science wire

A distinguished Professorship of German at the University of Cambridge has been endowed in perpetuity thanks to a generous £2 million benefaction from The Schroder Foundation, the charitable trust of the Schroder family.

Researchers at King's College London will collaborate in an examination of the 1215 Magna Carta, which will result in the first clause-by-clause commentary on its content in a hundred years.

Study of 17th-century food and dining practices yields compelling cultural information about a society struggling to rebuild after the Thirty Years War.

Professor Werner G. Jeanrond has been appointed Master of St Benet's Hall, a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford run by Ampleforth Abbey.

Shoes could wipe out tropical disease affecting millions Wearing shoes could eradicate "in our lifetime" a tropical disease affecting an estimated 4 million people worldwide, according to a medic in the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS).

  A study by the University of Liverpool has found an increasing number of shared spaces for prayer, reflection and meditation, despite the declining popularity of established religion.

It is one of the most significant and comprehensive collections in the West - yet Robert Berlo's mother lode of 13,000 road maps began modestly with a young boy's cross-country trip to Boston.

Carolyn Muessig and George Ferzoco of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies have recently published A Companion to Catherine of Siena, the most comprehensive scholarly English-language resource available about this fourteenth century theologian and saint.

The first ever guide to the historical literature on consumption from ancient Greece to the contemporary world has been published, edited by Professor Frank Trentmann from The University of Manchester. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption brings together 35 of the world's leading experts on consumption.

Seed catalogs, Minnesota beginnings, the Green Revolution, and the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible among topics in upcoming U of M Libraries exhibits MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/20/20

King's alumnus Peter Higgs, who first proposed the 'Higgs Boson' particle, joined forces last week with John Ellis, King's Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics, in a public lecture to celebrate the history of modern physics.

Britons now enjoy an increasing number of shared spaces for prayer, reflection and meditation, despite the declining popularity of established religion, according to the first ever study of multi-faith spaces in the UK.

Looting of antiquities from archaeological sites is a serious crime. A talk at Cambridge Science Festival on Thursday will unearth some of the dirty secrets of the illicit trade in precious objects and ask tricky questions about the relationships between looters, dealers and museums.

They may be small, but the information mice can convey about the movements of humans throughout history is mighty, according to a Cornell researcher.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/19/2012) —Critics are calling University of Minnesota Law School Professor Dale Carpenter's new release, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, a landmark book on a landmark case.

A new group comprised of academics, cultural specialists and enthusiasts has been formed to promote Scottish Studies in schools and across wider society.

PA 88/12 Art and national identity are to be seen in a fresh light with the launch of Ireland on Show, exploring how Ireland displayed its art from the late eighteenth to the early 20th-century.

With St Patrick's Day approaching, a new study asks whether the saint fled his native Britain to escape a career as a Roman tax collector, only to arrive in Ireland and sell slaves.

Thousands of papers relating to perhaps the toughest year of Margaret Thatcher's premiership are to be opened to the public at Cambridge University's Churchill Archives Centre from Monday.

A 15-year study of Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations has shown how they made powerful contributions to America's rising fortunes as an international powerhouse. Professor Inderjeet Parmar from The University of Manchester says the organisations have a century-long history of political activity, with connections all the way up to the US State Department, CIA and National Security Council.

Extraordinary 7th century discovery on outskirts of Cambridge offers unique insights into the origins of English Christianity. To be buried in this elaborate way with such a valuable artefact tells us that this girl was undoubtedly high status, probably nobility or even royalty." —Dr Sam Lucy One of the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christian burial sites in Britain has been discovered in a village outside Cambridge.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Claims on food labels that a product is organic, locally produced or made by workers subject to fair labor practices may mislead consumers into thinking that such foods are low in calories, says a University of Michigan researcher. "Social ethics claims on food packaging can promote the misperception that foods are lower-calorie and therefore appropriate for greater consumption," said Norbert Schwarz, professor of marketing at the Michigan Ross School of Business and U-M professor of psychology and social research.

A fourteenth-century Jewish religious book, preserved by experts at The University of Manchester's John Rylands Library, is to be hand delivered to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it will go on show.

A multi-coloured installation is the centrepiece of a new exhibition at the University's Talbot Rice Gallery.

This collage demonstrates how the time scales for the cosmos, Earth history and the histories of life and humanity span a range of a million billion, making it impossible to view them together on the same timeline.

The humanities have been quick to embrace the potential of computer technology but universities have been reluctant to accept digital projects as bona fide scholarship.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/14/2012) —The University of Minnesota's Department of American Indian Studies, in the College of Liberal Arts, has launched a ground-breaking online Ojibwe-Eng

The first woman in Scotland to graduate in medicine will be recognised in her home town this week.

Scholars draw connections between the revolutionary past of Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia and the recent uprisings in the Middle East.

The results of a week-long art partnership-project between the University of Birmingham's Department of Theology and Religion, an internationally renowned Muslim graffiti artist and young men from a

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Immigrants arrived by the millions between 1890 and 1920, a surge mostly from eastern and southeastern Europe.

New research at the University of Warwick into 50 years of motherhood manuals has revealed how despite their differences they have always issued advice as orders and set unattainably high standards for new mums and babies.

The Medieval art, architecture and history of Bristol Cathedral is the focus of a new book by researchers at the University of Bristol.

The relationship between science and religion has had its rocky moments. But Robert Asher, author of the newly published book 'Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist', argues that the two sides can find common ground.

Scholars and female Muslim preachers and leaders from Europe will meet in Oxford University to discuss the phenomenon of Islamic women rising through the ranks to hold important leadership roles in Muslim mosques and madrasas.

University of Cambridge linguists have pieced together the curious evolving history of the word 'not' across the languages of Europe. In doing so, they suggest that overuse of words such as 'literally' may be a natural linguistic development. Cycles of usage such as that seen in negation appear to be a normal part of language development." —Dr David Willis What would we do without the word 'not'? Language depends on negation: 'the defendant is not guilty', 'it's not fair', 'it's not you, it's me'.

Knowledge of a disease prevalent among Northern Territory Indigenous communities has been overhauled thanks to research contributed by the University of Sydney's Garth Nicholson. "This advance in our understanding of the origins of Machado-Joseph Disease in Australia will hopefully contribute to the development of a cure of this debilitating condition which affects people from as young as 10-years-old," said Associate Professor Nicholson from the ANZAC Institute at the University.

PA 78/12 From the French Revolution and Nazi Germany, through the Cold War USA, and onwards to 21st century cinema screens and YouTube, ancient Sparta continues to resonate through Western thought, more than 2,000 years after the peak of its power.

The discovery of new material from the sixteenth-century founder of modern human anatomy, Andreas Vesalius, is to be showcased at a University of Warwick seminar next week. The 1543 De Humani Corporis Fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius is one of the most famous of all medical books.

At a time when the music of South African jazz great Hugh Masekela is more likely to be heard in an elevator than a bootleg recording, it's hard to imagine an era when combining jazz and African music would have been considered revolutionary.

Channel 4's Time Team joined a group of archaeologists as they excavated the site of William Shakespeare's house, New Place, in Stratford on Avon. We spoke with Kevin Colls , professional archaeologist and researcher part of the Birmingham Archeology team working on the ' Dig for Shakespeare ' project, that helped the Time Team to explore the secrets of the Bard's home.

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol have unearthed a unique slave burial ground on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena. The excavation, which took place in advance of construction of a new airport on the island, has revealed dramatic insights into the victims of the Atlantic slave trade during the notorious Middle Passage.

Almost 100 years after the outbreak of World War I, public opinion about war in many of the countries that fought appears to have shifted completely.