science wire

From the world's oldest Bible, via the meaning of Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' soliloquy, to the burgeoning popularity of mass reading events; the past, present and future of literature come together in the University of Birmingham's exciting line-up of lectures at this year's Hay Festival.

22 May 2013 A three-year project to digitise the tens of thousands of documents produced by one of the most important and prolific Christian thinkers of the past 200 years has been launched.

Amid high-profile, real-life murder investigations and growing concerns about public safety, a new breed of crime fiction is sweeping South Africa, as one of its leading writers will tell the University of Cambridge this week.

A ground-breaking report examining the experiences of nearly 50 British women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths (or no faith) - who have all converted to Islam - was launched in London yesterday by the University of Cambridge.

Josh Jones of Oklahoma-based Blastrac showed off a machine designed to remove tire rubber, residue and surface contamination from asphalt surfaces to improve skid resistance, micro textures and macro textures.

Geographic information systems - once limited to the domain of physical geographers - are emerging as a promising tool to study the past, as researchers are discovering for medieval history. What's exciting about GIS is it allows us to move into a different dimension that frees maps from being static snapshots Nicholas de Lange Almost nothing persists to reveal the existence of Jews in the Byzantine Empire - no buildings or synagogues, coins or seals, pots or pans, charms or amulets.

Frankie Martin, MPhil student in the Department of Social Anthropology will speak tonight at the showing of a documentary Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam .

School of Global Studies debate on religion and conflict brings a 'new idea' to an old problem The first Peace Talks event involving the School of Global Studies in partnership with peacebuilding NGO International Alert and the Royal Commonwealth Society was held last week (Monday 22 April) at the Commonwealth Club in London.

Sussex and International Alert event on religion and conflict brings a 'new idea' on an old problem The first Peace Talks event involving the School of Global Studies in partnership with peacebuildin

Thanks to a bit of providential timing, Columbia Journalism had a large news bureau at the installation of Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square in Rome in mid-March.

MIT urbanist's new book shows how active neighborhood communities helped revitalize the city after Hurricane Katrina.

A ground-breaking project at the University of Sheffield is tackling the fraught relationship between religion and homosexuality by challenging traditional readings of the Bible.

UAlberta study revisits Milton's 17th-century epic to inform present-day debate on women's reproductive rights.

Unified Administrative Service The purpose of the UAS: To support and enable the University's mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

Professor Yaojun Li, of the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester, analysed survey data on over 100,000 adults in England and Wales, over ten years to 2011. He will tell the British Sociological Association's annual conference in London that the average people gave to charity in the four weeks before being questioned during the year 2010/11 was £16, compared with £15 given by those questioned during 2007/08.

A/Prof. Roger Wilkins 0425 768 807 r.wilkins [a] unimelb.edu (p) au. Nearly a million Australians feel their boss has discriminated against them over recent years, a new University of Melbourne study has found. The representative survey of Australian households has revealed 854,000 workers feel discriminated against by their employer because of their gender, age, ethnicity, religion or parenting responsibilities.

The Western democratic practice of singling out religious liberty for special treatment under the law is not in sync with the world we live in today, argues University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter in his new book, Why Tolerate Religion?

By Naser Ghobadzadeh. First published in The Conversation. March 2013 The horror of the Syrian conflict appears to know no bounds.

The discovery of the Higgs Boson particle is the focus of the next talk in the Graduate School's In the Company of Scholars lecture series.

Irish author Colm Tóibín is known for his novels and short stories narrated from the perspective of women and mothers.

The Director of a national research programme which aimed to significantly advance our understanding of religion and society will outline its impact in a keynote lecture at the University.

Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years on Wednesday as Catholicism bestowed its highest office on a cardinal hailing from the southern hemisphere.

The first Latin American pope will soon arrive in "gringolandia" for a six-day apostolic visit-his first to the U.S. as pontiff.

The search for peace is used as a means to defend the idea of war, vilify enemies or gain political points.

News Release MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/13/2013) —The Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest (JHSUM) has completed the transfer of all of its historical documents and media collections to the University of Minnesota Libraries. In 2002, JHSUM founders Nathan and Theresa Berman created a $500,000 endowment for the collections at the University's Andersen Library, and the archives were named for them as a permanent memorial to their vision.

Oxford University's historic University Church of St Mary the Virgin has reopened, after undergoing its biggest restoration since the late 19th century.

Parody as resistance, religious broadcasting in the Arab world and China's relationship with the Gulf will all come under scrutiny as academics from Cambridge's Centre of Islamic Studies gather in the Gulf on March 10.

Stanford Report, March 1, 2013 A geneticist and a Jewish studies professor develop an interdisciplinary lecture series that produces new research to be included in a scholarly volume on Jewish genetics.

Bill Williams, from the University's Centre for Jewish Studies, has cast new light on the way Britons responded to the desperate plight of Jews fleeing Germany after the Nazis came to power.

Stanford Report, February 27, 2013 As the French intervention in Mali continues, Stanford experts who study the history and culture of West Africa examine the significance of Mali's racial and religious histories.

Stanford Report, February 26, 2013 Thomas Sheehan, a religious studies professor who pursued the priesthood before becoming an academic, says the conservative agenda of the Catholic Church is stifling theological scholarship.

The margins of books that were read centuries ago could explain why we spend less time reading a book today than people did in the 18th century, according to two University of Alberta researchers.

A Durham University social media expert is preparing to travel to Uganda as part of a charity's unusual bloggers' mission.

Mike Sanders, from The University of Manchester, says the now obscure South Lancashire Delegate Meeting almost certainly compiled the landmark 'National Chartist Hymn Book' found in Todmorden public library two years ago. After two years of detective work, the expert in Victorian literature has published an article in the international journal Victorian Studies this month detailing what he has learned about the book.

Paul D. Murray, Director of the Durham University's prestigious Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University, gives his reaction to the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

—Professor Patrick Boyde A dramatisation taken from one of the greatest stories of all time - Homer's Iliad - is to be performed next week at St John's College.

Composer Igor Stravinsky is revered for his dazzling scores to such ballets as "The Firebird," "Petrushka" and especially, "The Rite of Spring" — a ballet so revolutionary that its 1913 opening famously sparked a riot.

Narnia, Luke's Gospel and the thoughts of the recently-retired Archbishop of Canterbury are all on the menu for an innovative online discussion among Christians across Britain during Lent.

A photography exhibition opening this week in Gunnersbury Park Museum in Ealing is the outcome of a remarkable collaboration between senior citizens from six different faith communities in West Ealing and Hanwell.

ANN ARBOR-Pope Benedict XVI's sudden resignation at month's end due to age and declining health has stunned Catholics and others worldwide.

In the late 19th century, Oxford's Bodleian Library and Cambridge University Library were rivals in trying to acquire materials from the Cairo Genizah.

While Shakespeare's mastery of language and stagecraft is universally recognised, the historical accuracy of many of his plays is open to question and the recent discovery of Richard III's remains has reminded us of this.

Caltech senior Andrew Meng has been selected to receive a Churchill Scholarship, which will fund his graduate studies at the University of Cambridge for the next academic year.