From today's UK papers

FINANCIAL TIMES

Edible packaging films made from fruits and vegetables could soon be used as an alternative to synthetics, according to researchers at the US Department of Agriculture

A group of US computer scientists claim that a newly developed video-conferencing technique, known as "tele-immersion", gives the viewers a feeling of being in the same room as the participants

THE GUARDIAN

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have worked out that penguins waddle because they have such short legs and such big feet and their clumsy walk is a way of conserving energy

DAILY MAIL

People who send emails and chat on the internet are less inhibited because they can do it in "virtual anonymity", say psychologists from the Open University

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Dr Austin Smith, director of the human genome centre at Edinburgh University and a leading expert in stem cells, has said he would be among the first scientists to apply for a licence to use human embryos in the search for new treatments for disease

THE TIMES

Robert Stone, chairman of the Harvard presidential search committee, has said the vice-president, Al Gore, is not up to the job of president of Harvard University

Scientists from the Bigfoot Field Researchers' Organisation claim to have found the best evidence yet of the elusive North American Bigfoot - a giant impression of his backside

MISCELLANY

Student debt is spiralling out of control, student leaders have warned, as new government-funded research, from South Bank University, revealed that the vast majority of those on degree courses were in serious financial difficulties (Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail)

The Queen once sounded like Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, but now, according to researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, she sounds just a little more like Jonathan Ross in Film Night (Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Times)

An experimental vaccine against Alzheimer's disease, the devastating brain illness that affects some 600,000 Britons, appears to restore memory and reasoning power, according to new research from Toronto and Florida (Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph)

Research from the London School of Economics suggests adverts with male bodies showing "six-pack" physiques are seen by more than half of men as unfair images that pressure them to become muscle-bound hunks (Independent, Daily Telegraph)