Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

IN JANUARY this year, researchers reported in Nature Plants that they had managed to remove an object called the Golgi body in the cells of a plant.
This archaically named object is one of the strange complex things that fills the insides of plant cells. It is often described as looking like a stack of pancakes — albeit very small, transparent, and inside all the cells of any plant, or for that matter any animal too.
Advances in genetic engineering techniques mean that scientists can now investigate plant biology by immobilising, cutting out or destroying a given gene and watching what happens to plants that grow without it.

What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society

While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT