Genetically modified Bt crops are now widely used in the USA.

These crops contain genes from bacteria that make them toxic to some insect pests. A central concern in regulating these genetically modified crops is the risk of insects evolving resistance to the Bt toxins.

To reduce this risk, the “high dose/refuge” strategy is now being used, in which non-Bt fields (refuges for insect pests) are planted near Bt fields (where there is high dose of toxin).

In the Nove

Children who live with several siblings or who go to nurseries have less hay fever, but more asthma as adults, suggests a large international study in Thorax.

The findings are based on interviews with over 18,500 adults aged 20 to 44 from 36 countries in Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Blood samples were also taken from over 13,000 to measure levels of IgE, antibodies involved in the response to allergens such as house dust mite, cat, and grass.
Family size, access to

Potential applications abound

In a milestone that conjures up the refrain to a Paul McCartney song, researchers at MIT and University College London have linked “hands across the water” in the first transatlantic touch, literally “feeling” each other’s manipulations of a small box on a computer screen.

Potential applications abound. “In addition to sound and vision, virtual reality programs could include touch as well,” said Mandayam A. Srinivasan, director of MIT’

An increased frequency of extreme precipitation events has been observed over the last 100 years in the United States. Global climate models project that similar trends may continue and even strengthen over the coming decades, due to climate change. Now, a study using computer climate and crop model simulations predicts that U.S. agricultural production losses due to excess rainfall may double in the next 30 years, resulting in an estimated $3 billion per year in damages.

Cynthia Rosenzweig

Dolphins, long considered the second-smartest species on the planet, recognize one another by name, possess a distinct concept of “self’ and, it turns out, have some surprisingly good ideas about techniques for keeping the hulls of maritime ships clean.

Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, has noted the shape and texture of dolphin skin and how it naturally prevents marine creatures from clinging to dolphin skin. The observation fits into h

In search of cosmic mayhem

A physicist at Washington University in St. Louis working with scientists at the Smithsonian Institution is unveiling the dark, violent side of the universe.

Studying the highest energy photons known to science, Washington University Associate Professor of Physics James H. Buckley, Ph.D., and his colleagues are analyzing bursts of gamma rays released from massive black holes at the center of so-called active galaxies.

Using the Whipple Ob