At a time when water is becoming a more highly valued commodity, research by the University of Adelaide shows Australian farmers can potentially save water on crops without losing profits - and at the same time, increase their yields.

Australian and US researchers have combined efforts to produce artistic rat cells, which can paint pictures across the world from their Petri dish. And hopefully give some insight into the learning process at the same time. [ + ]

The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) and associated genetics organisations, including the Human Genetics Society of Australia, have retracted and clarified recent statements made in a letter to state and Federal government officials, which suggested that Melbourne biotech company Genetic Technologies would seek to enforce the breast cancer gene patents licensed to it by Myriad Genetics. [ + ]

Thrombosis diagnostic specialist Agenix has successfully detected a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) clot in the leg of a patient during Phase Ib clinical trials. [ + ]

Australian geneticist Malcolm Simons has hit back at critics of the controversial international patents he secured in the 1990s for the use of non-coding DNA to predict individuals' genetic risk of developing diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease. [ + ]

The kangaroo genome project has moved slightly closer to reality with the announcement that the Australian Research Council will fund a new Centre for the Kangaroo Genome, worth AUD$2.6 million over the next five years. [ + ]

Sequencing instrument company Applied Biosystems has joined the call for a marsupial genome project to be conducted in Australia rather than the US. [ + ]

The recent SARS epidemic highlighted the ability of Singapore's science community to rise to the occasion, according to the director of the two-year-old Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), Edison Liu at the XIX International Congress of Genetics on Wednesday. [ + ]

The risk of a SARS pandemic sweeping the world appears to be over, to the great relief of international health authorities who have been awaiting another pandemic of the magnitude of the Spanish 'flu pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 20 million people on six continents. [ + ]

The relationship between vegetables such as peas and beans and nitrogen-fixing bacteria is even closer than previously thought, with bacteria acting similar to an intrinsic part of the plant, according to research undertaken in England.

Dr David Botstein, of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, was yesterday awarded the prestigious 2003 Peter Gruber Genetics prize. [ + ]

Across large areas of the southern United States, the most social primate on Planet Earth has come into painful conflict with one of the world's most unlovable social insects - the South American fire ant, Solenopsis victor. [ + ]

The risks of developing cancer as a side-effect of gene therapy were outweighed by the potential benefit to the patients, one of the scientists involved in gene therapy clinical trials said yesterday at the XIX International Congress of Genetics. [ + ]

Genomics expert Prof David Botstein says it's a fact that biologists would rather share a toothbrush than a gene's name -- the yeast gene that he knows as ABC1 is apparently known to fruit fly geneticists as 'bride of frizzled disco'. [ + ]

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) shows promise as a gene-targeting vector for repair of mutations, particularly in cell populations that can be treated ex vivo and reinfused back into the host, according to David Russell, a professor at the University of Washington. [ + ]