Cassava breeds that are resistant to two major viruses could soon be available to farmers in Africa. Cassava mosaic disease and brown streak disease stunt the growth and rot the roots of crops, respectively. Mosaic disease alone destroys an estimated 35 million tonnes of African cassava a year — the difference between needing to import [...]
Spain’s research institutions, which got a reprieve from major budget cuts last year, are tightening their belts in anticipation of flat or trimmed budgets over the next couple of years.
Climbing one of the world’s biggest granite walls is different from climbing trees, as National Park Service botanist Martin Hutten discovered while dangling from a cliff in the spray of Vernal Falls high above the Yosemite Valley.
The African Union has set up a school to educate and train future regulators in genetically modified (GM) crop biosafety. The African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) was officially launched in April in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with a five-year, $10.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This continent-wide initiative, administered by the [...]
New simulations suggest that the Sun may have captured more than its fair share of comets from the primordial star-forming soup. The study, led by Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, seeks to account for the abundance of comets in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Read the rest of [...]
Researchers in Germany have genetically modified fruitfly larvae so that they can smell light. The team, led by Klemens Störtkuhl of Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, managed to change the larvae’s odour receptors so that they respond to blue light instead of smells. The researchers hope that the move will allow them to unravel the [...]
The propeller-driven six-seater churns straight toward the brown plume over Eyjafjallajökull, unlike other aircraft taking off from Reykjavík airport. Inside, accompanied by a seasoned pilot, sits Björn Oddsson, a graduate student at the University of Iceland, entrusted with an infrared sensor derived from military bombing systems. But the only bombs Oddsson talks about are the [...]
Argentina has blazed a trail as one of the leading genetically modified (GM) crop producers. Can other developing countries import the seeds of its success?
Many families along Iceland’s fertile southern coast can spin a good yarn about a close escape from an exploding volcano. Take Kristín Vogförð’s grandfather, who was tending sheep on the eastern slopes of Katla when it erupted in 1918, melting glacial ice and violently flooding the rivers and fields below. According to an account by the [...]
My aunt ran an editorial in the L&M Publications newspapers, in Long Island, New York, last week featuring a couple of my photos from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which I visited in April. See the editorial and photos here: [html] [pdf]