From today's UK papers

FINANCIAL TIMES

Britain's electronics industry is losing a battle with the financial sector for talented graduates, a government-backed report will claim tomorrow.

GUARDIAN

Sixty-six per cent of British people are completely ignorant of foreign languages, a higher proportion than in any other European country.

INDEPENDENT

The prospects for animal-to-human transplants have been thrown into doubt after a UK government committee declared that it may never be possible to protect the public from the danger of infection with animal viruses.

Scientists at St Andrews University have identified a connection between the common cold virus and viruses that can trigger cancer.

DAILY TELEGRAPH

A high-fat diet may impair memory and concentration, according to a team at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and the University of Toronto, Canada.

A series of arrests in western Siberia has raised hopes that police will discover how five teenage girls vanished on the eve of their first year at college.

English is fast becoming the lingua franca of the European Union, sweeping aside French as the preferred foreign language in schools and the workplace.

MISCELLANY

The icecap of Kilimanjaro will have melted within 20 years because of global warming, Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University has predicted. ( Guardian , Independent, Daily Telegraph )