Children in Ulster learn to hate at 3
Children in Northern Ireland show signs of beginning to learn to hate those on the other side of the province's religious divide almost as soon as they can walk, according to a survey by Ulster University researchers.
( Daily Telegraph, Guardian )
Babies make eye contact in 48 hours
Two-day old babies have the ability to make eye contact and can sense when they are being looked at directly, according to a new study funded by the Medical Research Council. The report from an Anglo-Italian team appears to settle the argument over whether this powerful form of communication, one of the foundations of all social skills, is innate or learned. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Padua and Birkbeck, University of London, is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
( Daily Telegraph )
Desperately seeking love ...and a book deal
Shakespeare wrote that love is blind, but he was reckoning without Robert Epstein. The American psychologist has received more than 300 letters in response to his appeal for a woman to participate in an experiment in which he and the successful applicant will try to fall in love with each other.
( Guardian )
Israeli scholars under fire
The fierce debate about calls for an academic boycott of Israel has been stimulated afresh by the dismissal of two Israeli scholars from the editorial boards of learned journals.
( Guardian )
Women are losers in university pay
Universities were yesterday accused of "manifest" failure to remove pay discrimination against women.
(Independent)
Top-up fees will create more problems
Roger Brown, principal of Southampton Institute, delivers a warning on differential fees.
( Guardian )
Crisis over cancer foods
Scientists will today hold an emergency meeting over the discovery that many cooked and processed foods contain a cancer-causing chemical. Experts have found "significant levels" of acrylamide in potatoes, crisps and breakfast cereals. The substance has been liked to cancer, nerve damage and infertility. In response, the World Health Organisation has convened unprecedented emergency talks to evaluate the research and decide what action to take.
( Daily Mail, Times )
Biological test may predict onset of severe 'baby blues'
The first biochemical "marker" that could help to predict which women will suffer from postnatal depression has been found by a team from the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands.
( Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent )
Fears over natural resources shortfall
Demand for the earth's natural resources has been outstripping supply since the start of the 1980s, says a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by experts who include scientists from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge and Oxford University.
( Daily Telegraph, Times, Independent )
Lloyd George descendant wins £30,000 book prize
Margaret Macmillan, a great granddaughter of David Lloyd George, won the £30,000 Samuel Johnson Prize last night for an acclaimed historical study in which her great grandfather plays a central role. The book, Peacemakers , is an epic look at the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919.
( Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times)
Cases of skin cancer in men treble in 20 years
Cases of skin cancer among men have trebled in the past two decades, according to new research by Glasgow University's department of dermatology.
( Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail)
How lack of exercise can beat anorexia
Scientists claim to have found a way to treat anorexia and bulimia, the eating disorders that blight many women's lives. A combination of measured food portions and enforced lack of exercise helped 14 out of 16 patients in just over a year of therapy, a study at Huddinge, Sweden, found.
( Daily Mail )
Favourite colours
Universities still have their prejudices when it comes to admissions. The old ones are especially biased against South Asians and Africans, while new ones favour some minorities.
( Guardian )
So you think you're smart, stupid?
Interview with Robert Sternberg, professor of psychology at Yale University in the US, who believes he can teach high achievers to be wiser, too.
( Guardian )
IVF could save wombat
Australian researchers have teamed up with an IVF clinic to try to halt the extinction of one of the world's most endangered species, the northern hairy-nosed wombat.
( Daily Telegraph )
Clashes of Culture
Two speakers at the British Academy's debate on the relevance of modern literary theory put their case.
( Guardian )