When Darine El-Chaar began her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Ottawa five years ago, she grew curious about the potential health repercussions of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), the catchall term for procedures used to help couples artificially conceive a child. ART involves surgically removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries, combining them with sperm in the laboratory, and returning them to the womb.

Europe has never been particularly fond of genetically modified (GM) foods, but a startling research paper looks set to harden public and political opposition even further, despite a torrent of scepticism from scientists about the work. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, looked for adverse health effects in rats fed NK603 maize (corn), developed by biotech company Monsanto to resist the herbicide glyphosate and approved for animal and human consumption
in the European Union, United States and other countries.

Temporal increases in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages have paralleled the rise in obesity prevalence, but whether the intake of such beverages interacts with the genetic predisposition to adiposity is unknown.

One of the biggest purges of the scientific literature in history is finally getting under way. After more than a decade of suspicion about the work of anaesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii, formerly of Toho University in Tokyo, investigations by journals and universities have concluded that he fabricated data on an epic scale.

A 20-year campaign of scientific fraud says as much about the research community as it does about the perpetrator. The system that allowed such deception to continue must be reformed. (Editorial)

The National Clean Energy Fund has been created as a funding mechanism ostensibly for research and development in the fi eld of clean energy technologies. So far, the fund has collected Rs 8,200 crore from the clean energy cess, but the processes of disbursement are mired with confusion.

Based on previously published hydroponic plant, planktonic bacterial, and soil microbial community research, manufactured nanomaterial (MNM) environmental buildup could profoundly alter soil-based food crop quality and yield. However, thus far, no single study has at once examined the full implications, as no studies have involved growing plants to full maturity in MNM-contaminated field soil. We have done so for soybean, a major global commodity crop, using farm soil amended with two high-production metal oxide MNMs (nano-CeO2 and -ZnO).