FINANCIAL TIMES

The government will announce an extra ?600 million in funding to back the business-led Learning and Skills Council ¡ª the biggest reform in national training efforts since 1945.

The Wellcome Trust, the world's richest medical charity, is to almost double its spending to more than ?3 billion over the next five years.

Researchers at the University of Tokushima in Japan have found a way to create artificial muscles that could be used to drive rapid movement in robots.

THE GUARDIAN

Scientists have welcomed measures announced in the chancellor's pre-budget statement aimed at fostering more research and development in Britain.

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Interview with Vinton Grey Cerf, the man who brought you the internet and is now involved in a project that could bring you a dot-mars domain name.

Michael Gross of the Oxford Centre for Molecular Sciences argues that a genetic database project is an ethical timebomb.

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THE INDEPENDENT

Graduates are increasingly having to start on the bottom rung or to do jobs that are unrelated to their degrees. They do not seem to mind, but their parents find the situation less easy to accept.

Ed Sweeney, general secretary of the 160,000-strong finance workers union, Unifi, says that paid study leave would be an investment in Britain's future.

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Bridge players have been found to have increased numbers of immune cells after a game, according to a study from the University of California at Berkeley.

THE TIMES

Scientists at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, suggest that it may be possible to delay the menopause and help women to stay fertile for longer by using a hormone that regulates the development of eggs.

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In his pre-budget statement, chancellor Gordon Brown raised the prospect of tax cuts for the biotechnology industry in an attempt to tackle killer diseases and viruses such as HIV that are afflicting developing nations.

Most adults still shun lifelong learning.

MISCELLANY

Global warming could occur faster and have fiercer effects than expected, and new forests to soak up carbon dioxide may not help, according to research from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction ( Guardian , Independent , Daily Telegraph )