News in Brief
OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S "TARGET Schools", run by students to encourage young people from state schools to apply to Oxford, has launched its new interactive website, allowing people to sign up for open days, request school visits, and for current students to volunteer to become involved in Target Schools events.
OUSU Vice-President (Access), John Craig, was "delighted" with the new site, which will soon feature interactive profiles of Oxford students, plus information about Oxford and applications.
Craig revealed that last year "700 people attended events organised by Target Schools, and offers by Oxford to applicants from State schools rose to 55% of the total. We must take some of the credit."
THE SCREENSAVER-LIFESAVER project has announced that over one million computers have downloaded their screensaver, which uses the "idle time" of a computer to screen for anti-cancer drugs. Launched in April 2001, and sponsored by Intel, users simply download a non-invasive, drug-design screensaver called THINK from the website www.ud.com.
The package has enabled a combined time of 50,000 years of CPU time to be spent on screening 3.5 billion molecules for the University's NFCR Centre for Computational Drug Designs. Computers have downloaded from as far afield as Zambia and Azerbaijan.
Professor G. Richards, Chairman of Oxford's Chemistry Department said the response was beyond anything anticipated, but urged people to "keep on downloading the device. The more we screen, the more likely we are to find effective cures."
MAC, PROMOTER OF The Point, the small music venue facing controversial closure by Six Continents, is to take over promotions for The Zodiac's downstairs space before opening a new venue as The Point.
When The Point above Pub Oxford officially closes on October 27, Mac will briefly work to promote the downstairs area at The Zodiac, arranging gigs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights, before searching for a new venue unaffiliated with any brewery. "We just want to keep The Point name going until we can get a new place," Mac commented.
18th Oct 2001