Conservative whip Chris Heaton-Harris sparked a furore in 2017 after writing a letter to UK universities asking them for the names of tutors teaching students about Brexit. It was a sinister move and an attack on academic freedom, the sector cried. But his pal Jo Johnson, who was then universities minister, calmly reassured us that Mr Heaton-Harris was merely researching a?book. Fast-forward to 2019, with the Tories no doubt hoping that we had all forgotten the whole affair, Mr Heaton-Harris was asked a simple question on the Sky News programme Sophy Ridge on Sunday: how on earth is that book coming along? His answer: “Well I’m on the picture bit now, so I’m ready to colour those in.” Er, is there a book? “No, there’s no book. Well there might be a?book one day, but it won’t be about that,” he said. Make of that what you will.
Students at Towson University in Maryland have been warned by the police to steer clear of a campus predator of the scariest kind: a?persistent helicopter parent. Students said that the woman, believed to be in her fifties and a wearer of multicoloured scarves, had been approaching people to show them pictures of her son, asking if they would go on a date with him. Local police have released images of the woman and called for anyone with more information to come forward. “This advisory is intended to heighten awareness and inform the community of incidents that may impact their safety and security,” a statement read, according to . Officials stressed that although the woman was not doing anything “criminal”, they did wish for the unusual behaviour to stop. We’re sure that nobody wants that more than her son – who, thankfully, has not been named.
Anyone with a penchant for freecycling might wish to consider Stirling for their next summer trip. In a recent local council meeting, officials said that they were receiving reports of an increase in the number of abandoned vehicles around the Scottish city, with a number being dumped by international students who no longer had a need for them, the reported. Graeme McCaffery, Stirling Council’s safer communities team leader, told councillors that the university “has a?very high foreign population” who were “either just abandoning their cars, or going home and giving the keys to another student”. “They just buy a car and it seems to be quite a disposable thing for them,” he said. It’s not just unwanted cars littering the city, he admitted – furniture was also being left on the street because “it?is sometimes easier…than sell[ing] it or giv[ing] it to a charity shop”.
A major trend in research in recent years has been the growth of large research teams whose resulting papers sometimes feature dozens of authors. But a study published in Nature suggests that this might not be the best way to create truly “disruptive” science because such large groups are less likely to take risks. The study found that as research teams grew from one to 50 members, the measured disruption of the work dropped significantly. The results raised questions about funders increasingly backing large-scale projects, said James Evans, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study. “The real message is to managers and funders who, if they want to flee diminishing marginal returns and support breakthroughs, will need to fund science like venture capital, with a much higher tolerance for failures,” he said.
An academic misconduct row involving a well-known Chinese actor has engulfed social media in the country. Zhai Tianlin, who stars in a?television series called White Deer Plain, revealed to his millions of followers on the social media site Sina Weibo that he had been accepted into Peking University to do postdoctoral research at its Guanghua School of Management. But claims about the legitimacy of his previous scholarship followed, including that 40?per cent of a paper he submitted was plagiarised, reported. Mr Zhai’s management company initially rejected claims of wrongdoing, but the actor later issued an apology saying that he was withdrawing his bid to study at Peking. The management school has also expelled him, while his supervisor’s rights to enrol postdoctoral students have been suspended.