Colleagues claimed that Sir Tim Hunt's comments had been a joke and were taken entirely out of context

Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel prize-winning scientist at the centre of a sexism scandal, has resumed official duties for the Royal Society.

A report on UK research in the European Union released yesterday by the Royal Society was written by a working group including Sir Tim, six months after he resigned from duties following a furore over comments he made at a conference in Korea.

In a speech he said: “Three things happen when [girls] are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.” Afterwards, he was asked to resign from an honorary professorship at UCL, and also left positions at the Royal Society and European Research Council, although he remained