Glittering prizes

New royal medals, awarded to fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for outstanding scholarship, have gone to: Sir Kenneth Murray for his work developing a vaccine for hepatitis B; Peter Higgs, for offering a key to the problem of mass; and Lord Perry of Walton, for developing the Open University.

London Mathematical Society prizes for 2000 have been awarded to: Terry Lyons of Oxford University (Polya prize); John Toland of Bath University (Senior Berwick prize); Thanasis Fokas of Imperial College (Naylor prize); Mark Chaplain of Durham University, Gwyneth Stallard of the Open University, Andrew Stuart of Warwick University and Burt Totaro of Cambridge University (both Whitehead prizes). The society has elected Freeman J. Dyson (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) to honorary membership.

Lancaster University is to award honorary degrees to: Michael Berry, chairman of English Lakes Hotels Ltd; Peter Dornan, of Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research; and Alan Milburn, secretary of state for health. City University has awarded honorary doctorates to: Haruko Fukuda, chief executive of the World Gold Council (DSc); Sir Winfried Bischoff, chairman of Schreoder's plc (DSc); Baroness Perry of Southwark, former vice-chancellor of South Bank University (DLit); Christopher Benson, chairman of Bradford Particle Design (DSc); and Fathi Ibrahin, founder of the BSc actuarial science degree at Cairo University.