Today's news

September 20, 2002

University places promised to A-level fix pupils
Education secretary Estelle Morris last night guaranteed that all students who lost university places as a result of alleged A-level grade fixing would have them restored. She said she would make money available to fund extra places at universities this year, provided there was space to accept students. Ms Morris has ordered two independent inquiries into the allegations.
( The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Financial Times, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent )

Top academic urges admissions revamp
The A-level crisis is driving the patience of leading universities to breaking point, a senior academic at Bristol University said yesterday. Pro vice-chancellor Richard Hodder-Williams said that the entire admissions process was deeply flawed and fast becoming unmanageable.
( The Times )

Students among Tel Aviv injured
Two British students were among 60 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Tel Aviv bus, killing five people. Cousins Jonathan Jesner, from Glasgow, and Gideon Black, from London, have been studying at a Jewish seminary near Bethlehem.
( The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, The Independent )

Student admits stalking presenter
A PhD student was sentenced to four months in prison yesterday after admitting having stalked the BBC news presenter Emily Maitlis. Edward Vines, 32, met Ms Maitlis while they were undergraduates at Queen’s College, Cambridge.
( The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent )

CJD screening results
The first attempt to screen the general population for CJD, the human form of mad cow disease, has found possible signs of the disease in one of just over 8,300 tissue samples, the British Medical Journal reports today. The implication is that 7,000 people in Britain could be infected.
( The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, Financial Times )

Second moon is space junk
The Earth’s “second moon”, an object in space discovered to great excitement earlier this month by an amateur astronomer, is in fact space junk painted white, astronomers in Arizona, US, said yesterday.
( The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent )

HRT risk to health
Hormone replacement therapy causes more life-threatening illnesses than it prevents, according to a study published today. Cancer Research UK, which carried out the analysis, found that women on HRT had increased risk of breast cancer, stroke and blood clots on the lungs.
( The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times, Daily Mail )

Designer cells shrink tumours
Scientists have found a way to customise the immune system of a patient to fight cancer. In trials the “designer” immune systems succeeded in shrinking tumours in skin cancer patients. The treatment, described today in the journal Science , was carried out by a team from the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, US.
( The Daily Telegraph )

In sickness and in health 
Married couples have a strong tendency to share even non-infectious diseases, according to a study by Nottingham University scientists in today’s British Medical Journal .
( Financial Times, Daily Mail )

Female of the species is tougher
Stirling University scientists have concluded that men are the weaker sex, debilitated by the male sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone may suppress the immune system, which could explain why the mortality rate in males is higher than in females from puberty onwards. The findings are reported in the journal Science .
( The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times )

    

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