The horse-drawn Victorian hearse canters past London's Houses of Parliament and round Parliament Square before trotting smartly down Whitehall. Straggling behind it comes an eclectic mix of scientists, ranging from students with body piercings to tweed-jacketed professors. The spectacle makes an odd addition to the spring afternoon traffic, bringing to mind an elegant, if unusual, state funeral. The truth, however, is much stranger. "We're protesting," explains one PhD student to a puzzled tourist, "against our research funder."
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