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The Motorola Xoom is one of the first tablets to run Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb software – but is it a real challenger to the iPad?
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Some schools are able to boast extraordinary clusters of the great and good or the just plain famous. But is it something the schools do or just coincidence?
Go and look at your old school’s Wikipedia page. Roughly three quarters of the way down the page there is usually a section listing notable past pupils.
Some are household names – musicians and TV presenters. Others are unknown to most, but are still at the top of their field – captains of industry, research scientists and diplomats.
If you can’t find that alumni section it may be because no-one from your school went on to become famous. It could be that your classroom wasn’t in one of these “celebrity schools”.
Major public schools like Eton are well-known for their track record of turning out famous alumni. David Cameron was the 19th British prime minister to attend the school in Windsor. But what about ordinary state schools? There are plenty with clusters of famous ex-pupils.
Just a few miles from Eton is Drayton Manor High School in London. Past pupils at the comprehensive include singer Jay Kay, the front man for Jamiroquai, England and Tottenham footballer Peter Crouch and rock star Rick Wakeman.
The rapper, MP and footballer all went to St Bonaventures in Forest Gate, east London Over on the other side of the capital is St Bonaventure’s Catholic Comprehensive School. Nicknamed St Bons, the east London boys’ school produced England and Tottenham footballer Jermain Defoe, chart-topping rapper Tinchy Stryder, R&B artist Jay Sean, who 2005 Apprentice winner Timothy Campbell and Conservative MP David Amess.
There are plenty of clusters outside London as well.
The Liverpool Institute, now closed, had Beatles George Harrison and Paul McCartney, along with their road manager Neil Aspinall, the newsreader Peter Sissons and theatre producer Bill Kenwright all at the school at the same time.
Belfast’s St Malachy’s College is the oldest Catholic grammar school in Northern Ireland. Many former students went on to positions of influence. But as well as the judges, politicians and bishops is TV presenter Eamonn Holmes, actor Ciaran Hinds and football manager Martin O’Neill.
High aspirations
North London comprehensive Haverstock School also boasts a mixed set of famous students. The leader of the Labour party Ed Miliband and his brother David went there. But so did all three members of the successful hip-hop group N-Dubz and former Labour MP Oona King. Footballers John Barnes and Joe Cole are also former students, as is actor Steve McFadden who plays Phil Mitchell in Eastenders.
Headteacher John Dowd says the school has a diverse set of students. Half its pupils are entitled to free school meals, more than half are bilingual and 23% are refugees. He believes N-Dubz’s feats demonstrate that success can also come for students who aren’t just academic.
“We try to generate a culture of high aspiration and success in any field is something to be lauded, whether that’s in sport or politics or on television.”
Some successful former students also come back to help the current pupils. David Milband comes into the school on Tuesdays to teach politics and mentor pupils.
That belief in students is something Michael Portillo thinks is important in a school – but is lacking in many. He went to Harrow High School – not to be confused with the famous fee-paying Harrow School. He graduated the year before his school moved from grammar to comprehensive status – going on to become a government minister and later a TV personality – along with a cloud of famous alumni.
Former Conservative MP Michael Portillo stands next to classmate TV presenter Clive Anderson In an old school photo he is stood next to the former barrister and TV presenter, Clive Anderson. Their classmate was Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the current British ambassador to the US. In the same year over at the girls’ school was Diane Abbott, who went on to become the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons and is Portillo’s partner in punditry on the weekly politics programme This Week.
Portillo attributes his success to “warm”, educated, intelligent and dedicated teachers. He also adds that he and his classmates had ambitious parents who had “lots of books in their houses”.
But for him the main reason the school was successful was the competitive environment.
“Twice a year we got our exam results and everyone would know each others’ results,” he says. “In my class there were three of us who competed for the top spot.”
Paul Nurse was two years above Portillo. He went on to become Sir Paul, the Nobel prize winning president of the Royal Society.
House music DJ Judge Jules says it wasn’t what was taught in the classroom that made many pupils in his former school successful, it was down to its location in a middle-class area. He says it meant there were a high proportion of “pushy parents”.
He went to Highgate Wood comprehensive in north London, as did the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston, DJ and singer Sonique, former England footballer Laurie Cunningham and fashion designer Ozwald Boateng.
Jules says his parents expected a lot from him academically, which was typical for his “suburban” area. He got into DJing while he was studying law at university.
Footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and newsreader Fiona Bruce went to the same school But for the former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, the main determinant of a successful school with a healthy output of golden alumni is the head teacher.
He picks out Elizabeth Sidwell. Currently England’s schools commissioner, Dr Sidwell was the headteacher at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College in New Cross, south-east London. The alumni of this school include newsreader Fiona Bruce, footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and singer-songwriter Katy B.
It would seem, anecdotally at least, that many of these “celebrity schools” are in London. That might be down to anything from the economic dominance of the capital to the fact that many of the great and good gravitate there and so school their children there.
What is clear is that there are plenty of diverse opinions on why schools might produce famous alumni, often from the alumni themselves, but nobody can really establish a formula for a good school.
In the end, it might all be coincidence.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Hustle follows the fortunes of a group of London confidence tricksters The creator of BBC One con artist drama Hustle has said its newly commissioned eighth series will be the last.
But writer Tony Jordan did not rule out the possibility the show, which first aired in 2004, could be revived.
“Do you allow the show to fade away or… quit while you’re ahead?” he told Broadcast magazine. “You want to go out like James Dean in a fast car.”
A BBC spokesperson confirmed the next series of Hustle would be the last “with the current gang”.
But the corporation said it was “in discussions” about the programme’s “continued life”.
The seventh series of Hustle, screened earlier this year, attracted an average audience of 6.3m viewers.
The show, which stars Adrian Lester and Robert Vaughn, is made for the BBC by independent production company Kudos.
Screenwriter Jordan acted as the lead storyliner on EastEnders for several years, and co-created time-travelling police drama Life on Mars.
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Nikita Tikhonov, wearing a hood, changed his story during the trial A Moscow court has sentenced a Russian nationalist to life imprisonment for murdering a prominent human rights lawyer and a journalist.
Nikita Tikhonov was found guilty of shooting lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, a reporter, in central Moscow in January 2009.
Tikhonov’s girlfriend Yevgenia Khasis was jailed for 18 years for helping him kill them.
Mr Markelov’s human rights work had angered nationalists.
He had defended Chechens who were victims of alleged human rights abuses.
Ms Baburova worked on the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which specialises in human rights issues.
The murder, carried out in broad daylight, sparked international accusations that Russia was not doing enough to arrest the killers of government critics.
When Tikhonov and Khasis were arrested in November 2009, Russian police sources linked them to an outlawed far-right group, Russian National Unity.
Both defendants denied the charges and their lawyers say they will appeal, if necessary to the European Court of Human Rights.
Russian National Unity denied any involvement in the murders and said the two had never been members.
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Some families’ finances have been hit by rising prices Fewer people were declared insolvent in England and Wales in the first three months of the year, although experts predict a rise later in the year.
There were 30,162 personal insolvencies in the first quarter, down 1.7% on the previous three months and the fourth consecutive quarterly fall.
The Insolvency Service figures show the number was 15.5% down on the same period a year earlier.
However, there was a rise in the number of businesses going bust.
A record number of people were declared insolvent in 2010, but the numbers were falling as the year went on.
Some people find that Christmas spending adds to debt problems, with credit card bills landing at the start of the year, but the trend of falling personal insolvencies continued at the start of 2011.
A variety of options are available for those facing acute financial difficulties.
There has been a sharp fall in the number of people choosing the traditional route of bankruptcy. There were 12,539 bankruptcies in the first three months of the year, down 31.3% on the same period a year earlier, although the total was up 4% from 12,028 in the last quarter of 2010.
The number of people choosing an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), which allows an official deal to be struck between the debtor and creditors, also fell compared with a year ago.
There were 10,835 IVAs declared, which was 8% lower than the first quarter of 2010.
However, the new style of insolvency for those with relatively low debts – known as a Debt Relief Order – grew in number to 6,788. This was 20.3% higher than the same quarter of last year and was up 10% on the previous three months.
Frances Coulson, president of R3 – the insolvency professionals trade body – welcomed the fall in personal insolvencies, which are now at their lowest level since the last three months of 2008.
“Our research shows that, against the backdrop of increased living costs and falling income, four in five consumers have changed how they shop in a bid to save money. A further drop in personal insolvency may signal that the reining in of domestic belts is starting to pay off,” he said.
“However, this data only captures those that are in formal insolvency procedures so we are unable to gauge how many households are struggling.”
“I felt ashamed. Who was I to have all my debts written off when there are other people who work hard to pay them off?”
Kathryn Bevan, who was declared bankrupt a year ago‘I was facing a lifetime of debt’
Separate figures released in April showed that personal insolvencies also fell in Scotland.
The Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) figures showed 4,262 people were declared insolvent between January and March – a drop of 7% on the previous three months.
However, accountants are predicting a rise in personal insolvencies across the UK later in the year, with job losses expected to increase and austerity measures continuing to take effect.
“These figures must not mask the fact that the crippling effects of personal debt are still very much being felt by households,” said Louise Brittain of Deloitte.
“The recent decision by the Bank of England to keep the Bank rate at 0.5% would have brought a sigh of relief to debt-riddled households. This is helping thousands of cash-strapped homeowners avoid personal insolvency.
“However, the economy as a whole still remains fragile with households feeling the squeeze from high inflation, tax rises and the prospect of job losses, we cannot count on this positive trend continuing as the year goes on.”
There was more concerning news for businesses in England and Wales.
There were 1,314 receiverships, administrations or company voluntary arrangements in the first three months of the year.
All three showed a rise compared with the previous three months, although the total was down 2.2% on the same period a year ago.
There were 4,121 firms that were liquidated – the end point of the insolvency process – in the first quarter of 2011. This was 3.7% higher than the previous quarter and up 2.1% on the same period a year ago.
In Scotland, there were 279 company liquidations in the first three months of 2011, up from 245 during the previous three months and 275 in the first quarter of 2010.
In Northern Ireland, there were 94 company liquidations in the first three months of the 2011, up from 85 during the previous three months, but down from 102 in the first quarter of 2010.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Food and other essential supplies are running low in rebel-held areas Libya’s opposition has set out a political “road map” for the country if and when Col Gaddafi falls from power.
It includes installing an interim government while a new constitution is drafted and elections held.
Mahmoud Jibril, head of the rebels’ Transitional National Council (NTC), also welcomed an aid plan approved by the 22-nation contact group on Libya.
Separately, France has told 14 Libyan diplomats loyal to Colonel Gaddafi to leave the country within two days.
The French foreign ministry said they had been declared “persona non grata”.
Mahmoud Jibril set out plans for a post-Gaddafi Libya to members of the contact group, who met in Rome on Thursday.
He explained that an interim government would immediately take over to provide day-to-day governance and keep order, the Associated Press news agency reports.
It would comprise members from the NTC, technocrats from the Gaddafi regime, senior military and intelligence officers and a supreme court judge, he said.
A constitution would be drawn up and put to a referendum, followed a few months later by parliamentary and presidential elections.
He said that, as a dry run, the NTC would “shortly” be asking the United Nations to oversee municipal elections in current rebel-held areas.
At the meeting, Mr Jibril also welcomed as a “good start” plans by the international contact group to set up a temporary fund to provide humanitarian assistance in rebel-held areas.
A fund to provide aid for rebel areas was welcomed by Mahmoud Jibril The NTC has said it needs $2bn-$3bn (£1.2bn-£1.8bn) in the coming months for military salaries, food, medicine and other basic supplies.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, host of the Rome meeting, said countries had pledged $250m for immediate assistance.
Washington has pledged $53m (£32m) and authorised up to $25m (£15m) in assistance to the rebels, including medical supplies, boots, tents, rations and protective gear. The first shipment is due to arrive in Benghazi in the coming days.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the US is trying to free more than $30bn it had frozen in Libyan assets, making it “available to help the Libyan people”.
The UK has already provided $21.5m (£13m) in aid to the rebels, which British Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted would not be spent on weapons.
“This [money] will help them to keep basic services going… because in the east of Libya they still need to be educating people, to keep public services moving and they have to meet the expenses of all that and they don’t have much tax revenue at the moment,” he said.
Mr Hague said efforts would also be made to explore how Col Gaddafi’s government could be prevented from exporting oil or importing refined products.
Rebel forces in Libya hold much of the east of the country, around Benghazi, while Col Gaddafi holds most of the west.
Nato is enforcing a UN mandate to protect civilians caught in the conflict.
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Lib Dem activists in Sheffield saw years of work wiped out overnight Liberal Democrats could only stand and watch as a power base they had spent over a decade building up in Sheffield came crashing down after just one year of their party being in government at Westminster for the first time.
Liberal Democrat leader in Sheffield, Paul Scriven, refused to blame Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and called the loss of nine seats on the city council to Labour a “short term” setback.
His definition of “short term” did seem a bit elastic. He admitted he was talking years rather than bouncing back at the next election.
David Blunkett, veteran Sheffield Labour MP, former cabinet minister and once the leader of the city council himself, had a less charitable view of the deputy prime minister’s role in the crushing of the Lib Dems.
“I think Cleggmania is now Clegg pneumonia,” he told the BBC a couple of hours before the Sheffield results started to roll in.
At that point he predicted Labour would take six seats from the Liberal Democrats and saw that as a crushing victory.
It became a case of double political pneumonia for the Liberal Democrats as by 3.15am on Friday morning the final tally was a loss of three more seats than even David Blunkett had estimated.
It has left them with 32 seats to Labour’s 49 with a couple of Greens and an Independent.
It is the pendulum swinging the other way in Sheffield.
As late as 2000 the Lib Dems had been seen as also-rans Sheffield with a handful of seats in a city Labour had ruled virtually uninterrupted since the 1930s. At times every seat on the council was held by a Labour councillor.
It had been at the heart of the so-called “People’s Republic of South Yorkshire” which was the way in which the early Thatcher government saw the metropolitan county council of the time.
Thatcher dismantled metropolitan county councils but the socialist heart continued to beat strongly for another couple of decades in Sheffield.
Slowly, seat-by-seat, the Lib Dems built up enough support from an electorate looking for an alternative to a Labour administration which had failed to overcome industrial and economic blight but was unable to bring itself to vote Conservative.
The Liberal Democrats were that obvious “alternative”.
Two things brought its years of growing power to a complete halt.
Firstly, joining the coalition at Westminster. It is not coincidental that the Conservatives have not got a single councillor on the city council.
Second, what was seen as a failure by Nick Clegg to perform like any other MP and fight his city’s corner.
The final straw was his refusal to condemn the withdrawal of a loan for the city’s Forgemasters steel company which had been promised under the Labour government.
So will there be a backlash against Nick Clegg from within the party?
Well not a single Liberal Democrat at the Sheffield count broke ranks even as the night they would rather forget wore on.
Instead of calls for the head of his party leader Paul Scriven simply told David Blunkett to “grow up”.
He claims this was a frightened and bewildered electorate who had believed Labour’s negative campaign that there was a less painful way to overcome the country’s economic ills.
But the rearguard action in favour of Nick Clegg was being staged just 12 hours before the counts started for the referendum on changing the voting system to AV.
Will his party still be so supportive if main benefit of his party’s agreement to serve and support the coalition government turns out to be a dead duck?
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The PaperPhone is used by being bent or written upon. A prototype flexible smartphone made of electronic paper has been created by Canadian researchers.
The PaperPhone can do all the things bulkier smartphones can do such as make and take calls, send messages, play music or display e-books.
The gadget triggers different functions and features when bent, folded and flexed at its corners or sides.
“Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,” said creator Dr Roel Vertegaal.
The device emerged from a collaboration between researchers at the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University, Canada and Arizona State University’s Motivational Environments Research group.
“This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper,” said Dr Vertegaal in a statement. “You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.”
The millimetres thick prototype is built from the same e-ink technology found in Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader and this is bonded to flex sensors and a touchscreen that interprets drawings and text written on it.
The prototype was created in order to investigate how easy it is for people to use bending and flexing to control such a device. The early version is connected to a laptop to interpret and record the ways test subjects flexed it.
Dr Vertegaal predicted that widespread use of larger versions of the PaperPhone might make the paperless office a reality.
The PaperPhone prototype will be on display on 10 May at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver.
At the same show the research team plan to show off a device they called the Snaplet. This device takes on different functions depending on how it is worn and bent.
The wristband is a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave.
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Ms Gillard has said that a regional processing centre is needed to tackle the asylum issue A row has broken out in Australia over reports it plans to reopen a controversial processing centre for asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea.
ABC News says the government is in discussion with PNG to reopen the Manus Island detention centre.
PM Julia Gillard has not confirmed this but a PNG minister said a request to house a centre had been made.
The Manus Island centre was part of the so-called “Pacific solution” adopted by the John Howard government.
Processing centres were set up there and on the tiny island of Nauru, the governments of the two nations receiving millions of dollars in aid in exchange.
The Australian navy was deployed to divert all boats carrying asylum seekers to those camps, where many were detained for months under high security.
Some went on hunger strike to protest against their living conditions and continued detention.
Source: Australian Department of Immigration
Many Australians did support the policy but rights groups condemned it and accused Australia of failing to meet its obligations under refugee conventions.
The policy was reversed in 2008 by Ms Gillard’s predecessor, Kevin Rudd, after he defeated Mr Howard in a general election.
But Australia has seen an increase in the number of people arriving by boat in recent months, prompting public calls for a tougher line.
PNG Foreign Minister Don Polye said his country had been asked by Australia to house a centre.
“Australia is open to putting the centre anywhere, but Manus would be an ideal situation,” ABC news quoted him as saying.
He said a plan had been discussed at a special cabinet meeting on Friday.
There have been sit-ins and violent protests at two immigration detention facilities recently ABC reported that senior immigration department officials had visited Manus Island earlier this week.
Ms Gillard – who had previously talked of putting a centre in East Timor – would not be drawn on the issue.
“What I would say is when the government’s in the position to make an announcement about what has arisen, then we’ll announce it and then people will have a full opportunity to analyse it,” she said.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott said that the move was vindication of the Howard government’s policy.
“On its own Manus Island won’t stop the boats and it won’t end the protests,” he said.
“And I think it is incumbent on the government to explain how something that was supposed to be an affront to human rights when John Howard did it is now necessary to protect our borders.”
But refugee advocate David Manne said the move would mean “vulnerable people seeking our help are essentially cast into indefinite exile”.
Amnesty International called it a retrograde step.
“This was a failed policy that was internationally condemned for breaching the human rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable people,” said the group’s refugee spokesman Dr Graham Thom.
“It would appear that this is a clear attempt by the government to remove people from the oversight of the Australian courts, with the serious consequence that people in genuine need of protection may be rejected and sent back to where their lives may be at risk.”
Australia’s immigration detention system has come under increased pressure in recent months, with growing numbers of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq arriving by boat.
Detainees unhappy with their treatment have rioted at both the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centres.
The government has already announced the provision of 1,900 more beds on the Australian mainland to accommodate new arrivals.
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Laurents, pictured with Lauren Bacall in 2003, was known for speaking his mind Arthur Laurents, writer of such classic stage musicals as West Side Story and Gypsy, has died in New York aged 93.
The director and screenwriter died at his Manhattan home from complications of pneumonia, his agent said.
Born in Brooklyn, the attorney’s son began in radio and wrote military training films during World War II.
His screen credits include the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, Barbra Streisand romance The Way We Were and 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point.
Laurents won a Tony award in 1968 as author of the book for the musical Hallelujah, Baby!, and another, in 1984, for directing La Cage aux Folles.
He remains best known for writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy, hit Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.
Laurents (centre) worked with lyricist Sondheim (r) on West Side Story Featuring music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the former retold the Romeo and Juliet story as a drama about rival New York street gangs.
The latter, based on the memoirs of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, premiered in 1959 and was successfully revived four times on Broadway.
Laurents directed three of the revivals himself, most recently in 2008 with Patty LuPone in the leading role.
His other credits as a stage director include I Can Get It For You Wholesale, best remembered as the musical which introduced a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand to Broadway in 1962.
Earlier this year the Oscar-winning actress confirmed she plans to star in and possibly direct a new film version of Gypsy.
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Results so far in the local elections suggest that the Liberal Democrats are facing their worst defeat since the 1980s.
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Chilean base jumper Julio Munoz has ridden a motorbike off a 4,000m-high mountain in the Andes.
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By Pallab Ghosh
Millions of farm animals were culled during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak The mass cull of farm animals to control the spread of foot-and-mouth disease may be unnecessary should there be a new outbreak, scientists suggest.
A new analysis of disease transmission suggests that future outbreaks might be controlled by early detection and killing only affected animals.
The scientists said their findings did not suggest the mass slaughter policy during the 2001 UK outbreak was wrong.
The research, by a UK team, is reported in the journal Science.
Until now, vets had assumed animals could be infectious while they carried the virus that causes foot-and-mouth, which may be four to eight days.
However, by exposing calves to infected cattle and closely monitoring them, researchers from the Institute for Animal Health in Surrey and Edinburgh University discovered that the period of infection was less than two days.
Perhaps more importantly, the researchers also discovered that animals were not infectious until they showed symptoms of the disease.
Scientists had previously thought animals were infectious for hours or even days before manifesting any symptoms.
These results suggest that any future outbreak could be brought under control by closely monitoring animals and slaughtering them as soon as they become ill.
This approach is in contrast to the policy adopted to bring the 2001 epidemic under control.
Ten years ago, the UK Government slaughtered not only all the animals on infected farms but also all animals on adjacent farms, regardless of whether infection had been reported there.
“These results imply that controversial pre-emptive control measures may be unnecessary”
Professor Bryan Charleston Institute for Animal Health
The policy of “contiguous culling” was adopted following scientific advice that this was the only way of controlling the epidemic.
It led to the slaughter of 6.5 million cattle, sheep and pigs, some of which were burned in open air pyres.
Many vets and farmers felt at the time – and still argue – that the policy was far too drastic, and that a more targeted approach would have been sufficient to bring the outbreak under control.
Dr Bryan Charleston, of the Institute for Animal Health, was among those asked to undertake the new study in response to public concern about the use of contiguous culling.
The research, he says, “doesn’t say that this policy was wrong” – but it does suggest that mass culling could be avoided in the future.
Writing in Science, his team says: “These results imply that controversial pre-emptive control measures may be unnecessary.
“Instead, efforts should be directed at early identification of infection and rapid intervention.”
Dr Charleston also told BBC News it would be worth developing simple test kits to detect herds that are infected before the onset of clinical signs, and also to detect herds that are not infected “so they would not need to be culled”.
So if mass culling could be avoided in the future, why was it not “wrong” in 2001, as Dr Charleston argues?
Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, was among those advising government on how to control the epidemic a decade ago.
He said the more targeted approach suggested by the new research would have been impossible by the time government had realised that there was a major outbreak.
Vets should not be wary of using vaccination to control future outbreaks “The biggest problem in 2001 was that by the time we realised what was happening, there were something between 30 and 50 infected farms,” he said.
“It took a huge amount of effort to deal with that, and so very intensive surveillance of infected areas proved impossible from the outset.”
But government agencies are now much better placed to detect new infections much earlier.
That being the case, the implications of this paper are that in future, vets will be able to nip foot-and-mouth outbreaks in the bud.
Indeed, this is what happened in 2007 when there was a small outbreak as a result of a leak of foot-and-mouth virus from a laboratory in Surrey.
That outbreak was confined to a small area, and so vets were able to monitor closely and test herds that were in close proximity to infected animals.
Those that were found to have the virus were culled; those that tested negative were not.
This approach was sufficient to bring the 2007 outbreak under control. But such a scheme could not be applied to a larger outbreak, according to Professor Ferguson.
He said: “When the outbreak is very small, it becomes more feasible to pick up any signs of infection on a farm as soon as possible; and this research suggests that might be very effective at stopping onward transmission.
“But in 2001, really rapid diagnosis proved to be challenging.
“If you have a lot of animals on a lot of farms, it’s hard to inspect them all every day. So although the general conclusion is that rapid diagnosis might have a big effect in practice, it might be hard to achieve (once the outbreak exceeds a certain size).”
The research also suggests that vets should not be wary of using vaccination to control any future outbreak, as they were in 2001.
Then, there was concern that vaccination would lead to animals becoming infected at a very low level without displaying symptoms.
These animals could in turn have infected animals in other farms.
The new research, however, suggests that this kind of subclinical infection is not a worry.
It indicates that if an animal does not show symptoms, it is not infectious; so vaccinating in the face of an outbreak might be more effective than scientists previously thought.
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A British mountaineer has successfully completed his ninth ascent of Mount Everest.
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Leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond gives his victory speech after being elected to represent Aberdeen East in the Scottish Parliament.
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