Australia has the world's most severe herbicide resistance problem, Western Australia's Prof Stephen Powles told delegates at the XIX International Congress of Genetics on Monday. [ + ]

With the launch in Australia of a global fund for science, conservation and exploration, the National Geographic Society is providing grants of around US$25,000 each for new projects.

Have geneticists uncovered one of the master genes for aging? Dr Linda Partridge, a researcher at University College, London, says increasing evidence points to the gene for insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) playing a major role in longevity. [ + ]

Farm animals provide a unique opportunity to capture genes influencing multi-factorial traits, according to Leif Andersson, who presented the first plenary on Tuesday at the XIX International Congress of Genetics. [ + ]

Web portal use by the research community and the popularity of grid computing are two leading trends in today's bioIT market, according to Sun Microsystems computational biology supremo Stefan Unger. [ + ]

Ex-Ambri CEO Dr Joe Shaw is to set up shop in Australia with a new biotech business consulting group – the Aus-American Group Inc (AAGI) – designed to help startups navigate the Pacific Trench minefield. [ + ]

In a lengthy shareholders' advice, beleaguered biosensor company Gradipore has donned not just the hair shirt but the hair suit admitting a "disappointing" $15.5-16 million loss and noting commitment to a "more effective and timely communication with all shareholders." [ + ]

Geneticists appear to have failed in their latest attempt to indict human grandmothers in the court of life for indirectly visiting menopause upon their daughters. [ + ]

Domesticated plant and animal genomes provide excellent material for the study of haplotypes and adaptation, according to Gane Ka-Shu Wong, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Genomics. [ + ]

The administration of freebase cocaine to fruit flies has uncovered novel pathways central to the development of addiction and may eventually lead to the development of drugs to cure or prevent it. [ + ]

Africa's leading molecular geneticist told a forum on genetically modified organisms that poverty, not GM crops, posed the biggest threat to biodiversity around the world. [ + ]

Dr Klaus Amman is puzzled by the furore over pollen drift from genetically modified crops - "Pollen did not learn to fly with transgenes," he said. [ + ]

Australian-born Baylor geneticist Richard Gibbs believes rapid, low-cost sequencing is the key new technology required to keep the genomics revolution advancing. [ + ]

The danger that invertebrate and other forms of life in threatened environments, like tropical rainforests, may not survive climate change now appears more acute than previously thought.

'Post-genomic era' should be banned -- the genomic era has just started, according to Francis Collins, one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project. [ + ]