Today's news

APU joins flight from chemistry
Anglia Polytechnic University yesterday said it was withdrawing chemistry as an undergraduate course and “refocusing” its teaching towards forensic science, the 28th department to disappear since 1996.
Daily Telegraph

Stem cell research increasingly dependent on US
Sir Chris Evans, chairman of Merlin Biosciences, says that an independent medical foundation is needed to bridge the stem cell research funding gap and prevent a loss of expertise to the US.
Daily Telegraph

Boost for Aids research
A £200 million scheme for the advance purchase of Aids vaccine for developing countries, which would otherwise not be able to ensure a market for its sale, is to be unveiled by Chancellor of the Exchequer tomorrow.
Independent

Blair blow
History and politics academics put Clement Atlee at the top of a Mori poll of successful prime ministers, with Tony Blair sixth, trailing Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, Margaret Thatcher and Harold Macmillan.
Times

Student debt set to rise
Eighty per cent of current students will have an average debt of £10,000 on graduation, but that figure will increase from 2006.
Daily Telegraph

NHS University axed
The NHS University, introduced last year to increase skills within the health service is to be axed and some of its activities continue in streamlined form under a new body, the NHS Institute for Learning Skills and Innovation.
Guardian , Times

“Angel of North” sculptor attacks architecture closure
Antony Gormley describes the decision by Cambridge University to close its architecture department as “devastating”. Also letters and leading article.
Guardian

Animal research firm cut off
BOC, which supplied Huntingdon Life Sciences with bottled gas, has terminated its contract following a campaign by animal rights activists against its employees.
Financial Times , Times

Seed call
Scientists at Warwick University have developed a biodegradable cellphone with a seed that can be planted after the phone has died.
Times

Last Murdoch novel has clues to Alzheimer’s onset
Textual analysis of Iris Murdoch’s final novel, Jackson’s Dilemma, has found evidence of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease prior to its detection, scientists at the institute of cognitive science at University College London, have reported.
Independent, Guardian , Daily Telegraph

Fossilised tooth ache
Twenty-eight leading palaeontologists have supported claims that a molar found close to a fossilised skull and jawbone in Chad in 2002 belonged with the remains, which are claimed to belong to the earliest hominid. Critics say that the tooth does not belong with the remains, which they claim are from a gorilla.
Times

Tofu solution to wobbly teeth
Soyabean curd can help to regenerate the bone around loose teeth, and may have the potential to assist bone rebuilding in cases of cancer or accidental injuries.
Independent

Martin Malia
Obituary of Soviet historian Martin Malia, of the University of California Berkeley, who has died aged 80.
Daily Telegraph