FAO welcomes a new World Bank initiative to promote action against famines and is eager to contribute its own considerable tools and resources to make it a success, Director-General José Graziano da Silva said late Sunday. He spoke at an event held during the United Nations General Assembly on partnerships to address severe food insecurity around the world, and focused on the World Bank’s proposed Famine Action Mechanism (FAM).

Dreaded diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia, and deadly diarrhea have been a struggle to treat because the gram-negative bacteria that cause them have double cell walls with an outer membrane that is particularly difficult for drugs to penetrate and resistance to such compounds is soaring.

Gene Orange (Or) plays an important role in the accumulation of carotenoid and participates in the non-pigmented plastidation of chromosomes. It does not interfere with the carotenoid synthesis, but regulates the process of reservoirs for the isolation and storage of carotenoids. Or gene expression increased carotenoid accumulation in the scar tissue of rice and sweet potato.

The John Innes Centre (JIC) has joined a group of 33 signatories in a call for the Government to address the implications of a European Union judicial ruling that classifies gene-edited crops as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The group, composed of leading research institutions, universities, plant breeders, crop agronomy companies, biotech multinationals, farmers...

A video shows how seconds after a hungry caterpillar severs a leaf from the rest of the plant, a blaze of fluorescent light washes over the other leaves, signaling that they should prepare for future attacks by the caterpillar or its kin. The fluorescent light tracks calcium as it goes through the plant's tissues, warning of a threat through electrical and chemical signals.

Cotton farming in Burkina Faso is in a fast slump two years after the suspension of Bt cotton. This was reported by Burkinabé farmers during the launch of the ISAAA report on the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2017 in Ouagadougou on September 11, 2018. Cotton has been the most important cash crop for Burkinabé farmers, with the country having been Africa's number one cotton producer for 7 consecutive years between 2008 and 2015.

Kenyan scientists have expressed their concern that negative perceptions tied to genetically modifiedorganism (GMOs) could be detrimental in commercializing GM crops in the country. Speaking during a cassava stakeholder study tour to GM cassava research confined field trial (CFT) site in the country's coastal region, the scientists dismissed any fears associated with biotech crops saying GMOs are subjected to very rigorous safety assessments before they are approved.

September 16, New York, USA -- Rice Corp (currently known as SunRice), in partnership with International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), was awarded the 2018 Hult Prize by former President Bill Clinton on Saturday, September 15 in New York City. The student entrepreneur team from University College London beat out more than 100,000 college and university students from 121 countries to win the $1 million prize.

Scientist Steven Mennerick says that the most commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs were approved for use more than three decades ago, and new ways to develop new medications are necessary. Thus, he and his colleagues from the Washington University School of Medicine utilized CRISPR-Cas9 to determine the function of a neuroreceptor delta gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) to pave the way to new drug development.

Brown fiber cotton plays a key role in the textile industry, as it is environmentally friendly and does not require dyeing. However, its poor yield and quality threaten its marketability. Thus, researcher Zhongxu Lin from National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement in Huazhong Agricultural University and colleagues studied the genetic basis of fiber color and lint-related traits in brown fiber cotton through linkage and association mapping.