Food safety
In the wake of genetically-modified food flooding the Indian markets, 25 farmers' groups call for a 10-year moratorium on such food
Beware the modified wolf
Will bureaucrats choose to throw farmers and ecology to the mercy of multinational corporations by preparing the way for cultivation of …
The like and the unlike
Using cells as building blocks, scientists in Israel successfully regenerate an entire higher animal
The age of discovery
Research in rice genomics could be the key to eradicating hunger through environmentally sustainable methods, says Latha Rangan
Modified and making trouble
Since its inception, the agro-biotech industry has had a unique selling proposition -- transgenic crops need lesser herbicides/pesticides than …
Altered genes can improve fish
Scientists are trying to enhance the quality of fish by using a controversial technique and are confident the process will be perfected soon.
Makes more sense
Pharmaceutical companies are trying to develop drugs to combatfatal diseases by using the uptil now ignored part of DNWs structure
Splendid isolation
The people of Iceland have been living in genetic isolation for the last 1,000 years. Now their government wants to sell their genes
India cannot afford organic farming
S K SINHA national professor at the Water Technology Centre, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, spoke to Manish Tiwari on food …
Feelers into preplanned development
The bristles of a fruitfly demonstrate how the concept of 'prepatterns' governs biological development
Vanishing breeds
While people worry about patenting of upmarket plant products like neem because of transnational interest, India's unique biodiversity of …
Goodbye Dolly
Both her birth and death stirred a raging debate. Dolly -- the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell -- was put to death on February 14, …
‘About 1.6 billion people of the world depend on forests for living’
First-ever survey on forest genetic resources by FAO calls for urgent measures to protect the precious resources which provide a range of economic,…
Gene blues
What determines a person's behaviour through the vicissitudes of life: genes, environment or both? There are many who believe that genetic …
Undercover bio-patenting
A recentforum on patenting life-forms in Munich chose to remain a hush-hush affair leaving out people's groups
Sleuthing errant genes
Virulent genes in disease causing bacteria may be 'disabled' with the help of a new identification method
Rio and Bioresources
BIODIPLOMACY: GENETIC RESOURCES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Edited by Vincente Sanchez & Calestous Juma African Centre for Technology Studies
Of life and death
A nematode reveals the secrets of the genetics of apoptosis (physiological cell death) and points to possible pharmaceutical breakthroughs in …
A question of ethics
At a recent conference on bio-ethics, scientists-expressed, the need to check the, misuse biotechnology
Caught you!
It is now possible to detect the most inconspicuous mutants -- even those having only slight aberrations
One big family
As we peek into our past, the number of our ancestors seems to double in every generation. For every human being has two parents, four …
Gene storage bank gets major facelift
Worried by the steady erosion of India's wealth of genetic diversity, a major expansion project will quadruple storage capacity in the national …
Introns: the war of hypotheses
Two groups experiment to uphold the tenability of one theory of genesis of introns over another, yet fail to resolve the basic questions …
Chromosomal close-ups
Discovery of a new mode of dosage compensation -- that is, how the sexes are compensated for their reduced dosage of chromosome linked genes -- …
The inside story
The interpretation of the genetic code of the baker's yeast has brought scientists to within a couple of steps of their final objective - …