Indestructible bag ban
The French parliament last week voted to ban all non-biodegradable plastic bags by 2010. The move is expected to provide French farmers with new non-food outlets for produce, such as corn starch, which can be used to make biodegradable plastic.
1 in 5 genes patented
Nearly a fifth of all known human genes have been patented in the US – 63 per cent of them by private companies (Science, vol 310, p 239). Kyle Jensen and Fiona Murray of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge showed that of 23,688 human genes listed by the US’s National…
