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A scientific panel working under the direction of the Royal Society of Canada has declared that genetically modified (GM) foods are not necessarily safe to eat.

About 60 percent of the food in supermarkets today contain genetically modified ingredients such as corn, soy or canola. The biotech industry says these foods are safe and that those who are worried about them are being sensationalists.

But the prestigious panel of Canadian scientists has concluded that there has been inadequate research into GM foods and that the industry’s claims of safety are based on unfounded assumptions.
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In an earlier news story, we reported that researchers in Australia and the U.K. believe that many deaths from bloodclots caused by long airplane flights go unreported.

Now scientists think that genetic testing could prevent this from happening. Gillian Turner, a medical geneticist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, says people planning a long flight should consider being genetically tested for a mutation in their blood-clotting gene. “There is another component besides saying that it’s all the airlines’ fault for nottelling people to move their legs,” she says.
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Millions of U.S. military personnel and their families stationed in Europe before 1996 may have eaten British beef during the height of the Mad Cow Disease epidemic.

For 10 years following the emergence of BSE in British cattle in 1986, commissaries on U.S. bases in Europe continued to use beef from the U.K. There were no bans in place on British beef at the time that the world learned that the disease had jumped the species barrier through human consumption of infected beef.

No U.S. military personnel have been diagnosed with the human form of the disease, and the risk is “less than one per 10 billion servings,” says Army Colonel Scott Severin. However, symptoms can appear 10 years or longer aftera person becomes infected.
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One of the main problems with global warming is rising ocean levels, caused by melting ice sheets. As shorelines recede, there will be salt contamination of water tables. Now an animal has been discovered that may be very useful for the future: a camel that can survive on water that is too salty for other creatures.

Not only will the animals themselves be useful in days to come, their genes could be transferred to the DNA of other livestock, allowing them to thrive in newly hostile areas.
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