Professor Hugh Mellor has been appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor until 31 December 2001. His chief responsibilities will be academic co-ordination of the University's submissions for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and advising the Vice-Chancellor on support for the humanities.

Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who will be giving his views on the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference.

One of the long-standing mysteries of the sea-floor has been solved. In this week's Nature, scientists from the University of Cambridge set out a model which shows why hot springs occurring deep beneath the ocean can never reach temperatures of more than 400 degrees centigrade.

The Lord Chancellor and Professor John Baker, the current Downing Professor of the Laws of England, inspecting computer facilities in the Maitland Legal History Room.

The creation of the Cambridge-MIT Institute took a major step forward today, when MIT announced the appointment of John Vander Sande as the US director, acting as the transatlantic equivalent of Dr David Livesey who is heading up the operation from Cambridge. In Cambridge UK, the academic community is preparing to discuss the details of the Institute.

Over the last few months, the Independent has had full and open access to all stages of the admissions process at Clare College, Cambridge. Everything, from the application forms, the internal meetings to the interviews themselves, has come under scrutiny as the College has shown the time and care needed to make the right decisions about its future students.

Degenerative brain disease, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, cause anguish to millions by robbing them of essential functions such as memory and movement. Research by Dr Maria Grazia Spillantini and colleagues at the Centre for Brain Repair of the University of Cambridge is helping to pinpoint how some of these debilitating diseases occur.

Today the second in a series of articles by Judith Judd appears in The Independent, exploring the realities of the admissions process at Cambridge.

Several past and present members of the University were recognised in the New Years Honours list.

The University has played a major part in making the arrival of the new Millennium in Cambridge a night to remember.