Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Natural history museums are shaking off their dusty image in a bid to show relevance to contemporary concerns. Central to a revival in their research fortunes is a unique contribution to our understanding of life's complexity.
Concern about the growing interest of foreign companies and research institutes in China's wealth of genetic resources has helped the country's geneticists to cement political support for their own research efforts. In the process of doing so, the country appears to have successfully cast off the anti-Mendelian beliefs of its early communist era.
In recent years, ecologists and economists have learned the importance of working together. But the alliance has at times been rocky, particularly as there is no consensus on how cooperation is most effectively achieved.
The growing interest of pharmaceutical and agri-business companies in genes from natural products is generating a complex set of conflicts with Third World nations, where most of the world's genetic diversity is to be found.