From today's UK papers

Financial Times

Ali Afshari, one of Iran's most prominent student leaders and a leading member of the pro-reform Office to Foster Unity, who was arrested more than five months ago, has been shown on state television confessing to have collaborated with nationalist groups accused of seeking to overthrow the Islamic system through social unrest.

Peter Vas, a professor of engineering at the University of Aberdeen, believes he has come up with a cheap method of testing railway track for cracks like those that caused the fatal crash at Hatfield.

A research group at Crexel University in Philadelphia has extracted silicon from silicon carbide under gases containing chlorine and hydrogen to synthesise crystalline diamond-structured carbon

A cheap and non-invasive device that can detect skin cancer has been launched by Astron Clinica, a Cambridge-based company.

The Guardian

The typical student house with mouldy walls and damp patches may increase by a third an undergraduate's risk of asthma, according to research from the University of Turku, Finland.

The University of North London and London Guildhall University, which serve 25,000 students and have a combined annual income of £110m, have announced plans to merge.

The fate of John Tobin, an American exchange student on a Fulbright scholarship to Russia who has been imprisoned for drugs offences, is to be discussed by Russia's foreign minister and the US secretary of state, as officials try to resolve the strangest spy scandal in Russia since Valdimit Putin became president.

The health secretary can now release computerised health records in the "public interest" to any organisation without patients consenting, or knowing that the information is being used.

Magnetic fields could be used to bring out the brain's hidden talents, according to research from the University of Canberra.

The Independent

Scientists at the Sydney Institute of Respiratory Medicine have found an explanation for the surge of asthma attacks, chest pains and wheezing that accompany summer thunderstorms.

Susan Bassnett, pro-vice-chancellor of Warwick University, argues that managing people in education is as much about nurturing as about making money.

John Randall, the head of the Quality Assurance Agency, is the man universities love to hate, but he expects it.

Government-backed research agencies are said to be the engines of postgraduate student funding.

The Times

Tuition fees mean that today's students choose subjects that lead to employment.