Mystic Percy
Astronomer Percy Seymour explains to Alan Thomson the link between the earth's magnetic field and our genes. When Hamlet told Horatio that there were more things in heaven and earth than man could...
Search
-
-
''Madam, how dare you distort, desecrate and defile the English language...''
Jean Aitchison documents the furious reaction to her Reith lectures on language. Madam, How dare you distort, desecrate and defile the English language as you did in your recent Reith lecture . . ."...
-
Cleopatra needled
The Afrocentric theory that Ancient Egypt not Greece is the cradle of civilisation is under attack. Since the 19th century, black American thinkers have treasured the notion of Egypt as the African...
-
Going to work on an egg
Infertile couples can go to Robert Winston to have their IVF eggs screened for cancer. Lucy Hodges asks him how, with public debate on the ethics of this in an embryonic state, he can justify such a...
-
Paying for old sins
Gert-Rudolf Flick's endowment to Oxford University would be better employed relieving the suffering of those slave labourers who survived his grandfather's wartime exploitation in Nazi Germany. The...
-
Sex on the brain
Is it nature or nurture that makes men and women behave differently? New research into how our brains work highlights just how complicated this issue really is. Aisling Irwin reports. Men, can you...
-
Why screening is wrong
"Should we screen embryos to eliminate those with genes causing a predisposition to curable cancers, or cancers where the victims live into their thirties or longer? Notwithstanding parents' anguish...
-
What is PID?
First used in 1990, pre-implantation diagnosis (PID) involves removing a cell from an embryo which has been growing in a petri dish for a few days. The DNA of that cell is tested using ultrasensitive...
-
Lessons closer to home
The Bangkok gathering of heads of Asian and European governments earlier this month was unusual. It took one regional grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN), to bring another,...
-
Social scientists hide from the new
Looking around Britain, you would expect social science to be booming. High crime, persistent unemployment, underachieving men and underperforming institutions are crying out for explanation and...
-
Don's diary
Tuesday. Arrive Hong Kong enveloped in a Manchester-like foggy gloom. After travelling in a toothpaste tube for eight hours, being disgorged on to Kai Tak airport was disconcerting. The volume of...
-
Robbins's foregone conclusion
If the Robbins report is anything to go by, Dearing and his committee may decide to disregard the evidence presented to it when making their recommendations for higher education, says James Tooley....
-
Asian trainspotting
In his review (THES, March 1) of Lester R Brown's book, Carl Riskin writes "rather than opting for a Japanese system of efficient rail transportation, China seems intent on promoting its motor...
-
Importance of being managed
The research industry must look after its people and find financial backing by training researchers in management, says John Goddard Throughout the university system, final tweaks are being made to...
-
Technical hitch for link-up
I read with interest your report (THES, March 8) that a new joint committee linking the National Council for Vocational Qualifications with the School Curriculum Authority has been set up. In...