A woman was raped on Sunday evening as she walked near a children’s play area in Cowley.
The attack happened just yards from Cowley police station as the nineteen year old walked along Between Towns Road. It is unknown if she is a student.
After the attack, the man marched the woman – possibly at knifepoint – to a cash point where he tried to force her to withdraw money.
However, she was able to alert door staff at The William Morris Wetherspoon's pub.
Police have described the attacker as aged 16 or 17 and about 6ft tall, wearing a dark jumper with multi-coloured horizontal stripes and a baseball cap. He was said to be riding a silver bicycle.
A 16-year-old male was last night in police custody after being arrested on suspicion of rape and robbery.
Police are keen to speak to anyone who may have seen or heard anything.
Call police on 08458 505505 or speak to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
Read More in this week’s Cherwell.

Last week we reached the conclusion that, in spite of Newton’s Law of Cooling, in certain circumstances, hot liquids cool faster than cold liquids. William Frass at some of the possible explanations scientists have come up with so far…Conduction Imagine two containers of equal geometry and material, one containing hot water and another containing an equal amount of cold water. Both of these are placed on a shelf in a freezer. Now any frost that collects on the container is likely to be melted by the warmth of a container made of a good conductor.This has the effect, later on, when the water inside has cooled somewhat, such that the frost outside refreezes, of creating very good thermal contact between, say, the cold freezer shelf and the vessel of water. Hence heat is drawn out of warmer water more quickly. The cooler container on the other hand won’t have the opportunity to melt any surrounding frost and will just sit on top of a layer of ice, which isn’t the best conductor of heat – so takes longer to cool down.This account seeks to ‘explain away’ the Mpemba effect in terms of bad experimental technique: if you don’t allow one container to gain better thermal contact, you won’t observe the effect. Well, the effect of conduction can be dramatically reduced by using a vessel made of a better insulator, in fact Mpemba himself used wooden buckets and still observed the effect. So assuming measures are taken to prevent conduction, convection seems the next likely candidate.
Convection As the warmer water cools rapidly at the surface it will develop convection currents within the container since warmer water is, at most temperatures, less dense than cooler water – creating an uneven distribution of temperature with hot water nearer the surface.So when the hot-water container reaches the temperature the cool water container started at, the hotter water is nearer to the surface, the so-called “hot-top”. This assists quicker evaporation and hence faster cooling since there is greater evaporation from hot water than from cold. This shows that the initially hot water cools faster, but of course it also has further to go. So whether it actually reaches 0°C first, is not immediately clear. In fact, to know which one finishes first would require theoretical modelling of the convection currents, which nobody has done. To add to the confusion, there are “cold tops”. Cooler water is not always more dense than hot water – below 4°C cold water is actually less dense than the surrounding warm water. This means that once the coolest part of the water gets below 4°C it rises to the top and soon freezes – creating a insulating plug slowing down further cooling. Convection currents in the warmer water might help to reduce this process.
EvaporationThe next phenomenon is evaporation. An evaporating substance will lose mass, which takes with it an associated latent heat of vaporisation. With less mass, the hot water has less heat to lose, and so it cools faster. Assuming this explanation, hot water freezes first, but only by virtue of the fact there's less of it to freeze. George Kell actually conducted some calculations that showed that if the water cooled solely by evaporation with a uniform temperature, the warmer water would freeze before the cooler water.This explanation is often citied by many as the explanation of the Mpemba effect – whilst it’s very important other experiments show that it cannot be the sole mechanism that drives the Mpemba effect. Dr Osborne measured the mass lost due to evaporation in his original experiment and found it incomparably less than that predicted by Kell’s article.
Super-coolingFinally, the last effect to offer an explanation is super-cooling. Once water reaches its freezing point, water molecules attempt to adopt the lowest energy state, which is an ice crystal. However they cannot do this without first encountering some irregularity in their surroundings, a nucleation site, which forces them to arrange themselves in a certain way, allowing an ice crystal to develop.
But if the molecules do not encounter such an irregularity they continue to cool below zero whilst still remaining in the liquid phase for a while longer. This is super-cooling. So a liquid that undergoes super-cooling will take longer to freeze since it stays liquid despite having reached 0°CThere have been some claims that initially hot water doesn’t super cool for very long – say only as far –2°C whereas initially cool water may remain super cooled as far –8°C. This is no more an explanation than a replacement problem – how can water remember what temperature is was at before it reached 0°C ? One possible explanation is that a heated water has more of its dissolved gases expelled in the boiling process. This supposedly helps the flow of convection currents and thus assists in cooling.But one would expect that with less dissolved gas to act as a nucleation point, the boiled water which starts off hotter would super cool for longer whilst the molecules searched for a comparatively rare nucleation point. Supporters of the super cooling theory point to symmetric molecules like nitrogen and methane, which are non-polar solvents, the solubility of which don’t necessarily vary linearly with temperature.More recently in 2005 Monwhea Jeng published some work with the most probable conclusion there simply isn’t a unique explanation, certainly not yet, as to why hot water sometimes cools more quickly than cold. So it’s tempting to believe, since freezing requires sufficiently cool molecules to encounter nucleation sites that it could largely be a matter of probability. This might explain why the Mpemba effect can sometimes be hard to reproduce and doesn’t always lead to consistent results.

Leon Harrington and Connie Han host a special student debate on the Government's recent approval of hybrid embryo research. Leon and Connie are joined by Elizabeth Bennett (Magdalen), Maja Choma (Magdalen), and Namrata Turaga (St John's).Download the podcast here . If you would like to take part in a future Science Podcast, please email [email protected] What are you views on this issue? Join the debate below.

In Fortune magazine’s 2007 list of the world’s 100 largest economies, 37 of them were corporations. While states still monopolise the top 29 spots, corporations are virtually on parity with countries further down.

Their presence in the top 100 has actually decreased by 10 since 2005, but this doesn’t mean corporations are getting smaller: far from it. The big are instead getting bigger.

The highest-ranked company in 2005, Wal-Mart, was valued at $288 billion. 2 years on, Exxon leads the pack at a staggering $340 billion. It can boast of having a worth greater than that of most states including Israel and Ireland.

One thing is clear: the conglomerates are now extremely powerful. But what about their role and responsibility in tackling climate change?

One of the biggest hindrances in pressing corporations to act on climate change is their advantage of global spatial dynamism. They have bases across many parts of the world and come under the jurisdiction of numerous states meaning that laws imposed by one country will tend to have an effect on just a small sector of a company.

Multi-state agreements to impose uniform regulations are the ideal solution to overcome this issue; yet with so many countries desperate to attract corporate investment, agreements that impose investment-deterring international regulations are hard to reach.

Let’s not forget either that corporations are also very mobile. This mobility is found in the modern rise of the brand over structure, in which distributing manufacturing and transportation contracts to third parties takes precedence over building factories and a cargo fleet – allowing for corporations to focus on advertising their brand image and enables them to easily move commitments from one area to another by simply cancelling a third-party contract and setting up another.

With the power of mobility, corporations are able to play states off against one another to ensure the most financially beneficial conditions. Under these competitive circumstances, developing states clamouring for overseas investment are unlikely to harm their prospects by introducing environmentally-friendly laws restricting the activities of corporations.

In more developed states, the climate of more stringent regulations that presides allows for greater accountability. Despite this, as most large corporations have the polluting sector of their business – namely manufacturing – located in developing states, the scope of governments to affect change is limited.

They can impose regulations that have a knock-on effect down the supply chain, for example demanding that any wooden products entering their area of jurisdiction are sourced from sustainable forests.

Still, the power of the corporations can force governments to limit the restrictions they introduce; for instance, by threatening to relocate jobs overseas, corporations bully politicians into favouritism.

The salient question is: how can corporations be forced to change when they hold so much power? Few CEOs must feel as though they have a moral obligation, or far greater progress would have been made by now.

Only economic pressure can achieve anything: consumer activism is key. As customers increasingly campaign for more environmentally-friendly products and supply chains, corporations are seeing the potential of the green market.

In the same vein, corporations don’t want to risk losing customers through the increasing amount of bad press directed at environmentally-damaging companies.

Another source of change is in climate accountability. Corporations are becoming increasingly worried that they could be sued for causing environmental damage in the same way that tobacco companies have been sued for causing ill-health. For BP, Shell, and Exxon that together account for 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions, this is a big concern and is prompting the search for greener technologies.

The solution may be successfully linking energy security to reducing climate change. Currently, it is still less viable to use renewable energy as opposed to fossil fuels.

As consumer demands change, climate accountability becomes an issue; as fossil fuel prices continue to rise, there will soon be a cross-over point when environmentally friendly policies make business as well as common sense and become the new security.

Consumers are too often lulled into thinking that corporations are reducing carbon emissions. BP, for instance, markets its brand as being ‘Beyond Petroleum’; in reality just 1% of its portfolio is constituted of renewable energy – enough to ensure it is ready to act when a sea-change occurs, but not enough to live up to its optimistic slogan.

Governments will only have the power to act when voters begin to regard green issues as urgent, and corporations will only change if the consumers force them to.
It is down to public action to instigate change. The economic viability of green policies and technology can be reached sooner if we campaign for them. Let’s hope that the forces of change will strengthen with time – or else the future remains uncertain.By Ben Williams. 

I hate hip-hop and high heels.

I suppose many Oxonians are sick of hearing about feminism. When I showed the article entitled “Feminist Future” from the Oxford Forum to my male friend the other day, he skimmed through it (or so he said) in the space of about 7 seconds.

In response to the dejected look I shot him, he defensively retorted “Henny, I’ve heard it all before – there’s nothing new here” and got on with his work. Still, just because sexism isn’t anything “new” doesn’t mean that it’s not worthy of attention and reflection, if not action.

Sadly, the sexism that exists in our society has become so normalised that we hardly recognise it. It is so subtle, so cunning that it fools women into mistaking subjugation for liberation. It leaves those who are unknowingly subject to its charms in blissful ignorance, or, more poignantly, in a state of false consciousness.

My friend was acutely annoyed at me when I refused to attend her pole-dancing 18^th birthday party for which she had hired a professional pole-dancer. She said pole-dancing was symbolic of female emancipation. How ignorant she was of the social pressures that led women to compromise their dignity for the animalistic pleasures of the male!

Women think they are free. I beg to differ. Hip-hop and high-heels are (but two) symbols of female subjugation. Yes, women have formal equality – that is, legal and political equality. The type of sexism to which I refer is not legally or politically instituted, but the type of sexism that prevents true equality from being put into practice. Specifically, the sexism that continues to pervade all aspects of our culture – a cultural sexism.

Let’s take a look at hip-hop. I ask of you – you open-minded, Oxonian liberals –would you dance to racist music? I sincerely hope that you would be disgusted at the thought; I assume most of you would boycott clubs that played it. No? So then why is it that so many of us willingly dance to music of the overtly sexist variety?

Some will argue that it is the beat or tune to which they dance and not the lyrics, but would you dance to Nazi lyrics if the song had a good beat? I think not. I hope not. Why we are selectively deaf when it is women who are being dehumanised is beyond me.

In dancing to the disrespectful lyrics “I want to f*** you, you already know” and “Move b****, get out the way” (courtesy of Snoop Dogg and Ludacris respectively) are we not colluders in the sexual objectification of women? Aren’t women who dance to these songs not themselves colluding in their own oppression? And aren’t liberal, open-minded men perpetuating it?

If silence is consent then, baby, grinding is collusion. No male would ever approve of reference to his mother or sister in such vile terms. Are “I want to f*** you” really the sort of lyrics to which students at Oxford University dance and grind in the 21^st century? Say it isn’t so!

Next: high heels. Why wear them? They are uncomfortable, frequently painful, and categorically impractical. Fair enough, you will tell me: it is only natural for women to want to look attractive just as men do. But why should female attractiveness entail discomfort?

While attractiveness in men usually involves wearing a suit, the occasional haircut and shave, and good hygiene (all of which are perfectly practical), women are constantly torturing themselves for the sake of beauty – straightening, dying and highlighting hair, plucking eyebrows, shaving legs, plastering faces with coloured chemicals, and so on.

The Oxford Union President wears an impractical and uncomfortable ball-gown – not a warm, practical and comfortable suit. This is quite indefensible, serving nothing other than to perpetuate the perception of women as first and foremost objects of beauty.

So what if we focus on female beauty? And so what if women are habitually depicted as sex objects? Well, surely there is a correlation between society’s attitude to women and the success of women in society. The depiction of women as sex objects operates at the expense of each woman’s personhood and individuality.

This sexual objectification and dehumanisation does two things. It allows men to accept socially imposed notions of femininity crafting the female as the weaker, emotional, irrational sex, leading to discrimination in the public sphere.

The attitude of women to themselves is often distorted as they internalize these socially imposed notions of femininity. I have often found that arrogance, self-assurance, outspokenness and confidence are all characteristics that are found to be attractive in men. Such characteristics in his female counterpart, however, are considered repugnant.

Hip-hop and high-heels are symbolic of the overarching cultural pressures to which women are subject, pressurising them to be more concerned with sexiness than self-assurance, loveliness than intellectual ferocity, and beauty than comfort and practicality.

Cultural sexism is pernicious precisely because it is so difficult to legislate against without infringing upon freedom of expression. We need self-awakening with regard to the normalized superstructure that governs the attitude of society towards women and of women towards themselves.
I’m a self-confessed colluder in my own oppression, but at least I am conscious of it. What scares me is the number of women who go about self-oppressing in ignorance.By Henny Ziai.

About 200 supporters of “Pro-Test” marched in Oxford yesterday to “defend the rights of scientists to work in peace”.

The rally began at 12 noon with speeches made twice along Broad Street and then again at the biomedical facility.

Pro-Test was founded in January 2006 by sixteen year-old Laurie Pycroft. The organisation states three main aims: to “defend the rights of researchers to work in peace”; to “celebrate the successes of animal research in developing treatments for disease”; and to “communicate a better understanding about animal research to non-scientists everywhere”.

Pro-Test supporters marched to illustrate their continuing support for the building of the University of Oxford's new biomedical research unit in South Parks Road, which is now nearing completion. Pro-Test’s website states that, “Without animal research, medicine as we know it today wouldn't exist.

“Animal research has enabled us to find treatments for cancer, antibiotics for infections, vaccines to prevent some of the most deadly and debilitating viruses and surgery for injuries, illnesses and deformities.”

The protesters marched along Broad Street chanting, “No more Fear, animal research wanted here.”

The rally was carried out peacefully, however, during a speech made by MP Evan Harris, one animal rights protester came to the front of the crowd and began shouting. He was escorted away by police.

In 2006, OUSU held an Oxford University referendum on animal testing. 90.4% of voters backed a motion supporting animal testing and the Oxford lab.

Watch the Cherwell24 Video report of the rally. 

Tom Carpenter, Selena Wisnom, Rhiannon Nicolson and Daniel Millichip report from from Pro-Test's demonstration in Oxford (9/02/08)

Rachel Williams and Helena Zaba interview local heroes Witches and quizzes the crowd outside Foals on the Oxford scene.With thanks to Witches for the use of this version of their song 'Josef's Lament.' Part 2 of this episode coming soon!

So I was talking to a middle-aged Jewish man here in Frankfurt very proud to have the surname Goldschmidt. A very old and prestigious family, apparently. I thought he looked slightly familiar.

On learning that I was from Britain, he asked me, bizarrely, if I was related to “the Marks family”. I explained that there were many families in Britain with the name Marks. Any one in particular?

“Oh, I was just wondered if you were related to Groucho Marx.” I realised why he looked familiar. He was himself a (fairly distant) relative of the moustached comedian. I tried to avoid expressing amusement.

But why on earth did he think I might be Groucho Marx’s nephew?

*Those unfamiliar with this Blairite reference should look here (about halfway down).

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Jack Pitt-Brooke goes behind the scenes at the Town vs Gown boxing match at the Union…