Category: Science

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Good Germs Gone Bad

To work in Abigail Salyers’ laboratory at the University of Illinois, is to play matchmaker to some unlikely couples. Standing at her laboratory bench, PhD student Kaja Malanowska lifts the cover from a petri dish to pick up a half a billion or so Escherichia

Aquaculture Moves Offshore

The white spires of the Algonquin Hotel towered above the coastal town of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, the center of aquaculture development in Canada’s maritime provinces. Government officials and aquaculture industry representatives from Canada, Norway, and the U.S. met at the Algonquin to discuss fish

Dr. Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, is encouraged by biotechnology’s ability to produce more food, lessening pressure to clear more cropland. Photo Courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.

The Future

A biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles likes to tell colleagues about the fellow who came to his Topanga Canyon home to repair a propane tank. Biologist and repairman chatted. When the biologist mentioned his work on the genetic engineering of plants, the

Cornell University professor James Gillett uses a terrestrial microcosm chamber for experiments involving genetic engineering. Photo courtesy of Cornell University News.

How Government Regulates a Life

The average new drug costs $80 million to develop and another $40 million to safety test before it passes federal scrutiny and reaches the market. A new agricultural chemical costs about $70 million to develop and $15 million to safety test. In contrast, a seed

Beetles and wasps battle plant lice in artificial worlds created by insect ecologist David Pimentel. (Photos courtesy Cornell University News).

How Will New Genes Behave – Like Microbial Poodles or Gypsy Moths?

Leading the way into the back room of his Cornell University laboratory, insect ecologist David Pimentel taps at the plexiglas walls of a chamber the size of a dishwasher. Inside this giant terrarium. Sucking obliviously at the stems of cowpeas are crowds of aphids, which