Open University popularity increasing
Growing numbers of school-leavers are choosing to earn while they learn, by taking Open University degrees at the same time as holding down full-time job rather than going away to learn. The number of people aged 18 to 25 taking Open University degree courses has almost doubled in the past five years - from 5,894 in 1996-97 to 11,360 last year. Independent
Jesse Jackson visit raises Harvard tension
The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the US civil rights leader, ended a trip to Boston this week without meeting Larry Summers, president of Harvard University and former Clinton administration Treasury secretary. The failure of his mission is bound to fuel tensions between the university's administration and its Afro-American studies department. Financial Times
Cause of dyslexia lies in single chromosome
A pre-school test to identify children with a predisposition to dyslexia has become more likely with the discovery of a genetic link to the disorder, scientists from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, said yesterday. A study of more than 200 families of children who are dyslexic has revealed that a region of chromosome 18 is strongly associated with the condition. Independent
Unknown novelist wins Whitbread Award
Patrick Neate, a sometime disc jockey and almost unknown author, has beaten the cream of the British fiction establishment to win the prestigious Whitbread Novel Award with Twelve Bar Blues , his second published novel. Daily Telegraph
Jack and Chloe still dominate name game
Parents are becoming more conservative in their choice of children's names. Government statistics published yesterday show there has been negligible change in the ten most popular names for boys and girls, with Jack and Chloe again the most common choice for the seventh and fifth years respectively. Independent , Guardian
Tests begin for cancer-killing virus
Cancer patients are being recruited for the first British run trials of man-made tumour busting viruses. About 20 volunteers will be involved in the early stages of the experiments, testing the safety and short-term efficacy of the treatments, which researchers from Imperial College London, hope might eventually be able to combat 95 per cent of cancers. Guardian , Daily Telegraph
Diabetes link to pregnant smokers
Women who smoke during pregnancy put their babies at a significantly increased risk of developing diabetes in later life and of becoming obese as young adults, Swedish researchers claim today. Daily Telegraph
British sex education criticised
Teenage pregnancy in Britain will remain far above continental European levels because sex is regarded as "dirty" by too many parents and schools. A study to be published shortly in the Journal of Social Policy , says that sex education puts too much emphasis on the riskiness and danger of sex and too little on its pleasure. Guardian