Silica aerogels as translucent or transparent superinsulating fillers in window systems could help to considerably reduce thermal losses in windows and to improve the energy balance in passive solar systems.

The English, until relatively recently, seem to have imagined “English” and “British” to be interchangeable, as if Britain was just a bigger England. Our dualism gave us a better appreciation of the nation-state we lived in, though if Britain was a “nation” as well as a “state”, where did that leave Scotland?

Then he burst into a stream of horrible profanity. What's the game? he cried, glaring round him. Do you think I am easy and that you can play me for a sucker? Is it a frame-up, or what? You've chose the wrong man for a try-on of that sort.

“We will have to retarget our missiles on the objects that we think threaten our national security,” he said.