Welsh super-university mooted
A "super-university" could be created under plans to merge the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. The deal would lead to a university with more than 30,000 students, the biggest in Wales. A final decision is expected by the summer.
(Times)
Bleeding-edge technology
Six years after observing how a paper cut on his finger healed itself in two minutes, a senior engineering lecturer from the University of Aberdeen has come up with a system for repairing oil pipelines.
(Financial Times)
Syphilis demon may have driven Hitler mad
New analysis of the records kept by Hitler's doctors has revealed that he suffered from many of the most characteristic symptoms of tertiary syphilis, and that he was treated regularly with drugs that were commonly prescribed for the sexually transmitted disease. The controversial diagnosis, which would cast new light on the dictator's behaviour, from his sexual frigidity to his paranoiac rages, is advanced in Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis , by Deborah Hayden, an American historian.
(Times)
Pimp's ladies fetch £5,170
A book containing the names and addresses of late-18th-century prostitutes in Central London, complete with reviews of their appearance, prices and "particularities", fetched £5,170 at auction yesterday. The book was compiled by Jack Harris, a waiter at the Shakespeare Head Tavern in Covent Garden, who gloried in the title of "pimp and procurator-general". The extremely rare slim volume is called Harris' List of Covent Garden Ladies , with the alternative title, Man of Pleasure's Kalender for the Year 1790 .
(Times)