New research helps defuse some of the overhyped fears around genetically modified food by showing that most of the supposed risks from GM food are inherent in conventional crops and have been for centuries.

Researchers have demonstrated that molecules can add, a breakthrough that will boost efforts to develop a molecular computer.

Researchers in Australia and America now suggest that cereal crops should be made as poisonous as one of the deadliest spiders in the world. Toxins from Australian funnel web spiders, they suggest, make ideal -- and environmentally friendly -- plant-produced pesticides.

A group of Italian researchers led by Carlo Jacoboni at the University of Modeno propose using a pair of semiconductor 'data' wires and a 'control' wire to form a quantum 'logic gate', the basic component of the elusive quantum computer.

Internet computing and Grid technologies promise to change the way we tackle complex problems. They will enable large-scale aggregation and sharing of computational, data and other resources across institutional boundaries. And harnessing these new technologies effectively will transform scientific disciplines ranging from high-energy physics to the life sciences.

Scientists are combining satellite data with ecological and social maps to dampen the \'disease aftershocks\' that usually follow natural disasters.

The web has spontaneously organized itself into communities. A new search algorithm that pinpoints these could help surfers find what they want and avoid offensive content.

Scientists representing the world's spacefaring nations have settled on plans to prevent the final frontier from filling up with man-made junk. Moving at thousands of kilometres per hour, even tiny pieces of orbiting debris are a threat to satellites, space probes and manned missions.

Life can carry on indefinitely. Physicists in the United States have come to the comforting conclusion that just because the universe is accelerating as it expands, this does not necessarily sound the death knell for life in the far future, as some have claimed.

Free data from a global array of microphones could spot nuclear false alarms, averting disastrous retaliation, say scientists and defence experts. The ground-based network will detect the faint, low-frequency rumbles of meteor explosions high in the atmosphere that can look like nuclear explosions to other sensors.