Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Arthur was live on the BBC one o’clock news and spoke to the Financial Times to stress the importance of putting students first when looking at proposals to change university admissions. The suggestions - now out to consultation - include holding back 15% of places until A-level results are out. They were drafted by the director-general for higher education and former University Vice-Chancellor Sir Alan Wilson.

Speaking on the BBC one o’clock news Professor Arthur said: “We welcome these proposals. Anything that makes this system open, fair and transparent has to be a good thing for the University. It will allow us to get the correct student with the correct academic qualifications on the correct course, and improve their chances of success.”

Better forecasting of rain will be possible thanks to work by earth and environment’s Sat Ghosh, reported international and national media. Interviewed on CNN, Dr Ghosh explained his work and the role of tiny air movements within clouds in causing water droplets to bump into others and generate drops big enough to fall as rain. The Daily Telegraph and BBC Radio 4’s PM programme also featured the story. Speaking to Eddie Mair, Dr Ghosh said: “We’re at the forefront of this in the UK.”

Leeds dialect expert Clive Upton played a crucial role in the BBC’s acclaimed Voices project (see Reporter 504). Listeners, viewers and visitors to the BBC website got involved with the research to understand the words we use and the way we speak. Joining Radio 4’s Word for Word, Dr Upton said: “This is the first opportunity to get voices from all over the UK and from all types of speakers. Thanks to the might of the BBC we can collect information about how they speak.” The project was featured across the BBC and national press.

Bad weather in the US and UK made headlines with Channel 4 and BBC’s Country File featuring professor of atmospheric science Alan Blyth’s work on the highly destructive convective storms behind last year’s Boscastle floods. Daily Telegraph science editor Roger Highfield joined the team and got a ‘God’s eye view of the birth of storms’ over England in June.

“What if Newton had carried out his threat to quit science?” Dr Greg Radick asked in a feature on virtual history for New Scientist. The Leeds history and philosophy of science lecturer argued historians should try to explain the past using ‘what if’ questions.

Professor of international law Surya Subedi joined Australia’s ABC radio to discuss the World Trade Organisation and the ongoing debate over agricultural subsidies and tariffs.

Global oil markets saw price rises and panic petrol buying in the UK. However, fuel protestors didn’t take to the streets in great numbers, as predicted by Leeds sociologist Paul Bagguley. Interviewed for BBC news online he said memories of protests in 2000 would hinder would-be demonstrators: “At the beginning, when it was just symbolic, the initial protest had a lot of public support. But when it started to have an effect, and prices at the pump began to rise, the public support drained away.” He added the New Orleans tragedy meant many people ‘would find a large-scale protest tasteless’.

Early feedback in a Leeds trial of cars which automatically stay within speed limits have been positive, reported the Times. Drivers taking part in the trial have been keen to keep devices which use satellite positioning to check a road’s speed limit and then automatically block acceleration or apply the brakes.

The system can be overruled and professor of transport safety Oliver Carsten explained it ‘didn’t eliminate speeding, but there was a very substantial reduction in excessive speed’. The Independent and Daily Telegraph also featured the trial.

Sociologist Dr Salman Sayyid spoke to the BBC World Service’s World Today programme about the decision by Ontario to set up a voluntary arbitration service based on Islamic - or sharia - law.