From today's UK papers

Financial Times

Spending by Oxford and Cambridge colleges on libraries, computers and academic staff rivals that of entire universities elsewhere in the country.

Essex University is to unveil plans to build a multimillion-pound research park, which could bring 40 new businesses to Colchester and create 2,000 jobs.

Alice Prochaska, director of special collections at the British Library, has been appointed librarian of Yale University in the United States.

Jonathan Slack, chief executive of the Association of Business Schools, is to become assistant director of Equis, the accreditation body established by the European Foundation for Management Development.

The Times

Oxford University is to conduct a new drive to attract applicants from state schools after discovering that even at many of the top comprehensives, only a handful of sixth-formers have applied in the past five years.

British scientists on the trail of the Yeti have found some of the best evidence for the mythical Himalayan creature - a sample of hair that has proved impossible to identify.

China has detained Xu Zerong, a professor from Hong Kong who acted as a youth leader during the cultural revolution, causing renewed protests over a wave of arrests of visiting academics on spying charges.

Daily Mail

Ministers have been accused of secretly funding experiments to produce fast-growing genetically modified fish for human consumption.

The Independent

The steam age could be about to enter the space age with the invention by Surrey Satellite Technology, a spin-off company at Surrey University, of a steam-driven rocket for propelling satellites in orbit

Miscellany

A shot of oxygen or a glucose drink can act as "fuel for thought" and boost brainpower sufficiently to improve performance in examinations or in job interviews, scientists from the Human Cognitive Neuroscience unit at the University of Northumbria have revealed. ( Independent , Daily Telegraph , Times )

Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, has made a formal complaint against one of his students, accusing her of harassing and slandering him. ( Daily Telegraph , Guardian )

•     Get daily news from The THES by email. Sign up for a free trial .