Today's news

Black students failing to get into top universities
Black students are failing to get their share of places at Britain's top universities, according to new figures. There are more black Caribbean students in one post-1992 institution, London Metropolitan University, than there are in the entire Russell Group, which includes Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, according to the 2004 figures provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
The Guardian

China's top communist scholar 'stole liberal dissident's ideas'
A Chinese professor adopted as the intellectual poster boy of the Communist party has come under fire for plagiarising the work of a dissident jailed by the government in the early 1990s. Zhou Ye Zhong, a professor at Wuhan University, was accused of plagiarism by Wang Tiancheng, a former Beijing University professor who was jailed for five years in 1992 for attempting to form a rival political party. Mr Wang used an internet discussion board to denounce Mr Zhou's work, and has threatened to take legal action against him if an explanation is not forthcoming.
The Guardian

British student found dead
The body of a British student was found floating in the sea off the Thai resort island of Samui yesterday. Katherine Horton, 21, was spending New Year's Eve on the island with a friend from Reading University, where she was studying psychology. Thai police said that they had launched a murder and rape investigation but would not confirm how Miss Horton died. She was last seen alive on Sunday night.
Daily Telegraph , The Guardian , The Times , The Independent

Detox diets are a waste of time and money, say scientists
New year detox products that purport to rid the body of harmful chemicals accumulated through seasonal over-indulgence are a waste of time and money, leading scientists said yesterday. Most of the pills, juices, teas and oils that are sold for their detoxifying effects on the body have no scientific foundation for their claims, according to toxicologists and dieticians.
The Times , Daily Telegraph

Librarian stumbles on lost Byron work
A poem by Lord Byron has been discovered in a 19th-century book within the archives of University College London. It is the only known manuscript of the untitled poem that appeared in print four years later, in 1816. It was assumed that the original had been lost, but a librarian stumbled across it during a routine cataloguing. Dated April 19, 1812, the poet signed his name in Greek characters. The inscription is within an 1810 edition of The Pleasures of Memory by Samuel Rogers, a patron of the arts and a minor poet. It was a gesture of friendship from Byron, who later showed his disdain for the man.
The Times

Try to keep smiling until the saddest day of the year
For millions of people, it may feel a tad depressing returning to work today, but there is worse in store; Monday, Jan 23 will officially be Britain's unhappiest day. An expert in winter disorders first identified January as the most stressful month. Now Cliff Arnall, a health psychologist at Cardiff University, has devised a formula to work out the worst day of the year and has come up with Jan 23 for 2006.
Daily Telegraph