse on climate change. Politicians must respond with policies that meet the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5CClimate change is becoming hard to ignore. Extreme weather has grown more frequent. Scientists are loudly and urgently sounding the alarm – and people have noticed. The 10-day Extinction Rebellion protests were the biggest act of mass civil disobedience in the UK for generations. The protests, by people drawn from all sections of society, are sure to have a lasting impact. This month has seen the most mentions of climate change in the British media since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015. The country’s political class has been at pains to show it has been moved by the unprecedented outpouring of political feeling. But politicians need to overhaul policy in a far more substantial way than is currently envisaged to stop net emissions of greenhouse gases. The question is not whether this country should achieve a net zero target, but when. Presently the UK is committed in law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. This is not ambitious enough.Last year’s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggested that to limit the warming effect to 1.5C, global CO emissions must reach net zero by around 2050. Next week the UK’s Committee on Climate Change is expected to formally recommend the government goes further. Extinction Rebellion (XR) would like the UK to reach zero by 2025. Underlying this ambition is a commendable sentiment but the target is impractical. Britain, as the first country to industrialise and therefore responsible for a large historical stock of carbon dioxide emissions, ought to aspire to reach the UN’s 2050 goal faster, but not as fast as XR demands. Continue reading...

Professor Ton van Raan told use of phrase for ignored work is culturally insensitiveA leading American academic journal has refused to publish an article by a respected professor on the grounds that his use of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty as a metaphor for ignored scientific work is culturally insensitive and in danger of being “sexualised”.Ton van Raan, a professor emeritus of quantitative science studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, first likened the belated discovery of an academic work to the story of the Brothers Grimm fairytale some 15 years ago. Continue reading...

The ‘smoker’s disease’ is affecting more and more people who have never lit up in their lives – and it is a particular problem among women. What do experts think is going on?‘Don’t go home. Order a taxi, go to A&E and have a chest x-ray. I don’t think this is asthma-related. Something’s not right here.” Her GP’s words struck fear into Jenny Abbott.It hadn’t started out that way. A few weeks earlier, before Christmas 2017, she got a bad cold and a cough. An out-of-hours GP thought her longstanding viral-induced asthma was playing up and prescribed her steroids. A week later, her own family doctor took the same view. It was a reassuringly familiar diagnosis. But it was wrong. Abbott was surprised when her usual run round the park near her north London home left her breathless. “I just thought I was tired. But the next day I noticed that I was becoming breathless going up the stairs. And the day after that, I had to read something out at work, and even doing that made me breathless,” she recalls. Those symptoms triggered her GP’s plea to go to A&E. Continue reading...

It’s been several years since recreational cannabis was made legal in some US states. What effect has it had on road safety?People who are stoned often think they’re being funnier than they actually are, now we know they overestimate their driving ability too.Almost half of cannabis users believe it’s safe to drive when you’re high, according to a new study by PSB Research and Buzzfeed News. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who abstain from weed, take a different view – only 14% believe someone who’s stoned can drive safely. Continue reading...

As a doctor, I realize the forces that cause climate change are the same forces that poisoned the lungs of babies in DetroitI used to be a reluctant environmentalist. Of course, as a scientist, I’ve always believed in the science of climate change – even a casual examination of the evidence shows that humans burning fossil fuels into the Earth’s atmosphere is causing it. But my reluctance wasn’t about science, it’s just that the images of melting glaciers and dying polar bears – while compelling for many people – just didn’t move me. I’m not an outdoorsman. Besides, polar bears, however cute and cuddly they may seem, eat their own young.As a doctor, I care about people. And the consequences of climate change felt so remote from the daily struggle. Babies are dying, so why should I be worried about faraway glaciers and cannibalistic bears? But after being appointed health director of the City of Detroit, I realized that the forces that cause climate change are the same forces that poisoned the lungs of babies in my city. Today, I’m standing up for the Green New Deal because it’s also a Public Health New Deal. Continue reading...

As an archaeologist, I’ve seen Yemen’s rich heritage. But for too many world leaders, only arms sales really matterLike everyone else the world over, I watched in horror last week as Notre Dame burned and its spire fell. I saw the stunned reactions of onlookers on the news, on social media and in front of television sets and phone screens on the streets of Nice, where I live. A part of France’s national identity and an international symbol of Paris was collapsing before our eyes.This accidental burning of one of the most important French cultural and religious monuments struck a painful chord in just about everyone I know: I was getting messages of grief from friends in Sudan, Yemen, the US and South America. The unthinkable sight of Notre Dame burning evoked photographs of burning buildings during wartime, and nostalgia for all the valuable historical objects within them that had been turned to ash. One could not look at this sight without feeling grief. Continue reading...

The cuts expected to be announced by the government to tuition fees next month will take a vital subsidy for scienceEverywhere you go, your life is improved by breakthroughs developed in the labs and classrooms of UK universities. Treatments for diabetes and Parkinson’s, methods used by the police to cut violent crime, the sugar tax – even digital theology that can tackle online trolling. All of these are the work of UK academics, because the UK is a research powerhouse.Related: Are PhDs just cheap labour for universities? Continue reading...