From today's UK papers

Former Greenpeace chief joins Monsanto's PR firm
Lord Melchett, the former head of Greenpeace, who led its campaign against genetically modified crops, has accepted a salaried job with a public relations firm whose clients include Monsanto, the GM giant. (Daily Telegraph, Independent, Guardian)

State aid no guarantee of better research, says Brussels
Government payments to aid research and development may not lead to improved research and a more efficient workforce, a preliminary study by the European Commission has found. In its report on state aid, the commission says that between 1997-99 European Union governments spent about €4 billion (£2.5 billion) a year to improve research and development. (Financial Times)

Midlands professor admits assaults on models
A professor renowned for his work mapping the human body was facing jail yesterday after admitting that he indecently assaulted ten male models during his research. Stephen Gray pioneered a 3-D technique to measure body shapes and sold his findings to fashion designers and stores. (Times)

Galleries urged to return Dürers
The Courtauld Institute Gallery in London and Birmingham University are facing renewed calls from Poland and Ukraine to return Albrecht Dürer masterpieces that the Nazis looted in the second world war. (Times)

Immune system drug boosts IVF chances
Four out of five women who were unable to conceive despite repeated IVF treatment have become pregnant after taking a drug that prevented the body's immune system attacking the embryo, a scientist revealed yesterday. Professor Alan Beer, a US-based infertility specialist, has found that 70 per cent of women who have undergone three unsuccessful cycles of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) also have very active immune systems. (Independent)

Multi-jabs pose 'no risk' to babies
A baby's immune system could safely cope with as many as 10,000 vaccines at any one time and is not at risk from the current practice of giving combinations such as measles, mumps and rubella together, according to a paper in the American medical journal Paediatrics . (Guardian)

Hawking's triumph over time
Scientists are gathering in Cambridge to celebrate the 60th birthday of the world's most famous cosmologist, Stephen Hawking. Professor Hawking, who was born in Oxford on January 8 1942, did not expect to live long when tests conducted shortly after his 21st birthday revealed that he had the devastating wasting illness motor neurone disease. (Daily Telegraph)