Word: britain
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...story of Susan Boyle - like that of Paul Potts before her - is, except to the most jaded and curmudgeonly among us, completely irresistible. Fished, seemingly, from the bottom of the troll pond by Britain's Got Talent, these two humble, working-class, physically ill-favored souls were suddenly found to be capable of creating things of astonishing beauty. People reacted as if vast quantities of treasure were discovered in the trunk of a broken-down Hyundai abandoned on their street. It was always there, but nobody had ever bothered to look. Thanks to that grouchy Simon Cowell (and YouTube...
...Ugly duckling stories really do not get any better than this. And Britain's Got Talent milked them for all they were worth, cutting away to eye rolls and snickering by the audience and judges before the two wow-inducing performances. (Eye rolls and snickering, of course, can be taped at any time and edited in later, but never mind.) But exactly how untutored and undiscovered were Potts, who went on to win 2007's competition and will release the CD Passione on May 5, and Boyle, who since her performance surfaced last week has become a household name...
...have retired - he hasn't appeared in the last couple of Bond films - but science and technology are still vital to security. That's why MI5, Britain's domestic security service, is currently advertising for a kind of real-life Q. The new "chief scientific adviser", an ad posted on the agency's website says, should boast "world-class scientific expertise" and "outstanding influencing and communication skills" in order "that the service continues to be supported by excellent science and technology advice." (See pictures of James Bond foiling villains...
...tricky nature of the job means a fellow of the Royal Society, Britain's independent scientific academy, or its Royal Academy of Engineers, is most likely to fill the position, the headhunter's document suggests...
...interrogation memos, which were declassified last week by President Obama, Bradbury cited the work of Horne, of Britain's Loughborough University, to conclude that "even very extended sleep deprivation does not cause physical pain." In an e-mail sent on Monday to Hilary Bok, who maintains the blog Obsidian Wings, Horne wrote that Bradbury's conclusions, based on CIA recommendations, were significantly flawed. "Prolonged stress with sleep deprivation will lead to a physiological exhaustion of the body's defense mechanisms, physical collapse, and with the potential for various ensuing illnesses," Horne wrote. "We don't know at what point this...