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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish biotech company has developed a genetically modified flower that could help detect land mines and it hopes to have a prototype ready for use within a few years. "We are really excited about this, even though it's early days. It has considerable potential," Simon Oestergaard, chief executive of developing company Aresa Biodetection, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. The genetically modified weed has been coded to change color when its roots come in contact with nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) evaporating from explosives buried in soil. Within three to six weeks from being sowed over land mine...

Scientists hail new 'map of life' By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A fruit fly and its protein interaction map Biologists have produced a detailed map of protein interactions in a complex organism - the fruit fly. Proteins, which are made by genes, are the building blocks of tissues as well as the basis for molecular interactions that enable an organism to live. The protein interaction map will allow a new insight into a highly complex metabolic system, similar in many ways to the human one. The research is to be published in a future issue of...

CHICAGO (AP) Americans are not just getting fatter, they are ballooning to extremely obese proportions at an alarming rate. The number of extremely obese American adults - those who are at least 100 pounds overweight - has quadrupled since the 1980s to about 4 million. That works out to about 1 in every 50 adults. Extreme obesity once was thought to be a rare, distinct condition whose prevalence remained relatively steady over time. The new study contradicts that thinking and suggests that it is at least partly due to the same kinds of behavior - overeating and under-activity - that...

At a time when religious and conservative right-wing groups are attempting to dismiss homosexuality as "unnatural," a leading zoologist has said gay people could be seen as the "pinnacle of evolution." Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Clive Bromhall said that humankind's evolution has resulted in our present state of "infantilism," in which we break the primate mold by being playful, creative and childlike right into adulthood. "From men's obsession with swollen breasts to our constant search for a pseudoparental God, everything about the human species is infantile," Bromhall said in a lecture. "Like baby chimps, we have soft, downy...

Every child born in the UK could be genetically screened and the data stored to plan their future healthcare under government proposals for a massive expansion of genetic testing. John Reid, the new Secretary of State for Health, said the UK was on the threshold of a revolution in healthcare. "Increasing understanding of genetics will bring more accurate diagnosis, more personalised prediction of risk, new gene-based drugs and therapies and better targeted prevention and treatment," he said. The controversial proposal for testing newborn babies was announced in a White Paper that promised £50m to expand the ability of the NHS...

Genetic susceptibility to West Nile virus 22:00 19 August 02 NewScientist.com news service A genetic mutation might explain why only one fifth of people infected with West Nile virus go on to develop symptoms - and why only one fifth of these people develop a severe, often fatal, brain inflammation, say French researchers. West Nile virus, named after the area in Uganda where it was first detected, is mosquito-borne. It belongs to the family of flaviviruses, which includes dengue and yellow fever. And it is currently sweeping across the US, with the first recorded infection on the west coast reported...

Revolution in science: a genetic discovery to change the world By Steve Connor, Science Editor 10 August 2002 A revolutionary development in genetics has raised the prospect of curing cancer and treating lethal viral infections using a technique discovered by scientists during a series of pioneering experiments. Researchers are already comparing the findings to the earliest days in the development of antibiotics, which radically altered the way doctors treated bacterial diseases in the late 20th century. Studies in the US and Europe last month showed that the use of the technique made human cells in the test tube immune to...

<p>One celebrated finding of the Human Genome Project was that regardless of race, humans are 99.99 percent alike genetically.</p> <p>As the research rolls forward, though, scientists are learning that the rare differences from person to person hold major clues to medical mysteries. Some of those clues have led genetic sleuths down ethnic pathways, setting off intense debate over a new potential for racial profiling in medicine.</p>