Our thanks to Nick for this. Hilarious. An extract:

But one finalist team said that a round relating to female philosophers was more difficult than if it had been about famous male philosophers. They passed on every question.

Rosie McKeown, from the winning St John’s, Cambridge, team told The Daily Telegraph: “I know our team did badly on the round about female philosophers, and I think we would have had more names to draw on in order to make an educated guess if the questions had been about men.”

Our thanks to Mike P for this. Unless you’re a subscriber, you’ll only be able to read the start of the article. Mike writes:

The New Scientist magazine is a fairly harmless, long running  populist rag for wannabe nerds, right? Apparently not. Recent articles include:-

“The origins of sexism. How men came to rule 12,000 years ago.”

“The hidden reasons why societies are violent towards women.”

“How protective parents exacerbate gender differences.”

“Why the Patriarchy isn’t good for men, and how to fix it.”

“The fight for gender equality can be informed by science.”

“Dearth of women in tech is not due to brain differences.”

“Kids everywhere have damaging gender stereotyping by age 10.”

Very good.

Our thanks to James for this piece in The Guardian. An extract from the reply of the “relationship expert” (a woman, inevitably):

If you anticipate that a situation may lead to you having sex out of politeness – perhaps you can recognize the signs by now – whether that’s a first date, a reunion with an old lover, a party where the drinks are flowing, or an invitation back to the apartment of someone whose company you’ve enjoyed but who you don’t know well, take a moment beforehand to set a clear intention, e.g. “I am going to go home on my own tonight”.

Write it down: on a Post-it note, in your phone, somewhere you can refer to if that helps. [J4MB emphasis]

You can subscribe to The Times here.

James writes:

No agency… again.

He’s right. Several times a week I’m reminded of Alison Tieman’s video (4:27) from 2015 Men’s Rights versus Feminism explained using magnets.

A piece in yesterday’s online edition of The Times, much longer than the piece in the print edition:

It is a scientific discovery that will delight young schoolchildren and adults who have not lost their playground humour: Uranus is smelly.

Researchers at Oxford University have discovered that the ice giant is wreathed in clouds of hydrogen sulphide, the chemical that gives gone-off eggs their characteristic pungency, beneath a dusting of methane. It is, in other words, not all that dissimilar to the air in a Texan pork ‘n’ beans restaurant on a Saturday night.

Although Uranus was first recognised as a planet in 1781, by the German-British astronomer William Herschel, the contents of its atmosphere are still largely obscure.

The only space probe to have been anywhere near the seventh planet from the Sun was Voyager 2, which swooped past in 1986.

Earth-based telescopes struggle to penetrate much beyond 200 miles into its atmosphere, which is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest and simplest elements in the periodic table.

The thin outermost layer of cloud contains methane, which is thought to give the planet its pale aquamarine hue.

Beneath it, at relatively gentle pressures between 1.2 and 3 bar — very approximately the range of pressures found between sea level and a depth of 20m or so below the surface — is another cloud whose chemistry is more controversial.

Up to now, many planetary scientists have argued that it is predominantly made up of ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, much like its counterparts on Jupiter and Saturn.

However, observations led by Patrick Irwin, professor of planetary physics at Oxford, show “conclusively” that it is in fact primarily made up of hydrogen sulphide, most of which is probably locked up in ices.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, come from an analysis of the near-infrared microwaves detected by a spectrometer instrument at the Gemini-North telescope in Hawaii.

However much sniggering it may prompt at the back of the class, the research makes a serious point about the genesis of the solar system.

Writing in the same journal, Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, said it had revealed an instructive difference between Uranus and the two gas giants.

The planets formed from a vast, swirling disk of dust and gas around the Sun some 4.5 billion years ago. The fact that the outer Uranian atmosphere seems to be comparatively rich in sulphur rather than nitrogen suggests that the planet may have been born under conditions that were quite different to those in the neighbourhood of Saturn and Jupiter.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

A piece by Frances Gibb, Legal Editor, in yesterday’s Times:

The UK’s most senior judge has called for changes to divorce laws, arguing that rules assigning fault can trigger unnecessary conflict and encourage people to accept unfair blame.

In comments that echoed calls by a Times campaign, Baroness Hale of Richmond, president of the Supreme Court, said that no-fault divorce and other reforms should be welcomed as they strengthened family responsibilities.

At a conference of family law specialists in Bristol, Lady Hale tackled critics who insist that removing fault from divorces would undermine marriage. “It may seem paradoxical to suggest that no-fault divorce is aimed at strengthening responsibility, but I believe that it is,” she said. “The contents of the [divorce] petition can trigger or exacerbate family conflict entirely unnecessarily. Respondents are encouraged by their lawyers to ‘suck it up’ even though the allegations are unfair. There is no evidence at all that having to give a reason for the breakdown makes people think twice.”

Lady Hale, a family law specialist, said that in 2016 some 56 per cent of divorces in England and Wales were based on adultery or other behaviour, compared with 6 per cent in Scotland, which has different divorce laws.

The Supreme Court will soon consider an appeal in which a husband has refused to divorce his wife despite her claims that she is entitled to a separation on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour in a “loveless marriage”. Lower courts have disagreed, finding that his behaviour amounted to the “minor altercations to be expected in a marriage”. The marriage cannot be dissolved for five years because the husband does not consent.

Lady Hale said that giving unmarried couples some legal rights would also strengthen family responsibilities, and civil partnerships for heterosexuals should be welcomed as they would demonstrate that couples wanted to enter into a legal commitment.

Her comments endorse reforms detailed in The Times’s Family Matters campaign, which was launched last autumn with the Marriage Foundation. The proposed reforms include scrapping fault-based divorce, statutory backing for pre-nuptial contracts, extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples and legal rights for long-term unmarried couples.

On planned reforms to maintenance, the judge sounded a note of caution over a move to a Scottish-style system with time limits on awards. Sometimes, she said, open-ended support from one spouse to another, the “meal ticket for life”, was fair. [J4MB emphasis. “Fair” when the open-ended support goes to the ex-wife, we assume she means.]

Lady Hale, 73, was part of a team at the Law Commission whose report called for reform of divorce laws in 1990. Its criticisms of the system were still relevant today, she said. She hinted, however, that reformers should not look to the Supreme Court for a change in the law. “It is not the job of the courts to legislate. Only parliament can do that. Our job is to interpret law that parliament has given us.” [Hopefully the High Court will “interpret law” in this way when my appeal is heard in the High Court on 10 July, in connection with my protest in June 2016 against the police/CPS not bringing prosecutions against those who mutilate male minors’ genitals, a crime – being at least ABH and probably GBH – under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.]

On giving long-term unmarried couples greater financial rights, she said that “this too is a way of strengthening family responsibilities”. [J4MB emphasis. “Greater financial rights” for women over men, we can safely assume she means.] Courts had been urging it for decades and Scotland had introduced such rights.

Sir Paul Coleridge, chairman of the Marriage Foundation, said: “Baroness Hale’s ringing endorsement of main features of The Times campaign provides yet further top-level endorsement of its validity.”

You can subscribe to The Times here.

Our thanks to David for this.

Leyre Iglesias recently wrote an interesting piece for the El Mundo newspaper. Our thanks to Adolfo Sanchez for his translation – here.

We’re sad to report that Erin Pizzey has informed us she won’t be attending the July conference, on health grounds. We wish her well. She will be missed.

A piece by Hilary Duncanson in today’s Times:

Police have received 308 complaints about alleged abuses at children’s homes run by a Catholic order, a hearing has been told.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry was told that officers had received complaints about 194 people associated with institutions run by the Sisters of Nazareth over 50 years.

The inquiry is hearing evidence about homes in Aberdeen, Cardonald in Glasgow, Lasswade in Edinburgh and Kilmarnock, all of which ceased operating as homes in the 1980s.

In opening remarks at the hearing in Edinburgh, Laura-Anne van der Westhuizen, representing Police Scotland, told the chairwoman, Lady Smith, that officers had been working to identify, retrieve, assess and catalogue all of the public protection investigation files it holds that are relevant to the inquiry’s terms of reference. She said 220,000 files have been reviewed, with 58 files concerning the Sisters of Nazareth given to the inquiry.

You can subscribe to The Times here.