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Coventry at work

By Emma Simpson

So what’s the real story on public sector job losses as the biggest government spending squeeze for decades kicks in?

We are tracking public sector employment in Coventry to try to find out.

And we have a big update on what has been happening these last few months.

Between January and March this year, 369 public sector posts have closed across the city.

We have been getting jobs data from six public sector bodies, which represent 70% of public sector employment in the city.

We have also been doing some investigating ourselves and reckon we now have 95% of the picture.

It’s the nitty-gritty detail behind the daily headlines.

“The last few months have been quite bleak in many ways, knowing that big changes were afoot”

Ruth Nelson ex-Coventry City CouncilLeaving the council in ‘bleak times’

In our first story back in March, we reported that there had been only 15 posts closed in the three months to the end of the December 2010.

Well, we have now established that the total was actually 355.

Or to put it another way, the total number of public sector job losses in Coventry since the Coalition’s Spending Review of last October now stands at 724.

That’s 2.3% of the total number of public sector jobs in Coventry, or 3.6% if you exclude university workers.

All in all, a lot of people have left their jobs.

So where have the closures been?

Coventry is an interesting city when it comes to public sector employment. Not only does it have the usual number of council workers, NHS staff and teachers, it has a lot of government agencies – a mini-quango capital.

And they were the first in the firing line.

The agency to improve technology in schools, known as Becta, shut in March and another quango, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, is also in the process of being wound down.

A total of 237 posts disappeared from the offices of those two national quangos located in Coventry.

Another national body, the Skills Funding Agency, lost a total of 237 people through voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes. It is in the process of being restructured.

Coventry at work

With its diverse mix of public and private sectors, Coventry is a mini UK economy. BBC News is following the fortunes of its workers and businesses over the next 12 months and beyond.

Why we’re tracking Coventry

At the start of 2011, the second wave of job losses came from Coventry City Council, as the effects of the reduction in its funding from Whitehall started to be felt.

A total of 183 posts have closed, spread right across the organisation. These were mainly workers who left through the voluntary redundancy programme.

We have a far from complete picture on the overall number of compulsory redundancies in the public sector across the city. All we can say is that the number is at least 35 for the period in question.

As we reported before, public sector bodies are still trying to redeploy workers into vacant posts so as to minimise redundancies.

But more job losses are expected.

So what has been the impact of these losses on Coventry so far?

“Despite our best efforts, our business has not grown this year. We are getting by, but continue to have anxieties about the future”

Sam Harrison Owner, Tinderbox toy shop, CoventryToy shop does all it can to survive Architect sees recovery building Cuts ‘to hit women harder’

It’s clearly a very big deal if you are one of those people who have had to leave the public sector, even with a pay-off.

But this local economy seems to be proving fairly resilient, so far at least, in these tough times.

If you look at unemployment, the claimant count for people on Jobseeker’s Allowance has been creeping upwards again.

From last October, the number is up by 657, from 9,765 to 10,422, a rise of almost 7%.

This number, of course, reflects people looking for work, whether they came from the public or private sector.

And there are some encouraging signs in the private sector.

As well as our jobs tracker, we have been following a big group of public sector workers and private sector companies in Coventry.

It’s only a snapshot, but half of our companies have actually hired staff over the last three months, creating more than 400 new jobs. Twenty of their new recruits have come from the public sector.

I found that pretty striking.

The local Chamber of Commerce does its own survey work and it, too, is seeing some growth in jobs.

“The order books in many sectors are looking good,” said Louise Bennett, its chief executive.

“Our members seem to not only be holding staff, but talking about recruiting as well. But it’s still very fragile.

“We’re still asking the government to be cautious about its cuts to public spending and for the Bank of England to think carefully before raising interest rates.”

It’s early days, then. Like so many other places, Coventry remains vulnerable. Watch this space for another update in three months’ time.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

MPs target absent parent payments

Ministers want to encourage parents to come to voluntary arrangements over child maintenance

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Absent parents should make their child maintenance payments directly from their salaries or bank accounts, a committee of MPs has recommended.

They found the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission cost 50p for every £1 it collected and had failed to collect £3.8bn in payments due.

The Work and Pensions Committee called on the government to make the child support system more efficient.

The commission replaced the much-criticised Child Support Agency.

The committee found that many separated parents did not receive regular maintenance for their children and in some cases did not get payments at all.

Officials can take money directly from those who fall behind but the committee said direct payments from bank accounts or salaries should be required in all cases.

The government has said it wants to encourage separated parents to come to their own voluntary arrangements.

But its plans to charge a fee and call in officials to collect the payments of couples who cannot reach such an agreement were criticised by the MPs.

They also said the new agency still had operational weaknesses.

Committee chairman Anne Begg said the current system could easily be improved.

She told the BBC: “There are many non-resident parents who already set up a mechanism, usually direct debit, to make sure their children get the money that they’re entitled to.

“What we want to see is this widened so that everyone has an obligation to make sure there is some payment in process which is regular.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman acknowledged the agency was not working well enough for children and said the government would give its full response in due course.

Last month, Prime Minister David Cameron said absent fathers should be “stigmatised” by society in the same way as drink-drivers.

However, he was criticised by charity Gingerbread which said government proposals to charge people in need of state help to obtain child maintenance payments would make life harder for single parents.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Warning over child liver disease

Fatty Liver Disease can lead to problems like heart attack, stroke, diabetes and even cirrhosis

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Some 500,000 children in England may be at risk of developing life-threatening liver disease because they are overweight, a health adviser has said.

Professor Martin Lombard, England’s National Clinical Director for Liver Disease, says the four to 14-year-olds could develop “fatty liver disease”.

Too much fat in liver cells stops the liver from working properly, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

It can also lead to diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver later in life.

Cirrhosis – scarring of the liver – is commonly associated with alcohol abuse, but it can also be caused by obesity.

Professor Lombard bases his projections on figures from the National Child Measurement Programme.

He warns that up to 60,000 10 year olds “could be at risk” of having excessive fat in the liver while they are children, leading to serious health problems when they get older.

“The unfortunate problem with liver disease is you don’t get any symptoms at all until it’s at an advanced stage”

Professor Martin Lombard Clinical Director for Liver

When looking at a broader age range, children aged four to 14, the figures are even more stark, with Professor Lombard estimating that 500,000 are potentially at risk.

While the rate of increase in childhood obesity seems to be flattening out, the total number of overweight children is still very high.

Government figures for child obesity in England in the school year 2009/10 showed that nearly a fifth of children in reception class (aged four) were obese or overweight.

Among Year 6 children (10 to 11-year-olds) the figure was one in three.

Professor Lombard warns that “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” could be a silent killer among this generation of children.

“The unfortunate problem with liver disease is you don’t get any symptoms at all until it’s at an advanced stage. So you get cirrhosis and then you have complications that arise from that cirrhosis which can be very serious.

“So it’s not until that late stage that you get any symptoms at all.

“Parents should be concerned about children who are overweight as they will be at risk of developing fatty liver.

“If they don’t become more active and lose the weight as they go on, then they become overweight adults and have a range of other risk factors as well.”

Sarah Matthews, spokesperson of the British Liver Trust, said: “Children’s livers are being cultivated for disease by a poor diet and lack of exercise.

“Even though alcohol is regarded as the key cause of liver disease in the UK, weight-related liver damage is set to become a huge public health problem where, if the projections hold true, obesity could overtake alcohol as the biggest single driver of cirrhosis in the future.

“Too much alcohol and fatty foods, coupled with a lack of symptoms, means that liver disease is becoming difficult to ignore and is already costing the NHS millions each year.

“The number of people affected by liver disease and the health costs are set to soar, particularly with the growing number of young people who are overweight and obese.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Oil spill hits Yellowstone River

Aerial view of Yellowstone River oil leak

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An ExxonMobil pipeline in the US state of Montana has ruptured, leaking hundreds of barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River, officials say.

The company said the pipe had been shut down and the segment where the leak happened had been isolated.

Nearby residents were evacuated, but later allowed to return to their homes.

The accident happened downstream from the famed Yellowstone national park, a major tourist attraction in the US.

Clean-up crews have been deployed to tackle the spill, which was detected early on Saturday.

ExxonMobil spokeswoman Pam Malek told AP news agency an estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil had leaked from the pipe for about a half-hour before it was shut down.

“We recognise the seriousness of this incident and are working hard to address it,” the company said in a statement.

“Our principal focus is on protecting the safety and health of the public and our employees,” it added.

It is unclear how far the slick will travel, but Duane Winslow, the county’s director of disaster and emergency services, said it was dissipating as it moved downstream.

“We’re just kind of waiting for it to move on down while Exxon is trying to figure out how to corral this monster,” Mr Winslow said.

There are fears that fish will suffer because of the accident.

“If fish get oil on them, if they break the surface and get oil on them, it tends to plug up their gills and it often is fatal,” said Bob Gobson, of the Billings Fish, Wildlife and Parks Program.

Exxon promised a full investigation into the spill, which occurred in a 12-inch pipeline, running from Silvertip to Billings, downstream from Yellowstone National Park.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Potty-mouth politics

Article written by Nick Bryant Sydney correspondentMore from Nick

John Howard. “Lazarus with a triple bypass” was one of the kinder epithets

The US presidential campaign is already upon us, and my advice for anyone hoping to make full sense of its reporting would be to invest in a glossary of American sporting terms. In Iowa and New Hampshire, candidates are already swinging for the fences, trying to make it to first base, and even throwing the occasional Hail Mary pass.

Although this is a sports-obsessed country, Australian political discourse does not rely on sports analogies to anywhere near the same degree. True, politicians are sometimes accused of playing the man not the ball. Troublesome issues might occasionally be kicked into touch. Government ministers might be bowled a bouncer or a googly during Question Time – although more commonly they are the grateful recipients of friendly long-hops from backbenchers within their own parties.

Overall, however, the language of Australian politics owes more to anatomy than sport. Body parts are an ever present. Bodily functions and medical afflictions have always been fashionable.

Needless to say, the heart is central. John Howard not only became a self-styled “Lazarus with a triple bypass”, but was accused of inflicting serious coronary damage on the country during the republican referendum. Politicians also have to pass the great Australian ticker test. The lack of a strong ticker is seen as a more serious deficiency than spinelessness or the occasional loss of testicular fortitude. That said, the accusation of facelessness is becoming increasingly wounding, as the union leader Paul Howes or Labor powerbroker Bill Shorten might attest.

The phrase “flat-lining”, which obviously indicates a loss of heartbeat, is often used to describe a string of unfavourable polls – which themselves are indicative of a “haemorrhaging” of support. Unpopular policies are often said to be on “life-support”.

As one would expect following a particularly gory phase of federal politics, rarely is there any shortage of blood. Nor testosterone, which seems to occupy the airspace in the backrooms of politics once monopolised by smoke.

This brings us to the nether regions of the body, which Australian politicians have never been embarrassed to probe. In the eyes of Mark Latham, John Howard was an “arse-licker”. Bob Hawke thought that bosses who expected their employees to turn up to work after the America’s Cup triumph were “bums”.

The colourful Paul Keating was not averse to the odd insult

When it comes to the lavatorial, it is tempting to conclude that Labor leaders have won the race to the bottom. But that would overlook Tony Abbott’s two-word summation of anthropological global warming: “Absolute crap”. Summing up a particularly bad day on the campaign trail during the 2007 election, he also simply opined that “shit happens”.

Yet the mind often triumphs over matter. Governments regularly suffer from “collective nervous breakdowns”, while Kevin Rudd was accused of Attention Deficit Disorder because of his tendency to flit from one policy area to the next. Paul Keating, as ever, was more blunt. For him, John Howard was simply “brain-damaged”.

What does all this say about Australian politics? As we have noted many times before, its lingua franca emphasises the franca over the lingua, perhaps more so than in other advanced economies. This is a plain-speaking country, after all. As a consequence, politicians here often owe their reputations to being potty-mouthed rather than being silver-tongued.

I would also argue that alternative metaphorical touchstones do not really work. Outside of South Australia, politics here lacks a dynastic dimension, which rules out much of Greek mythology. From the Adams to the Bushes, US politics is full of Oedipal overtones, and hence mythological references, which is simply not the case here.

Similarly, Shakespeare does not feature so prominently – as it does, say, at Westminster or in Washington – because so few contemporary political figures could genuinely be described as Shakespearian. True, Paul Keating might have had the lean and hungry look of Cassius. Similarly, Peter Costello could plausibly have been cast as the Hamlet of the Howard era. But during last year’s leadership coup I winced whenever Shakespeare was appropriated to describe either Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard because neither of them possesses a sufficiently dramatic persona. Perhaps one could imagine Ms Gillard as a fringe character handed a few meagre lines, but not commanding central stage.

The rowdy and infantile behaviour of Aussie politicians is under especially close scrutiny at the moment, with the New York Times, the Economist and BBC amplifying criticisms that have been regularly voiced by local commentators. The politics here at present does appear boorish and second-rate. But demands for change seem to fall on deaf ears. Canberra politicians seem to like things the way they are: bruising and brutal, for that is the character of the body politic at the arse end of the world.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Unions criticise school trip plan

Ministers say there is too much bureaucracy involved in organising school trips

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Teaching unions have criticised plans to make school trips easier to organise amid government fears about the over-zealous application of safety laws.

The Department for Education is publishing new guidance to help schools ditch “unnecessary paperwork”, and has cut 150 pages of guidelines to eight.

But the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said it feared reducing best practice could lead to more accidents.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said it was a “more common sense” approach.

Amanda Brown, of the NUT, said: “What we wouldn’t want to do is to see a reduction of guidance which could lead to a lot more accidents.

“What we want is advice which is very clear and straightforward but long enough to cover enough of the detail so that people do feel secure.”

The NASUWT teachers’ union said cutting back guidance could reduce parents’ confidence and make teachers more nervous about school trips because it provided a safeguard.

“The dilution of guidance for schools is likely to reduce rather than increase the number of educational visits”

Chris Keates NASUWT teachers’ union

“The decision to scrap over 140 pages of guidance is potentially reckless and could increase litigation against schools and teachers,” said general secretary Chris Keates.

“There is no evidence demonstrating the need for the previous guidance to be abandoned, and no educational reason for doing so.

“Schools and teachers organise educational visits when it is clear that there is an opportunity to enhance and enrich pupils’ learning and when they assure themselves that children will be safe.

“The dilution of guidance for schools is likely to reduce rather than increase the number of educational visits.”

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it hoped the new guidelines would dispel legal “myths”.

Chairman Judith Hackitt told the BBC it was “time to out those who hide behind red tape and procedures and often blame us and health and safety as the reason why they can’t do these things”.

She said guidelines had ended up being overly bureaucratic because of a fear of civil litigation, cost-cutting and because it was an easy way to avoid work that was regarded as more difficult.

Teachers were intelligent people and should be trusted to use their common sense, she added.

Ministers said school trips could broaden children’s horizons but fear of prosecution was too often used as an excuse not to organise them.

In the past five years only two cases had been brought against schools for breaches of health and safety law on a visit, they said.

Employment minister Chris Grayling said: “We’ve got a crazy situation at the moment where, very often, headteachers and teachers think that actually the rules are such that it’s not a good idea to plan school trips.

“There’s too much bureaucracy, too many health and safety rules and a risk of prosecution if something goes wrong,” he told the BBC.

“There is no reason – and never was – why children should be prevented from going on school trips by over-enthusiastic misinterpretation of rules,” he said.

A Labour Party spokesman said health and safety rules needed to be applied sensibly.

The new guidelines clarify that written parental consent is not needed for each activity and encourage schools to use a new one-off consent form signed once when a child starts at a school.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

VIDEO: Bomb disposal expert escapes blast

A bomb disposal expert in Thailand has escaped unharmed after attempting to diffuse a car bomb as it exploded.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Strauss-Kahn allies eye comeback

Dominique Strauss-Kahn looked relaxed as he emerged from court

Allies of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn have said he could make a political comeback in France now he has been freed from house arrest in the US.

Before being accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York on 14 May, Mr Strauss-Kahn was tipped as a possible French presidential candidate.

But doubts have since emerged about the credibility of the maid, and the case is reportedly close to collapse.

On Friday a judge ordered Mr Strauss-Kahn released on his own recognisance.

His is now free to travel in the US, although he cannot leave the country and must appear in court again later this month.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund to defend himself, vigorously denies the charges.

Mr Strauss-Kahn had earlier been the favourite to be the Socialist Party’s candidate for the French presidency in May 2011.

The BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris says that regardless of events in court, the expectation is growing here in France the case will ultimately collapse.

And if that happens, the only person who can rule his out of next year’s contest is Mr Strauss-Kahn himself, our correspondent adds.

“Here in Paris there is huge anticipation. The man who had been written out of the script for next year’s presidential elections is potentially back in the running.”

Read Gavin’s thoughts in full

The last Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, said: “If we hypothesise that Dominique is cleared of all suspicion and all charges, which I obviously hope will happen, then it will be first down to him to decide… and then it will be down to the Socialists to decide.”

A Socialist MP, Jean-Marie Le Guen, said he thought it likely that Mr Strauss-Kahn would stand.

“Yes, he will be present for the presidential campaign,” he said.

“If what we heard… is true, that the American justice will free him and re-habilitate him, give him back his honour and dignity. Then, since Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a fighter, he will fight in our country.”

The list for nominations is due to close on 13 July – five days before his next scheduled court appearance. But the senior Socialist, Francois Hollande, said the deadline could be extended.

Our correspondent says there are though plenty in France who hold Mr Strauss-Kahn in high admiration for the way he has conducted himself in court, there is sympathy and renewed hope among his staunchest allies.

A judge in New York lifted the strict bail conditions imposed on Mr Strauss-Kahn, amid intense speculation that the sexual assault case against him was faltering.

He had been under house arrest since posting a $6m bail bond.

When the 62-year-old appeared in court, prosecutors were forced to admit that they were reassessing the strength of the evidence against him – although the charges that he attempted to rape a hotel maid still stand.

In a letter submitted to the court, the prosecutors said that the maid had given false testimony to a grand jury, omitting the fact that she had cleaned another room before alerting a supervisor to her claims of sexual assault.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyprus R Vance Jr: “Our office’s commitment is to the truth and to the facts”

“I understand that the circumstances of this case have changed substantially, and I agree the risk that he would not be here has receded quite a bit. I release Mr Strauss-Kahn at his own recognisance,” Justice Michael Obus told the court.

The maid claims that Mr Strauss-Kahn chased her down a hallway in his expensive hotel suite in the Sofitel hotel before sexually assaulting her.

However, unnamed law enforcement officials have now told US media the accuser has repeatedly lied since the alleged attack.

The officials believe the woman also lied on her application for asylum, particularly over an allegation that she had been raped while at home in Guinea. They also suspect she has links to drugs dealers and money-laundering.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, William Taylor, said he believed the next step would lead to the complete dismissal of the charges.

But the maid’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, maintained that his client’s story was genuine and that Mr Strauss-Kahn was guilty of sexual assault charges.

“From day one she has described a violent sexual assault that Dominique Strauss-Kahn committed against her,” Mr Thompson said, adding that Mr Strauss-Kahn bruised the maid’s body and threw her to the floor.

“She has never once changed a single thing about that account. The district attorney knows that,” he added. “The only defence Dominique Strauss-Kahn has is that this sexual encounter was consensual. That is a lie.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Phones ‘unlikely’ to cause cancer

Are mobile phones safe?

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Mounting evidence suggests there is no link between mobile phones and brain cancer, according to a review by the Institute of Cancer Research.

It stated that despite near universal mobile phone use, there had been no jump in the number of tumours.

Its report, in Environmental Health Perspectives, also identified flaws in many studies investigating a link.

A few weeks ago the World Health Organization said mobiles were “possibly carcinogenic”.

The decision by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) put mobile phones in the same category as coffee, in which a link could not be ruled out, but it could not be proved either.

One of the biggest studies into a link was Interphone, a comparison of 2,708 patients with a brain tumour (glioma) with a similar number of people without.

The study concluded that mobile phone users were less likely to get brain tumours, but heavy users had an increased risk.

Other possible causes of cancerPetrol car exhaustsLeadCoffeeDry cleaningIARC classifications

Professor Anthony Swerdlow, from the Institute of Cancer Research, said there was a risk of bias when patients with brain tumours answered questionnaires about their phone use.

Ten patients in the study said they were on the phone for more than 12 hours per day.

He added that in the space of 20 years, mobile phone use had gone from being rare to 4.6 billion users worldwide.

Yet evidence from many Western countries showed “no indication of increases in brain tumour incidence”.

Professor Swerdlow said: “The trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumours in adults.”

The report admits that there is still some uncertainty.

“Continued research is needed…but the news so far is good”

Professor David Coggon University of Southampton

Studies have looked at a link associated with 10 to 15 years of mobile phone use and it remains a possibility that longer exposure could cause cancer.

However, Professor Swerdlow argues that if studies looking at longer exposure produce similar results, then a link will become “increasingly implausible”.

He adds that “there is far less evidence of the effect of childhood exposure, but there is no reason to believe it causes tumours”.

Cancer Research UK’s Dr Joanna Owens said: “Although these researchers admit that we can’t entirely rule out the idea of a link between mobile phones and brain cancer, they remind us that in most of the research, including their large international study, mobile phone users don’t seem to be at increased risk.

“We don’t yet have data on very long-term use of mobile phones, or for the effects on cancer risk in children, so it is probably wise to encourage children to limit their mobile phone call time.”

Professor David Coggon, University of Southampton, said: “This is a carefully considered review, and the conclusions are justified.

“Mobile phones appear not to cause brain cancer in the first 10-15 years after people start using them.

“Continued research is needed in case there are harmful effects in the longer term, but the news so far is good.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Conker tree threat’s story recast

Horse chestnut leaf from Kew's herbarium (Image: David Lees)

Closer inspection of Europe’s herbarium collections revealed some surprising results

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Horse chestnut leaf miners were living on natural stands of trees in Greece a century before they were first described by science, a study shows.

The discovery was made by researchers who examined many of Europe’s historic herbarium collections.

They say it offers an insight to the history and origins of the tiny moths, which are blighting many of the continent’s horse chestnuts.

The findings will appear in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment journal.

“It is a moth that has been the target of a lot of research recently because it has been expanding [its range] so fast – much faster than other kinds of leaf-mining moths,” explained co-author David Lees from the French Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).

The larval form of the Cameraria ohridellamoth feed inside the leaves of the white flowering horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum), producing characteristic “mines” between the leaves’ veins.

The creatures do not kill the tree but infested trees may produce smaller conkers.

Dr Lees said C. ohridella was spreading its range by about 60km (40 miles) across Europe each year.

The small but highly invasive moth was first discovered in 1984, and first described by scientists as a genus new to Europe in just 1986. Since then, it has expanded its range across almost all of Europe.

The larvae produce characteristic mines on the white flowering horse chestnut tree’s (Aesculus hippocastanum) leaves. The creatures do not kill the tree but infested trees may, however, produce smaller conkers.

“We recently marked the first quarter century of this blight on horse chestnuts and it is quite amazing that during this time its origin has remained a mystery,” noted Dr Lees, a scientific associate with the Natural History Museum in London.

Unbelievable

“We decided to look at whether specimens of the moth appeared in herbarium collections, so I contacted (co-author) Walter Lack at Berlin Botanic Garden, who had been studying the history of this tree in Europe.

Horse chestnut leaf miners are spreading their range by 60km each year

Conker trees threatened by moth

“I asked him whether he had come across any mines in his historic herbarium collection. He wrote straight back and said that he did have some, which had been collected in 1928 in Albania. He said that there were spots on the leaves but he had no idea what they were.”

Dr Lees admitted he was very excited when he examined photos of the specimens and saw the outline of a caterpillar mine.

“That’s when we started to look more widely,” he went on. “I went to Kew Gardens (London) and as I was looking through the herbarium there I found a specimen from 1879 which had mines in it. We just could not believe it.”

They also found examples of leaf miners on collections in Paris.

Dr Lees said some of samples of leaf mines had been hidden, as the result of proud botanists attempting to disguise blemishes on their prized leaves.

He also felt there was another reason why the discovery had not been made before: “Disciplines stick to what they know best so entomologists would not necessarily would go to herbariums.”

He explained that the tree has been transported from its native Balkan range and planted throughout Europe since the late 16th Century, so mystery had surrounded why the moth had not “caught up with its dinner sooner”.

“We know that this moth has been distributing very fast since the last 1980s, ever since it somehow got to Austria,” Dr Lees said.

The arrival of roads in areas within the moths’ original range played a part, he suggested.

“The pupae hibernate in the mine (on a leaf), and they are able to be transported in trucks.”

Before this, the distribution was unlikely to have be widespread because the moths were not able fly far enough to extend their range.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Antimatter mystery gains ground

The Dzero team is also part of a mystery about a potential new particle

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US particle physicists are inching closer to determining why the Universe exists in its current form, made overwhelmingly of matter.

Physics suggests equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been made in the Big Bang.

In 2010, researchers at the Tevatron accelerator claimed preliminary results showing a small excess of matter over antimatter as particles decayed.

The team has submitted a paper showing those results are on a firmer footing.

Each of the fundamental particles known has an antimatter cousin, with identical properties but opposite electric charge.

When a particle encounters its antiparticle, they “annihilate” each other, disappearing in a high-energy flash of light.

The question remains: why did this not occur in the early Universe with the equal amounts of matter and antimatter, resulting in a Universe devoid of both?

The Tevatron results come from a shower of particles produced at the facility when smashing protons into their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons.

The proton-antiproton collisions in turn create a number of different particles, and the team operating the Tevatron’s DZero detector first noticed a discrepancy in the decay of particles called B mesons.

Statistics of a ‘discovery’

Particle physics has an accepted definition for a “discovery”: a five-sigma level of certaintyThe number of sigmas is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effectSimilarly, tossing a coin and getting a number of heads in a row may just be chance, rather than a sign of a “loaded” coinThe “three sigma” level represents about the same likelihood of tossing more than eight heads in a rowFive sigma, on the other hand, would correspond to tossing more than 20 in a rowA five-sigma result is highly unlikely to happen by chance, and thus an experimental result becomes an accepted discovery

These decayed into pairs of particles called muons alongside pairs of their antimatter versions, antimuons. But, as the team reported in May 2010 in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, there was a notable 1% excess of the matter particles.

However, unpicking important events in the soup of interactions created in particle physics experiments meant that those measurements were associated with a level of uncertainty – reflecting the probability that the effect they see is a random statistical occurrence, rather than new physics.

The researchers now have 50% more data to work with, and have tried to establish that their earlier result in fact came from the particle decays that they first proposed.

As they reported this Thursday, they have now reduced the uncertainty in their experiment to a level of 3.9 sigma – equivalent to a 0.005% probability that the effect is a fluke.

But particle physics has a strict definition for what may be called a discovery – the “five sigma” level of certainty, or about a 0.00003% chance that the effect is not real – which the team must show before they can claim to have solved the long-standing matter/antimatter mystery.

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Two universities could go private

There will be more competition for students in the changing system

Two English universities are actively considering becoming private institutions, research suggests.

This would mean they would no longer get direct funding for research or teaching from the government.

The government has said it wants to open up the system to private providers of higher education.

The two universities, which have not been named, took part in a survey of vice chancellors by management consultants PA Consulting Group.

The authors of the survey say the institutions are not part of the Russell Group, which represents some of the UK’s leading universities.

They contacted the vice chancellors of 165 universities and received responses from 65.

The authors say a “substantial minority” of institutions (just over 20 of those which responded) want to minimise their dependence on government-controlled activities.

Co-author Mike Boxall said there were probably more than two institutions which were actively looking at whether to go private.

“It’s probably on the top of the agenda for a number of universities,” he said.

“It’s in the public domain that the LSE has actively considered it. There are probably more than [the two universities] for whom it will be an active thing.

“It’s more about universities looking at widening their base and thinking about where to build their business.

“The publicly-regulated area is not offering a lot of growth for universities.”

The Universities Minister David Willetts has talked of wanting to “open up the system” and the higher education White Paper, published earlier this week, sets out ways the government aims to do that.

Private institutions are being encouraged to compete with publicly-funded institutions to offer places.

In total, a quarter of all undergraduate university places will be up for grabs – unlike the present system where individual institutions are given funding for a set allocation of places.

New legislation will allow students to borrow the maximum annual undergraduate tuition fee of £9,000 as long as the institution (publicly-funded or private) agrees to abide by regulations on fair access, quality and student complaints.

Changes to university funding mean teaching grants are being largely cut. Funding is expected to come more directly from students and their increased tuition fees.

Critics say this will mean departments – and even universities – closing, and ministers have said that they accept some institutions might fail.

Two universities which took part in the survey said they feared they might not exist in ten years’ time.

The researchers at the PA Consulting Group said some universities were “still distinctly nervous”, with 11 out of the 65 which took part in the survey saying they were concerned about shortages of investment funds and staff.

And about 20 of the universities said they expected the increase in tuition fees to lead to a “significant reduction in student demand”.

Overall, Mr Boxall said that after a period of anger and upheaval over the changes in higher education, many universities were now “feeling quite bullish”.

“After a lot of change in the cost structure, a number are feeling that they have come out the other side. A lot of institutions have a lot of cash and a big chunk of the sector is in good shape.”

He said institutions were looking at various growth strategies, particularly further expansion into the international market.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.