Today's news

Newcastle’s physics course axed
Days after Newcastle upon Tyne was identified as one of the “cities of science” by Gordon Brown, Newcastle University confirmed a decision taken in principle in January to close its undergraduate course in pure physics.
Guardian , Daily Telegraph , Financial Times

A third of physics face closure
Sixteen of Britain’s 50 physics department are at risk but Ivor Crewe says the crisis has been exaggerated.
Sunday Times

Soas under fire over Israel boycott conference
Soas has distanced itself from a conference aimed at reviving the academic boycott of Israel. (First published in The Times Higher , December 3)
The Guardian

Boost for Edinburgh
A Scottish investment group is to launch a US-style collaboration with Edinburgh University in a bid to strengthen its research activities.
Financial Times

Germany bottom of the class
In management education, Europe’s largest economy is failing to live up to its powerhouse image.
Financial Times

Basic skills training incentive to be axed
The Government looks likely to abandon a key incentive for smaller firms to encourage staff to undergo workplace-based training in basic skills. There are 18 pilot schemes using the grants to encourage firms to allow staff time off to retrain at little or no cost. But the model used by pilot schemes in Learning and Skills Council areas such as Birmingham and Essex may be dropped.
Daily Telegraph

Fat threat
New technologies are to blame for obesity, Carol Propper, professor of economics at Bristol University, said in the 2004 Royal Economic Society Public Lecture.
Financial Times

Aznar pulls out
José Maria Aznar, former Spanish prime minister, cancelled a speech he was due to deliver at the Oxford Union.
Daily Telegraph

Hobbit remains dispute
An Indonesian palaeoanthroplogist has sequestered the remains of Homo floriensis, allegedly in violation of academic agreements.
Times

Oxford favours state school students
Internal research suggests students from state schools have a better chance of admission than independent school students with identical grades.
Sunday Times

Boffin in a kilt
Howard Trevor Jones, professor of genetics at Tampere University, collected his (shared) Descartes Prize in Prague dressed in a t-shirt, kilt and high-laced boots.
Observer