·The poetry section of the Artactivist web site ( www.artactivist.com/poetry.html) recommends numerous wholesome and educational ditties for modern parents to teach their children. Adapted from the traditional English nursery rhymes "Baa Baa Black sheep / Have you any wool?" is a version that starts promisingly, "Strange Sheep, Strange Sheep / Have you any genes?" Throwing scansion and biology aside, however, it then continues: "Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir / I have three / One from the ewe / One from the ram / One from the lab boy who lives down the lane." Equally cutting and accurate is a stirring adaptation of the humorous song, "There's a hole in my bucket." In 10 verses, it tells a tale of herbicide-resistant plants, starting: "There's Roundup in my Canola / Monsanto, Monsanto / There's Roundup in my Canola / Monsanto, Roundup."

·Part of a communiqué from "Reclaim the Seeds" explains the angst of the eco terrorists as they destroy plant research plots (mostly nontransgenic) in California. "The act of taking the life of a plant is serious, and one we don't take lightly. Before anyone embarks on such a course, we believe it important to think through the moral dimensions of crop-pulling, and come into it with a strong heart. It would also be wise to make some sort of a prayer, offering, or explanation to the crops whose individual lives you will be taking in order to defend the sanctity of all life."

·Self-styled UK eco-warrior Tommy Archer was found not guilty of criminal damage after he destroyed an experimental plot of GM herbicide-resistant oilseed rape and assaulted a local farmer near the village of Ambridge in Borsetshire. Although Archer admitted destroying the crop, the majority jury verdict was that he had "just cause" to do so because he genuinely believed that the crop was a threat to his father's nearby organic farm. The share price of Bealtech, the company that developed the rape, was unaffected by the decision. Observers from the legal profession believe that the case is unlikely to set a precedent for similar British cases, largely because it was a storyline in the popular BBC radio soap opera, The Archers.

·An anonymous correspondent commented after reading Arpad Pusztai's Lancet paper on the effects of feeding rats potatoes containing lectin: "I haven't eaten a single snow-drop, since reading Professor Pusztai's frightening paper."