The international treaty on plant genetic resources needs a gesture of trust to repair the atmosphere of suspicion that has developed, argues Emile Frison from the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.

Cuts in federal funding have forced UC Berkeley's RAD Lab to seek industry funding. But the money may not be enough to plug the gap.

USA Today reports declining R&D budgets in the USA, albeit in, it seems, just one tech sector.

The future of European Union funded embryonic stem cell research hangs in the balance after a heated debate at the European Parliament on Tuesday.

It may have started from a low base, but the Indian biotech industry is hurtling past the global growth rate. And overseas companies are anxious to get in on the action.

For a bunch of IT experts, the EU's IST World has come up with a baffling web site, especially when the idea is to make life easy for beginners.

Indian firms are training large numbers of patent agents - with their eye on the large number of companies abroad looking for cheaper patenting.

The EU wants 25 per cent of transport energy will come from biofuels by the year 2030 – and is backing research that it will help it get there.

Biology Information Open Source's promoter, Richard Jefferson, asserts that BIOS is explicitly modelled after the Open Source initiative in software. But science is grounded in open exchange and the sharing of information, so what is the point of BIOS and other initiatives such as Science Commons?

Software agents could change the way that computing works. You just leave them to get on with the work.