Peace offering Bob Shapiro, the chairman of Monsanto, last week held out an olive branch to his critics. Speaking by satellite link to a meeting in London organised by Greenpeace, which has attacked the company's stance on genetically modified crops, Shapiro said: "We've irritated and antagonised more people than we've persuaded, and our confidence and enthusiasm for … News
Don't get personal IT SOUNDS like a classic cover-up: a lone whistleblower raises fears about food safety, only to be shot down by a powerful coalition of vested interests. That, in Britain at least, has been the tone of much of the coverage of this year's debate over the safety of genetically modified food. Arpad Pusztai, whose experiments … Opinion
Musical pears What's the link between St Helena, an insect from South America and the novelist Compton Mackenzie? The answer lies inside some dog-eared paper packets, on display at the Museum of Economic Botany at Kew Gardens in London. The packets contain gramophone needles made from the wickedly sharp spines of prickly pears gathered on the island … Features
Embryos and evolution A HUNDRED years ago, it was commonly thought that the growing human embryo passed through all its previous stages in evolution. From the single cell, to a simple multicellular creature, and then through stages corresponding to a fish, a lizard, a mouse, a monkey and then a human. This idea was first suggested by German … Inside Science
The Last Word Flea market Question : How do fleas so easily find creatures to feed on? I once entered a house that had been empty for almost a week. It was infested with fleas. Within seconds, my feet and ankles were covered with the hungry little insects. How did they know I was there, and that I … Regulars