Imperial Colege has recently "poached" a team of theoretical physicists from Queen Mary, Univeristy of London, The Times Higher Education Supplement has reported.

Led by Chris Hull, a researcher credited with an important role in the string theory revolution of the mid 90's, the group consists of three other researchers and four postdocs. THES carried a joint statement issued by the group referring to Queen Mary as "excellent, enjoyable and productive" but suggesting that Imperial provides a new opportunity and challenge. No doubt the first challenge will be finding space in the cramped Blackett Lab, which has recently lost yet more space to Maths Computing Labs.

Professor Stelle, head of IC's Theoretical Physics group, expressed extreme pleasure at what has apparently been a transfer secretly negotiated for over half a year. "They are four very active and talented people who will complement excellently our current research programme. We expect that this will bring the status of Theoretical Physics at Imperial up to the highest international level. Within the UK, our only rival will be Cambridge."

Is this another example of Imperial buying the best bits of the rest of UL to enhance our "world beating" status? Or perhaps a new approach on the merger policy; pick the bits IC needs and leave the rest? Perhaps. While the Rector’s plans to buy up UCL have come to nothing, unconfirmed rumours from the Chemistry department suggest that in the next five years the current labs will become inadequate for the needs of IC's chemists. Apparently, one of the options is to buy or lease King's soon to be defunct Chemistry Labs.