As Downton Abbey takes US TV by storm, its creator is under attack from America's favourite British historian

A university professor is claiming that he lost his job after he gave James Franco an embarrassing 'D' grade in a course he was teaching on account of the knock-'em-dead actor and perennial student showing up for only two out of the 14 lectures he was expected at.

The release of this documentary by James Marsh (Man on Wire) in the same week as Rise of the Planet of the Apes is wittily timed. It too speaks of caged primates, though its judgement on their captors is far more disturbing.

It is the most elusive subatomic particle in the universe and its discovery could revolutionise nuclear physics.

The ozone "hole" over Antarctica could be increasing the amount of rainfall as far away as the subtropical regions of the southern hemisphere, according to a study that highlights the global nature of climate changes.

Pregnant muslim women who fast during Ramadan are likely to have smaller babies who will be more prone to learning disabilities in adulthood, according to new research.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy turned up the heat on her first trip to Washington as France's first lady, visiting a school in a poor neighbourhood and lunching at Ben's Chili Bowl.

The Jiminy Cricket lookalike who pops up on virtually a daily basis to explain America for the BBC is Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. Schama talks – and writes – a blue streak.

If many bibliophiles will share Alberto Manguel's assertion that the acquisition and ordering of his library has "kept me sane", they will also agree with his "fascinated horror" at how "night after night shelves... would fill up, apparently on their own". Manguel's testament to the library will be received with joy by any reader dismayed at the digitised domination of the world.

Plans for 'Kill Your Darlings', an indie ensemble movie about the birth of the Beat Generation of writers which included Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs are taking shape. Ben Whishaw of 'Brideshead Revisited' has signed to star as Lucien Carr, the Columbia University undergraduate who brought together a circle of writers who went on to be dubbed the Beat generation.

Just had a fascinating conversation with Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University’s Nobel prize-winning economist, who doesn’t sound at all like someone who thinks that sterling is doomed to collapse against the dollar. If anything, he thinks the severity of the crisis in the US financial system is being masked by the fact that the Federal Reserve is the main bail-out engine, rather than the government itself, with its more easily-measurable debt.