The past few days’ news: Wednesday 1 September 2010

Science funding cuts in the spotlight
As the Comprehensive Spending Review continues in full swing, concerns about cuts to the science budget are getting coverage.  Last Friday’s Guardian included a full page spread on the ‘economic vandalism’ of some proposed cuts; Monday’s Independent gave examples of all the different technologies that the UK will fall behind in if there are the cuts; and Physics World laments reduced funding for CERN, highlighting the UK’s leading role in demanding reduced costs.

Guardian

The Independent

Physics World

Science exams ‘too easy’, says Ofqual
GCSEs sat by hundreds of thousands of pupils this summer were too easy and suffered from inconsistent standards between the exam boards, the qualifications watchdog has told The TES.

TES

BBC

Daily Telegraph

The Guardian to bring science blogosphere in from the cold
The Guardian has introduced a new science blogs network to help more join the discussion.  Jon Butterworth, a high energy particle physicist, will be a regular contributor.

Guardian intro to network

Jon’s blog

Saturn-sized worlds round a distant star and a 200 mile long crater on the surface of Mars
In a quick round-up of some space news, Kepler has spotted some Saturn-sized planets orbiting a distant star; while the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft has taken images of a 200 mile long crater on the surface of Mars.

BBC and Kepler
Daily Mail and Mars’ crater

Tevatron to be given extension to beat CERN to the Higgs
A report by Fermilab’s Physics Advisory Committee (PAC) due to be released later today (Wed 1 Sept) is expected to recommend that collisions at the Tevatron continue until 2014 – long enough, say advocates, to search the entire range of likely masses for the Higgs boson, and perhaps even find the first evidence of its existence.

Physics World

Quantum cryptography hacking raises doubt about its security
Quantum hackers have performed the first ‘invisible’ attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack.

Nature