Learning a foreign lingo
The metaphor that the genome is a genetic book of life is very useful, but it breaks down when confronted with the complexity of its reading. The various processes that make and power us are...
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Your very own silent partners
Not every gene has something useful to contribute. In fact, most of your genes, for most of the time, are silent. This is crucial if an organism has any chance of functioning properly - different...
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Now to write the manual
Next week, biologists will meet to map out future instalments in the book of life, writes Keith Gull. Three thousand biologists from around the world will meet in Birmingham next week at the 18th...
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That special everyone
The decoded genome is only a first step to understanding the variety of human life, writes Robert Foley. Scientific achievements come in many forms. Some, such as Darwin's theory of evolution,...
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Free Cuban food fills a gap
A gap year can be the best of your life, but do not expect it to be all highs and no lows, warns Nicholas Scott With so many ex-volunteers and students saying that their pre-university gap year was...
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Eyewitness
Until ten years ago safeguarding Venice was considered an architectural problem. Then micro-algae turned the canals into breeding grounds for mosquitoes, threatening tourism and emphasising the need...
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Moscow
A Russian judge has rejected an appeal by a jailed research worker accused of military espionage while working for two Canadian universities. Igor Sutyagin, of the Moscow-based Institute of US and...
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Kuala Lumpur
Parents of first-year undergraduates at the University of Malaya are reported to have expressed concern at the cruel treatment meted out to students. One parent said her daughter spent days in her...
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Student 'poisoner' suspended
A Brazilian student has been suspended pending an inquiry after he allegedly tried to poison one of the country's most powerful politicians with salmonella bacteria. Mario Covas, the governor of Sao...
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Brunel invents 'green' phone
Engineers at Brunel University have developed an environmentally friendly mobile phone. The development of the telephone, on display at the Science Museum's new contemporary science wing, has been...
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Dons mourn torched site
A university destroyed by a fire during widespread violence that claimed four lives in the Moluccan Islands is being mourned by Indonesians and international academics who helped it flourish. The...
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Aussies crushed by overwork
Australian academics are working long hours, facing large classes and suffering great stress, says a new report. On average, they work almost 50 hours a week and 40 per cent spend more than 50 hours...
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US braced for tidal wave of students
University enrolment in the United States will swell by a fifth by 2015, thanks to the rise in births, increased immigration and the growing economic value of a higher degree, according to a new...
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One pair of Irish eyes not smiling
A leading endocrinologist may be refused a post at a university in Ireland because his Irish is not considered good enough. Timothy O'Brien, an associate professor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota,...
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Robots soccer stars of future
Germany's national football team proved itself all too human when it crashed out of Euro 2000 early, but the country's soccer-playing robots might be more reliable. German universities will field up...