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By Alex Kirby
The study says wildlife could gain (Image: John Robinson/English Nature) Some genetically-modified crops can be managed in a way that is beneficial to wildlife, a UK research team believes.
Their work, published by the Royal Society, says there is "conclusive evidence" of benefits to wildlife from GM sugar beet crops.
They say their findings mean everyone involved in the debate about GM crops should rethink where they now stand.
But anti-GM campaigners say the work changes nothing, and are still opposed to any use of the crops in the UK.
The researchers are from Broom's Barn Research Station, part of Rothamsted Research, which specialises in the study of sugar beet.
The study, Management Of GM Herbicide-tolerant Sugar Beet For Spring And Autumn Environmental Benefit, was funded in 2001 and 2002 by a consortium of GM industry interests, the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC).
But the researchers say they accepted the support on condition that they could publish their work with no restrictions or reference to the ABC.
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GM rice may help feed the country's ever growing population The Bangladesh Agriculture Ministry says it hopes to release a type of genetically modified rice to farmers if on-going research is successful.
Authorities claim the new rice may help feed Bangladesh's growing population as well as tackle certain common ailments associated with malnutrition.
The Agriculture Minister says the government does not object to GM technology, which may prove beneficial.
Research into the crop is being carried out at the Rice Research Institute.
Bangladesh's population now stands at nearly 150 million, making it the most densely populated in the world.
But agriculture experts say the country is losing 80,000 hectares of land to industrialisation and urbanisation each year.
Bangladesh has already produced a hybrid rice and signed agreements with Vietnam and China to share information of this particular rice technology. But officials say the country will now look at genetically modified rice to boost production.
The chief of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Dr Mahidul Haque, said a locally developed rice variety known as BRRI 29 has been transformed into a genetically modified rice.
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By David Chance
Hungary, one of the biggest grain producers in the new EU, became the first country in eastern Europe to ban GMO maize when on Wednesday it outlawed the planting of Monsanto Co's
The Agriculture Ministry said it had banned MON 810 maize seed planting pending tests to establish whether GM crops contaminate other crops and said old stocks must be destroyed, although it will continue to allow GMO maize in food production.
"The temporary measure bans the production, use, distribution and import of hybrids...deriving from the MON 810 maize line," the ministry said in a statement.
MON 810 is allowed in the European Union, but individual countries currently have discretion over whether to allow it and other gene-altered crops.
No GMO crops are grown in Hungary at present and the Hungarian ban on MON 810 will come into force on Thursday and remain until tests are completed.
Anti-GMO campaigners say the technology is not proven and that it could contaminate other crops, while the industry says it vastly benefits consumers and there is no evidence of contamination from numerous trials of the crops.
Monsanto said two maize variants based on MON 810 had been awaiting approval in Hungary and that the ban was not justified, adding that Hungary had made a unilateral decision and did not appear to have consulted the European Commission.
Brussels-based Monsanto spokesman Daniel Rahier said the company did not believe that the issue of the co-existence of GMO and non-GMO crops could be used to justify a ban.
"The ban was a great disappointment for us, there was no condition which required this action, no one wanted to import genetically modified corn seed into Hungary," said Mihaly Czepo, who deals with biotechnology issues for the company in Hungary.
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A renewed outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in Vietnam has spread to the central and northern regions of the country.
Infected ducks have been discovered in the capital city, Hanoi, and in poultry across the country. Six people are confirmed as having contracted the virus since the start of 2005, and four of these have died.
Vietnam was heavily hit by the H5N1 flu epidemic in 2004, with 31 confirmed human cases, 21 of which proved fatal. It declared the virus under control in March 2004 after killing nearly one fifth of its poultry.
But the virus resurfaced in late December 2004, with outbreaks in poultry across the southern Mekong Delta. Now Vietnam reports that H5N1 has been detected in ducks and chickens in the central province of Quang Nam, and in recent days it was found in the northern province of Ha Nam, and in Hanoi.
While all six confirmed human cases have been in the south of the country, there have also been three suspected cases in Hanoi, the first in the north. One man who died was reported on Monday to have tested negative for the virus, but two others are in a serious condition and remain under suspicion.
So far the virus has surfaced in 21 of the country's 64 provinces and cities. Authorities have slaughtered a quarter of a million poultry since the start of 2005 in a bid to stamp it out.
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Two more people in Vietnam have been confirmed to have contracted the H5N1 bird flu virus, as the known death toll in the country since the start of 2005 has risen to seven. There are at least seven more cases suspected.
Worryingly, two cases now in hospital might have caught the virus from another person, not from an infected fowl. Overall, these cases also suggest that many human infections with H5N1 may not have been diagnosed, partly because tests are not reliable or widely available.
The more people that have the virus, the more chances it will have to adapt to humans and possibly unleash a pandemic, warned Hans Troedsson of the World Health Organization in Vietnam. The WHO's biggest bird flu fear is that the virus will evolve to spread from human to human. Troedsson called it a "disappointment [that] the international community is not responding more adequately to the threat".
At the start of this week, six human cases of H5N1 flu had been diagnosed in Vietnam since the start of 2005. All have now died. Moreover, a 47-year-old man who died last week in Hanoi had twice tested negative for H5N1. He is now reported to have tested positive the third time around.
This suggests that H5N1 is being wrongly ruled out in many suspected cases. The man was only re-tested because his younger brother, who had been caring for him, had also fallen ill. The brother's initial test for H5N1 also came back negative, but two subsequent tests were positive.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that the brother, who is in stable condition and expected to recover, had no contact with chickens, and did not live near a flu outbreak in poultry.
That, and the fact that he fell ill some two weeks after his brother, suggests he might have contracted the virus from his sibling. A third family member, a younger brother, is now also in hospital with suspected bird flu.
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Three researchers at the Boston University Medical Center fell ill in 2004 after being exposed to a potentially deadly bacterium in a Level 2 biosecurity lab. Yet city and university officials kept the news quiet until after the centre's application to build a more high-level biosecurity lab (Level 4) in a densely populated part of Boston was accepted by the city this January.
University officials blamed careless procedures in their existing Level 2 lab, and say the researchers were studying a strain of the bacterium which causes tularaemia, also known as "rabbit fever", but had thought the strain was harmless.
A spokeswoman told New Scientist that the affected lab has been decontaminated, but tularaemia research has been stopped until staff members are retrained and a new manager appointed - the former head of the infectious disease section was removed from his post.
Yet the incident raises warning flags about the proliferation of biodefence labs working with dangerous pathogens in the US, in the wake of the still-unsolved anthrax attacks of 2001. According to the Biosecurity Center of the University of Pittsburgh, US, federal funding for civilian biodefence research rose from $414 million in 2001 to an estimated $5.5 billion in 2004.
The US also plans to build six new maximum containment biosecurity Level 4 (BSL4) labs, including the one in Boston, US, and 19 less-stringent BSL3 labs.
A strikingly similar incident also occurred in 2004 when a new biodefence lab at Oakland Children's Hospital in California, US, received live anthrax instead of dead germs, says Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, US. The Oakland researchers did not spot the mix-up until all the animals died in their experiments. The hospital immediately called a press conference and abandoned biodefence research.
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Manure-to-electricity project is first to reach grid
Steve Costello
MONTPELIER, Vt. - The 1,500 cows at Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport are producing more than just milk. They’re generating electricity.
“This is the first time anywhere in the country that a farm-based generation has been offered to customers as a renewable choice,” Central Vermont Public Service Corp. spokesman Steve Costello said Friday.
Other farms have generated electricity for their own use, he said.
The manure is heated up and then produces methane gas as it breaks down. The gas is collected and used to power a generator, which sends electricity onto the power grid.
So far about 1,000 customers have signed on to pay about 4 cents more per kilowatt-hour for their electricity to support the farmers. Residential households ordinarily pay about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Earl Audet, who owns the farm with his brothers, expects the cows to produce enough electricity to power roughly 330 households.
“The girls are now officially producing two streams of income, a milk check and a power check,” said Earl Audet. “This is one more way to diversify the farm, improve our bottom line, and manage our manure responsibly.”
It will take about three weeks for the manure to decompose.
Audet has said he hoped the sale of power would cover the farm’s $70,000 annual electric bill. The Audets also hope to be free of debt in seven years, Costello said.
While the utility hopes other farmers will make more of their manure, getting started is not cheap. It cost the Audets about $1.2 million, half of which was covered by state and federal grants.
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In the science-fiction classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, alien plants with destructive clone-manufacturing world-domination plans threatened the future of humanity. Bad news: the pods have arrived, disguised as soybeans.
All of us concerned about genetically engineered (GE) crops have been losing sleep for a while over the relentless take-over of traditional fields in many parts of the world. Now, a new report reveals how thoroughly Argentina has been taken over, and outlines previously unimagined dangers for our future when an entire country's agricultural system is invaded by a clone-replicating force like Monsanto.
Within the last 10 years, Argentina's agricultural production system has become dominated by one crop: the genetically engineered Roundup Ready soybean developed by US agrochemical company Monsanto. The large scale environmental, social, and economic impact is unprecedented.
Agronomist Charles Benbrook warns that the planting of 14 million hectares (34 million acres) of a single, genetically homogenous crop has created a highly vulnerable agricultural production system.
Argentine soy production uses GE seeds that are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, marketed under the trade name "Roundup." Roundup Ready soy relies on repeated herbicide applications to control weeds. As every high school student knows, Nature abhors an herbicide, and finds ways to evolve around it. Already, strains of Roundup-resistant weeds have appeared in Argentina, requiring ever-heavier doses of the poison, killing off microbes and degrading soil quality. Heavy herbicide applications and widespread planting of Roundup Ready soybeans has also led to increases in pest and disease severity. And when fungi and other threats to the crop encounter none of the natural diversity barriers to their spread, the possibility of monoculture crop collapse increases significantly.
But unlike the devastating Irish potato famine of the nineteenth century, the soy Argentina grows isn't actually feeding people. The vast majority (above 80 percent) of soybeans are bound for animal feedlots, providing protein for cattle, hogs and poultry. The European Union (EU) is the largest importer of Argentinean soybean meal. Worse, farmland which once produced subsistence crops and legume forages now produce only soybean monocultures. From 1996 to 2002 (the period of major soybean production expansion) the number of Argentineans lacking access to basic nutrition grew from 3.7 million to 8.7 million. Production of meat, dairy products, and eggs has dropped significantly, to be replaced by soybeans destined for export markets.
Sound like an alien force is taking over? The invasion doesn't stop there.
After Roundup Ready technology was introduced in 1996, the pace of land conversion has increased dramatically. The soybean frontier has expanded deeper and deeper into the ecosystems of Argentina, with 5.6 million hectares of non-agricultural land converted for soybean production since 1996. That compares to 2.4 million hectares converted before 1996. The rate at which forests in Northern Argentina are being turned into soy plantations is 3-6 times higher than the world average. The massive destruction of the forests, in particular of the Yungas and Chaco forests, has sparked violence and protests by agrarian families desperate to preserve their land. These forests also support diverse animal populations, including jaguars, pumas, monkeys, and more than 50% of all bird species of Argentina.
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Roxanne Khamsi
Immune system helps BSE proteins spread through the body.
One assumption lies at the root of efforts to keep the meat we eat safe from mad cow disease: that tissues beyond an animal's brain, spinal cord and immune system are free of the prions that cause the disease.
A disturbing study now shows that assumption to be false. Researchers have found that if an animal falls ill with another infection, its immune response can carry large numbers of prions to organs throughout its body.
"The rules no longer apply," warns pathologist Adriano Aguzzi at Zurich University Hospital, Switzerland, who led the research.
Mad cow disease, more correctly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is believed to be caused by rogue proteins called prions. When these prions enter the human food chain, they can cause the equivalent disease in humans, called new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
Patients develop rapidly increasing dementia, and die soon after the onset of symptoms. Since vCJD first appeared in Britain in the mid-1990s, only a handful of people have succumbed, but uncertainty about the incubation time of the disease leaves open the possibility that the number of people infected is actually much larger.
The outbreak has caused massive public concern over the effects of beef consumption. To prevent the spread of disease, several countries affected by BSE including Britain, Canada and the United States have implemented regulations that exclude the brain, spinal cord and immune-system tissues, such as the spleen, from the food chain.
It was thought that other body parts were safe to eat. "This is why you can still eat products from susceptible animals in the countries with BSE," says Aguzzi.
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Currently available stem cell lines have been grown in materials derived from animals.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The human embryonic stem cells available for research are contaminated with nonhuman molecules from the culture medium used to grow the cells, researchers report.
The nonhuman cell-surface sialic acid can compromise the potential uses of the stem cells in humans, say scientists at the University of California, San Diego. Their study was published Sunday in the online edition of Nature Medicine.
Stem cells form very early in an embryo's development. They can develop into numerous types of cells to form organs and other parts of the body. Researchers hope to use these cells to repair damaged organs and cure diseases.
The work is controversial because the cells are taken from days-old embryos, which then die.
Opponents say this is unethical. President Bush has limited federal funding to cell lines already in use, but not to newly developed ones.
Such materials include connective tissue cells, called feeder layers, from mice and fetal calf serum.
That has raised concerns about potential contamination. Last summer, more than half the members of the Senate urged easing limits on new cell lines, noting that potential contamination could make available lines use for humans uncertain.
"People have always been concerned about the possibility that something deleterious might be transferred from feeder cells to stem cells. This puts a face on that substance," Dr. James Battey, chairman of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health, said about the new report.
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By Alan Goldfarb
The scenario is a dark one to be sure and could be considered the equivalent of the Napa Valley's tsunami: Grapevines being overrun by the saliva from the feared glassy-winged sharpshooter, effectively destroying an industry. That's why GMOs -- or genetically modified organisms recombined with the genes of a vine -- are even being considered as a viable option against Pierce's disease.
But according to several industry sources, the idea of creating a grapevine that is resistant to the dreaded insect "is not promising."
Further, says another, even if Pierce's (PD) were to overrun Napa Valley, she might "think about" planting genetically engineered (GE) vines, "but I might not grow it."
Those were the thoughts and opinions of a couple of panelists as they addressed the issue of GMOs at an all-day conference at Copia January 13 aptly entitled, "Further Up the Road."
The confab, sponsored by the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association, laid out some of the issues of the controversial subject which has already moved several California jurisdictions to ban or place a moratorium on GE plants.
Genetically modified plants are actually nothing new but they have become more defined. Currently, the technology applies primarily to such crops as corn, soybeans, canola, and cotton. But there have been many field trials -- even in California -- of grapes.
But the latter are not commercially available and are experimental at this point, and most will not come to the marketplace. Even if they do, according to most experts, GE grapevines are at least 10 to 15 years from becoming viable.
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Monsanto Co. agreed to acquire seed company Seminis Inc. for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt, as well as up to an additional $125 million, based on performance.
Seminis supplies more than 3,500 seed varieties to commercial fruit and vegetable growers, dealers, distributors and wholesalers in more than 150 countries. In its fiscal year ended September 2004, Seminis reported sales of $526 million.
"The addition of Seminis will be an excellent fit for our company as global production of vegetables and fruits, and the trend toward healthier diets, has been growing steadily over the past several years," said Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive of Monsanto in a statement.
Bruno Ferrari, currently the president and chief operating officer of Seminis, will continue to lead the seed company when it becomes a wholly owned unit of Monsanto. Monsanto expects it will benefit from Seminis's advanced plant breeding techniques in the near term and said it may apply its own biotechnology processes to Seminis products down the road.
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