Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

A BRUTAL reminder that academics are part of society, rather than standing apart from it, is given by the fact that they are among the many casualties of both the Hamas attacks of October 7 and Israel’s continuing bombardment of Gaza.
As Nature reported earlier this week, those murdered in the Hamas attack included many students and faculty members of universities. Their deaths are a tragedy. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, university buildings have been identified as targets of Israeli bombing.
In-person teaching and research at all higher education institutions has stopped because travelling to campuses is too dangerous. Some 183 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli military forces since October 7 — their deaths are a tragedy too.

A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

