BulletinFortnightly news for staff | 19 March 2009 | 495 Health, work, well-being A week of activities and presentations to promote employee health and well-being See pages 4 and 5 As a world-renowned research and teaching 495 | IN THE NEWS: institution, the University of Reading is rarely out of the local, national and international media. This is a selection of media appearances by members of the University and press cutting summaries which highlight the important work being done by the staff and students of the University. 19 March 2009 View all ‘In the news’ items at www.reading.ac.uk/about/about-readinginthenews2009.asp | 14 February, Financial Times 25 February, The Times by the House of Commons In an article about Spice, a legal Professor Kevin Warwick Committee on Children, Schools Bulletin cannabis substitute, Professor (Systems Engineering) looks at the and Families to brief the Committee Front cover: Health, work, Elizabeth Williamson (Pharmacy), evolution of robots, how they fare in preparation for an inquiry into a specialist in herbal medicine, in today’s society and what their Accountability in Education in the well-being – activities and gives her expert opinion on the role could be in 20 years time. current Parliamentary Session. presentations to promote ingredients that make Spice. 25 February, BBC Radio Berkshire 3 March, The Independent employee health and well- 16 February, The Daily Telegraph, With the news that council taxes An article about Interactive Screen being. See pages 4-5 and BBC Radio 5 Live are set to rise, Local Government Experiments (ISEs), a new way of Rebecca Dulieu, a PhD student in expert Dr Steven Musson teaching laboratory science to The Bulletin can be found online at Environmental Biology at the (Geography) explains how council students studying from home. www.reading.ac.uk/bulletin University, talks about her tax rates are worked out. Dr John Macdonald (Physics) has where you can read a pdf of this research into how domestic cats worked with The Open University 26 February, Four Four Two issue and access archived issues of could be responsible for killing up to develop ISEs. The football magazine reports 15 top past Bulletins. to 10,000 prey animals per km2 in European clubs are under pressure 3 March, The Guardian urban areas, significantly affecting The Bulletin is published in-house to renew their shirt sponsorships by A report looking at how educational some urban bird species. fortnightly during term time. Items next season as their contracts expire psychologists are seeing a marked are welcomed from every member 17 February, BBC Radio Berkshire amid the economic downturn. Chris increase in referrals for school of the University and should be Dr Orla Kennedy (Food Biosciences) Brooks (Henley Business School) phobia. Dr Lucy Willetts sent, marked ‘Bulletin’, to discusses topics such as ‘superfoods’, gives expert opinion on the (Psychology and Clinical Language Carol Derham eating too quickly and tea and coffee. situation. Sciences) talks about the University’s Communications, DEA Berkshire Anxiety Clinic. Whiteknights 17 February, BBC 2 26 February, The Today Programme, The University of Reading The Beckett International BBC Radio 4 5 March, Times Higher Education Reading RG6 6AH Foundation supported a feature Professor Mark Pagel (Biological Supplement broadcast on BBC2’s Culture Show, Sciences) talks about his research As part of the EU Lipgene Project, email [email protected] during which a manuscript which has been looking at how University researchers in the Please note that we reserve the notebook held at the University’s languages evolve, and whether Nutritional Sciences Research Unit right to edit items and not all Beckett archive was shown to the evolution followed any rules. have demonstrated that changing material may be used. Free small actors Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick the feeding regimes of dairy cows 26 February, The Times ads from University members will Stewart during an interview. can reduce the saturated fat Scientists at the University have be included if space permits. content of milk by 22%. This would 19 February, Fox FM News discovered that ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘who’ and the lead to a reduction in the amount Dr David Ward (Psychology and numbers ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’ are amongst Copy date for the Spring term of saturated fat in normal diets, Clinical Language Sciences) talks the oldest words, not only in English, Copy date Published and in turn lower the risk of about the influence of pop culture but across all Indo-European 16 April 30 April cardiovascular disease. on accent change. languages, and what’s more, 30 April 14 May words like ‘squeeze’, ‘guts’, ‘stick’, 6 March, The Times 14 May 28 May 19 February, BBC Radio Berkshire ‘throw’ and ‘dirty’ look like they are A report looking at how savers 28 May 11 June Dr Graham Holloway (Biological heading for history’s dustbin. unhappy with low returns are 11 June 25 June Sciences) talks to Henry Kelly turning to the property market, about butterflies, including when 2 March, House of Commons The Bulletin is typeset by despite house prices continuing and which species will appear first Professor Brian Fidler (Institute of Diana Arnold in Communications, to fall. Professor Michael Ball this year and how the recent bad Education) was one of three DEA and is printed by Advent (Henley Business School) provides weather has affected them. experts invited to a private seminar Colour, Andover expert comment. 5 Star Catering at Childs Hall Childs Hall has been awarded Childs Hall, said: ‘This has been 5 stars for maintaining excellent achieved through excellent food hygiene standards as part team work, it has been hard of the national Scores on the work but it is worth it. I have Doors scheme. high praise for all of my team and they should be proud of The Hall which serves up to what they have achieved.’ 5,000 meals per week The scheme publicly makes received top marks from available information on Reading Borough Council for how well food businesses are compliance with food hygiene complying with food hygiene and safety procedures and law. Environmental Health Head chef Luis Cal-Vilarelle, holds his 5 star award surrounded by members of his team demonstrating best practice. Officers award the ratings Luis Cal-Vilarelle, Head Chef at after impromptu inspections. 495 Ice work Dr John Oversby | Many congratulations to Dr Chris better measurements of snowfall rate At the recent Annual Conference of the Westbrook of Meteorology, who has been and the amount of ice in clouds. Association for Science Education, held awarded the prestigious L F Richardson In his second paper Chris looked at the on the Whiteknights campus, Dr John Prize for 2009. Oversby, Lecturer in the Institute of 19 March 2009 properties of ice crystals in high cirrus | Education, was presented with a Special The prize is awarded by the Royal clouds. His work contributed to the Service Award for his contributions to Meteorological Society for the best research discovery that the number of very small science teaching in the Berkshire and Bulletin by a young meteorologist in the UK. ice crystals in cirrus clouds is likely to be Oxfordshire Region. Chris was awarded the prize for his much smaller than previously thought. innovative work on the properties of ice Chris’ work will help to improve the He was nominated by science teachers crystals in the atmosphere. In the first of way clouds are represented in models. members of the ASE, and the award the two papers that won him the prize, Chris was very modest about his was confirmed by the National Council Chris used a simple computer model of achievements: ‘My reaction was mainly last November. His service included ice crystals colliding and sticking together surprise and shock – it will be hard to Chairing the ASE Region committee for as they fall through the atmosphere to live up to the achievement of previous 10 years, leading the organising of many make snowflakes. His work will lead to winners’. events for science teachers at all levels, representing the Region on the national ASE Council for a total of 12 years, and representing local science teachers in the planning and running of four of the Annual Conferences held at Reading. Dr Oversby is also the UK Principal Investigator for the EC History and Philosophy in Science Teaching Project, awarded Euro 110,000 over two years, in a project worth nearly Euro 1 million in Improving young driver safety total. The project aims at providing new resources for secondary schools in both Professor Frank McKenna, School of history and philosophy of science across Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, Europe. gave a keynote address in Israel recently on the topic of young driver safety. Professor McKenna appeared at the request of multimillionaire Avi Naor who created a road safety charity aimed at reducing young driver crashes after the tragic death of his own son. Professor McKenna is pictured being introduced to the President of Israel and Nobel Prize winner, Shimon Peres. Good practice award For several years, Professor (now Emeritus There they have joined in the work of Professor) David Cardin has been the the Cardin research group and learnt host to a succession of talented young how to carry out successful chemical German chemists under the banner of syntheses in ‘real world’ conditions. the European Union Programme for The young chemists reciprocated by Lifelong Learning (the Leonardo da Vinci teaching much about German food and programme). wine and other such important matters. Their English teacher, Susanne This now established programme has Dinkelacker, in their third level college, just been recognised by the EU and the Regional Professional School Centre designated a Good Practice Project.