Size matters
For undergraduate students the crucial aspects of contact time are the size and frequency of classes, tutorials and seminars ("Clocking on", 1 May). This is the conclusion that emerges strongly from...
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Gold standard reassessed
Employers are worried that the sector's generous pensions are unsustainable, so could this be the end of the road for final-salary schemes? asks Tariq Tahir
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The Queen for a day
A royal visit can be the highlight that makes a university event unforgettable, but not always in the right way. Tariq Tahir reviews the details of protocol and planning needed to make them work
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The decline of reason
Rational thinking is the tool of the intellectual's trade. And yet, argues Roy Harris, academics and universities have abandoned reason in pursuit of a more commercial credo
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15 May 2008
How secure is your pension? - Long-lived academics, limited contributions and the problems of final-salary schemes
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The week in books
Love and Sex With Robots: the Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships by David Levy, artificial intelligence researcher. Duckworth, £12.99, ISBN 9780715637401"David Levy's thesis, in this fascinating...
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Published this week
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCESFunctional and Evolutionary Ecology of FleasBy Boris R. Krasnov, member of the department of desert ecology, Ben-Gurion University of the NegevCambridge University Press, £85....
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First impressions competition: 8 May 2008
This week’s competition, in which you have to identify a book from its opening sentence, is from a classic tale of childhood:"When I was four months old, my mother died suddenly and my father was...
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Asking questions of the quotidian
Ian Patterson wishes a study built around writers' day-to-day concerns wasn't quite so workaday
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Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime
For 50 years, weapons of mass destruction were primarily of concern to the military in the context of the Cold War, with the primary focus on nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union's demise moved...
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Death by a Thousand Cuts
Few of those who now use the phrase "death by a thousand cuts" will be aware of its origins in lingchi, a highly unpleasant form of execution used in Imperial China, which involved the slicing of the...
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Top 10 Academic Bestsellers: Blackwell, Aberdeen
1. A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America, Seventh Edition edited by William H. Chafe, Harvard Sitkoff and Beth Bailey Oxford University Press, £19.99 ISBN 97801953203672. Endgame by...
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Pithy, polemical and paradoxical
Nick Prior finds plenty to think about in a new translation of one of Pierre Bourdieu's last works
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Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton and the Changing Face of Heroism
Once upon a time, heroes were meant to be the persisting role models for our young people. They were special people, selected as exemplars by public acclaim to demonstrate the higher elements of...
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In Pursuit of the Gene: From Darwin to DNA
When William Bateson introduced the word "genetics" in 1905, he meant it to name a new branch of inquiry. Bateson well knew that scientifically minded people had long been researching inheritance....