Arguments continue over science education in the UK.

Twenty First Century Science is a suite of new GCSE science courses for 14- to 16-year-olds and all schools in the UK can start the courses from September 2006. Schools can continue to offer separate Chemistry, Physics, and Biology courses.

Critics such as Sir Richard Sykes (rector of Imperial College London) is among many attack the new qualification. He warned a "dumbed down syllabus" may stop those who did not study chemistry, physics and biology individually from getting into good universities. Sir Richard Sykes stated on BBC News: "If you wish to have a dumbed-down syllabus for the general population that's fine. But for those who really want to go on and study a subject in depth, and particularly go to a good university like Imperial, then they'll never get there unless they study the individual subjects and take A-levels in these individual subjects." He wrote in a report from the Institute of Ideas think tank that: "A science curriculum based on encouraging pupils to debate science in the news is taking a back-to-front approach... Science should inform the news agenda, not the other way round."

The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for the first time until 2007.

The archive contains seminal research papers including accounts of Michael Faraday's groundbreaking series of electrical experiments, Isaac Newton's invention of the reflecting telescope, and the first research paper published by Stephen Hawking.

The Society's online collection, which until now only extended back to 1997, contains every paper published in the Royal Society journals from the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions in 1665, to the most recent addition, Interface.

You can register for free. So now, for a time at least, you can read free of charge some extraordinary historical documents. Here are a few examples:

• On the Constitution of the Atmosphere by John Dalton
• On the Action of Radium Emanations on Diamond by William Crookes

The BBC are reporting here that UK and US intelligence agents foiled a chemical bomb plot in the UK. Apparently the plot was involves detonating a combination of explosive and osmium tetroxide, [OsO₄].

The target is thought to be in crowded areas, possibly within a confined area, perhaps in London. The plotters apparently did not obtain any of the tetroxide, perhaps because it costs around UK pounds 100 per gram!

Not totally clear why osmium tetroxide was chosen. Certainly it is unpleasant, corrosive, toxic, irritant, volatile, and a stain. It reacts with alkenes - hence the staining properties, and must be handled properly in the lab.

The Telegraph web site http://news.telegraph.co.uk/ is carrying a story indicating a possible treatment for Alzheimer's.

Quote:"A drug that is used in the treatment of athlete's foot could be used to treat Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by British doctors.

The study, by a team from University College, London, found that clioquinol, a drug that is also used to treat ear infections and indigestion, can almost halt the progression of Alzheimer's.

It discovered that clioquinol, which was developed 100 years ago, is able to absorb the zinc and copper atoms that concentrate in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers before dementia sets in.

....

Prana Technology, an Australian drug firm, provided clioquinol for the first small trial. "