Issue 478, 4 March 2002

Main news stories

• Judging books just by looking at the covers
  Researchers at the University of Leeds may soon be reading books without opening the covers using terahertz spectroscopy – a form of electromagnetic imaging.
• Study exposes substandard NHS care
  Around 200 babies are dying each year and thousands of women suffering pain following childbirth, because doctors in maternity wards are still using outdated practices.
• Keeping the beat with our brain cells
  As we grow older, we become more forgetful and absentminded, but what is really going on in our brains as the years pass by?
• School film gets down to earth
  A film about studying at the University, made by youngsters at a Leeds inner city school, is to be sent to schools across the country and to colleges in America.
• Leeds in worldwide scheme to widen knowledge and improve patient care
  How can you find out whether fish oil cures schizophrenia, whether praying will alleviate ill-health or whether alternative Chinese medicine can help your stomach ache?
• Research and design in a neat package
  Almost everything we buy or use is packaged in some way, and while we might casually throw away the wrappings, or recycle them if we're environmentally minded, we rarely consider the level of design and technology which creates those outer layers.
• Keeping wool clean with robots and air
  Wool and robots may not seem to have much in common, but research in the school of textiles and design is looking at using robotics to solve a perennial problem for the wool industry, which, if resolved, could increase UK wool sales by £6.5m a year.
• Cybercrime – how real is it?
  University web designer Richard Ashby reviews the new book Crime and the Internet edited by law lecturer David Wall.

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