Robots with a gentle touch
Scientists at Heriot-Watt University's department of mechanical and chemical engineering are using flexible materials to allow robots to grasp or select delicate objects without damaging them. The...
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Sell excellence overseas, not mass mediocrity
Fewer overseas students are opting to study in Britain just when the government has set targets for increased numbers. Some fall in recruitment from Southeast Asia was to be expected because of the...
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'The university' is dead, long live the university
The old notion of the university is gone. Its reinvention, says Ronald Barnett, brings new responsibilities Today, the university lives with multiple callings. The injunctions multiply: high-quality...
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Fly will steal the show
Steve Farrar looks at research sure to grab the limelight at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting next week. The tiny brown fruit fly is seldom welcomed, often ignored....
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Search for Aids vaccine turns to brothels
A microbiologist thinks that a group of Kenyan prostitutes could hold the key to defeating Aids. Philip Fine reports. A mysterious resistance to HIV by a group of Kenyan prostitutes has provided the...
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Gamma burst gang of four
A remarkable cosmic phenomenon that has baffled astronomers may provide fresh evidence of the universe's most violent accident - the collision of two neutron stars. Scientists from the Institute for...
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Redcoats were a fearsome force
History has done the redcoats a disservice. New research is sweeping away the outdated image of the British soldier who fought in colonial America as a poorly motivated mercenary handicapped by...
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Cutting edge
Greenpeace research into PVC toys that leach harmful chemicals into children's mouths has led to a European product ban. On December 9 1999 the European Commission adopted its first emergency product...
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Cash crisis in universities
Latest projections show the higher education sector on the brink of deficit, prompting universities to turn to the financial markets for cash. Revised forecasts from the Higher Education Funding...
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Lecturer accused of spying protests
Robin Pearson, the Hull University lecturer accused of spying for the East German secret police, has described the university's decision to suspend him from teaching until July 2001 as "unjustifiable...
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Oxford painting challenged
A Florentine art collector claims that The Continence of Scipio at Christ Church, Oxford, attributed to Van Dyck, is instead a painting by Rubens. Angiolo Magnelli offered evidence in Rome last week...
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New view of universe revealed by X-ray
The European Space Agency this week released the first images of the universe to be produced by its X-ray multi-mirror observatory. Martin Turner of Leicester University, lead scientist in the team...
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Agony aunt
Q) A student has told me in confidence that one of my tutor group is taking drugs. I am unsure what to do. Any suggestions? Jacqui Rodgers Principal lecturer Division of psychology University of...
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Put scholarship into teaching
WHAT Good practice needs to be shared and better understood, writes Mick Healey. WHY If teaching is to match research in rigour, it must be open to critical scrutiny. HOW As I write this I am in the...
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Mussel bound
(Photograph) - Mussel bound: Simon McQueen Mason and fellow scientists in the molecular biology department of York University are using the secretions produced by mussels to cling on to rocks to...