Commentary

Large, sophisticated databases cannot be left to chance and improvisation.

Financial incentives can be found to conserve a species threatened by trade.

Is a universal, public DNA-microarray database a realistic goal?

Science is playing an increasing part in many decisions made by the UK Parliament, and probably in other legislation. What are the implications?

Environmentally sustainable economies are unachievable without enhanced participation of the private sector. Scientists must facilitate this process.

In its recent deliberations over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the US Senate was not well served by the directors of the US weapons laboratories.

… from Gerbert d'Aurillac to Watson and Crick.

If governments are to define deception as research misconduct, science deserves clarity and rigour in the definition.

A new agriculture, combining genetic modification technology with sustainable farming, is our best hope for the future.

If the multinational Human Genome Project is to continue its successful start, sequencing strategies must be changed.

Most people assume that a wave, being central to all the phenomena we observe, has a uniform definition. But defining this basic concept isn't so easy.

Anyone with a home PC could join climate modellers in their attempt to forecast how the Earth's climate will evolve in the next century.

Showing that a genetically modified food is chemically similar to its natural counterpart is not adequate evidence that it is safe for human consumption.

Governments could safeguard the world's biodiversity with a small fraction of the money they spend on environmentally harmful subsidies.

Europe has been slow to exploit its considerable scientific research expertise for economic benefit. A culture of venture capitalism must be created if Europe is to compete more effectively with the United States.

The drive to squeeze ever more food from the land has sent Europe's farmland wildlife into a precipitous decline. How can agricultural policy be reformed so that we have fewer grain mountains and more skylarks?

The relationship between the scientific community and the general public has never been worse in living memory. The commercialization of research is largely responsible, but scientists can still act on the problem.

It is time for environmental scientists and policy-makers to speak the same language, and to target the achievable, not simply the desirable. A framework is emerging from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.