Peer review is far from the chummy process many people think While commuting into the lab the other day, I couldn’t help overhearing an animated discussion between two men across the train carriage from me. From context, I pieced together that they were talking about climate science. “The thing about these scientists,” said the first [...]

Detail of a painting of Jane Ellen Harrison. Photograph: James Austin. Courtesy of Newnham College, Cambridge I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much time with her. She was far too histrionic, too satisfied with her own cleverness and even more self-obsessed than the average early 20th-century don. But Jane Ellen Harrison changed the way we [...]

Colourful memories of books first read at school … a stack of coloured pencils. Photograph: Alamy Fourteen years after I finished school, there’s still something about September which feels like the start of the year, and I’m nostalgic this morning for new pencils and felt tips, satchels and packed lunches. As the hope of the [...]

Travel is still the most common reason for taking a career time out, according to Santander. Photograph: Alamy The recession is driving more young people than ever to embark on gap years as well as prompting record numbers of working Britons to take sabbaticals and career breaks, according to research from Santander. In the 1970s, [...]