Ellen Peerenboom

German–Canadian deal

•Monsanto supports oligosaccharide research. Oxford, UK— Monsanto Company (St. Louis, MO) will underwrite research on oligosaccharides at the ancient university here. The deal, for £1.2 million (

Germany's plant genomics

1.8 million) over five years, will support work in the university’s biochemistry department on the isolation, structure, and function of the carbohydrate side chains attached to proteins. This is Monsanto’s first major support for academic research in the UK. Oxford biochemists have developed a sophisticated technique for isolating and sequencing oligosaccharides, carbohydrate side chains that are attached to a large variety of proteins. . . . This opens up the possibility of reattaching the carbohydrates to genetically engineered materials that lack them, or even attaching them to drug molecules.

German Health Minister calls time out for Bt maize.

Rhinoceros horn—the natural, but politically incorrect version of viagra—can now be protected from poachers using DNA technology. Scientists at the National Institute of Immunology in India (NII; New Delhi) have just completed six months of tests on a DNA detection device that has not only been shown to detect rhino horn but also to tell whether the specimen comes from India or elsewhere. “It will be a valuable weapon in the hands of conservationists wanting to track down the source of rhino horn in the illegal market,” says Sher Ali, head of NII’s molecular genetics laboratory. Ali and his colleagues have discovered a repetitive 906 base pair DNA sequence that is unique to India’s one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis). The sequence is not present in the closely related African double-horned black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) or any other species of rhino. “This distinguishing feature will help identify if a particular horn came from India or Africa,” says Ali. The great Indian one-horned rhino is an endangered species—currently numbering about 2000—and is confined to three or four protected forests in Assam and West Bengal in eastern India.