Today's news

Scientists warn of new Anthropocene age
The EuroScience forum in Stockholm, Sweden, heard yesterday that climate change was the most obvious of a complex range of man-made effects that is rapidly changing the physics, chemistry and biology of the planet. Scientists are dubbing the new geological epoch the Anthropocene because humans have come to rival nature in their impact on the global environment.
Financial Times

Cancer patient grows new jaw on his shoulder
A German man who lost his jawbone to cancer has enjoyed his first solid meal in nine years after having a new bone grown under his shoulder blade and then transplanted to his face. The groundbreaking operation is detailed in tomorrow's edition of The Lancet .
Times, Guardian

Eton loses Powell archive to BL
Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, has refused to allow a collection of important manuscripts by the novelist Anthony Powell to remain at Eton College despite his final wish that the archive should be preserved at his old school. The manuscripts have become part of the British Library's collection in London instead. The British Library plans to loan some of the manuscripts to the Wallace Collection, which is planning an exhibition next year to mark the centenary of Powell's birth. Daily Telegraph, Times

New Scottish exams head
The former Controller of BBC Scotland has been appointed chairman of the Scottish Qualifications Authority. John McCormick, who will hold the post for four years, will succeed Sir John Ward on September 1 and will earn £12,645 per year for working four days a month at the public body.
Times

It's official: ginger nuts take the biscuit
A team of food scientists have placed the humble ginger nut at the top of Britain's first league table for biscuit-dunkers. A hundred volunteers joined the process at laboratories in London, to allow for individual human variation in the process. The experiments, for Waitrose Food International, were triggered by growing awareness of global interest in biscuit-dunking, which has a rich literature on the internet. The research builds on a pioneering study of the physics of biscuit-dunking carried out at Bristol University in 1998.
Guardian, Times

Letters : two viewson the use of A levels in student selection. Times