Brown to give £100m to end brain drain
The biggest ever cash boost to science – aimed at stopping the brain drain – will be announced by Gordon Brown next week. He will pour £100 million into creating 1,000 university research posts as a key part of his three-year spending review on Monday.
(Daily Mirror, Times)
Failing universities may be ordered to close
Universities that underperform may face closure in a fundamental review of the higher education system. Education secretary Estelle Morris is planning a white paper in October on future strategy, including student finance and university funding.
(Daily Mail, Financial Times, Guardian)
Tories drop education funding pledge
The Conservatives dropped their pledge to match Labour’s spending on education yesterday, declaring that more money was not the answer to the problems afflicting Britain’s public services.
(Independent, Guardian)
Students clash with police in Tehran
Riot police and Islamic militants clashed last night in Tehran with anti-government demonstrators marking the third anniversary of the crackdown on Iran’s student reform movement. Some reformist students had agreed to a government ban on demonstrations that would mark a raid on a dormitory in which one person was killed and at least 20 injured in 1999.
(Independent, Financial Times)
Health fears force HRT trial to stop
One of the world’s largest clinical trials to test the long-term safety of hormone replacement therapy has been stopped because the risks of taking the drug significantly outweighed the benefits. Scientists in the US said that those taking the HRT drug had a 29 per cent increase in the risk of breast cancer and 22 per cent increase in the risk of heart disease.
(Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Independent)
Gene can treble lung cancer risk
A faulty gene could triple the risk of smokers getting lung cancer, scientists revealed yesterday. The German scientists said that a variant of the protein B gene – essential for normal lung function – was far more common in lung-cancer patients.
(Daily Mirror)
60-hour week doubles risk of heart attacks
Working 60 hours a week can double the risk of a heart attack, researchers say. The study at Kyushu University in Japan found that longer working hours, fewer days off and less sleep could be a trigger for a heart attack.
(Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Independent)
Poor training means doctors don’t spot undernourished patients
Doctors are failing to spot undernourished hospital patients, leaving them at greater risk of infections and complications. The Royal College of Physicians found four out of ten patients in National Health Service hospitals were already suffering from malnutrition and poor training meant many medical staff did not notice whether patients were at risk from being underweight.
(Daily Mail)
Great bustard set for a comeback
More than 160 years after the great bustard was hunted out of existence in Britain, it could be about to make a comeback. Experts hope to release ten-day-old chicks from Russia over Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.
(Daily Mail, Daily Mirror)
Cancer pioneer dies
Professor Eric Boyland, a pioneer researcher into the causes and treatment of cancer, has died age 97.
(Independent)
Custodian of Castilian language dies
Emilio Lorenzo, a “numbered academic” of the Real Academia Espanola and custodian of the Castilian language, has died age 84.
(Independent)
Poet dies
Poet and professor of English Kenneth Koch has died age 77.
(Independent)