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No one person could ever encapsulate all the progressive hopes of the 20th century - faith in science, education and the triumph of fact and reason over tradition and superstition - but Norman Borlaug came close. Through his long life, Borlaug, who died on Saturday aged 95, championed scientific modernity, breeding the new, more productive, varieties of agricultural plants that led to what others called the 'green revolution' (he never liked the term). In doing so, he saved millions of lives. If he was not quite the unquestionable hero that some of his admirers saw, it was only because one man could never have solved the social and environmental challenges that face the developing world. He was a famer's son from Iowa who got an education with help from New Deal programmes, and worked on a plant-breeding programme in Mexico, which revolutionised wheat production in the country. His achievement was not just in scientific research: he also persuaded farmers and governments to use his sho

Police contracts that put pressure on forensic scientists to deliver low-cost investigations within tight timescales risk jeopardising quality and could lead to a miscarriage of justice, experts have warned.Police forces have changed the way they obtain forensic science services for criminal investigations and now pick laboratories through competitive tendering.That has led to forces typically employing firms that offer the lowest cost or quickest turnaround time for testing evidence, according to Clare Stangoe, principal scientist at Forensic Access, a leading provider of forensics services. The murder and sex crimes specialist said that whereas before scientists were given 'the time they need', they might now have to deliver results within three days, with the laboratory facing a fine if they are late.'The danger comes where arbitrary time frames are put on work,' Stangoe said. 'Too much pressure put on scientists to do the work so quickly [means] that they may only do very specifica

A tiny bit of genetic material with no previously known function may hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer, researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China report in two papers in the September 7-11 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

ex, drugs and prosthetic legs. Who would have thought they could have so much in common? Yet all three are posing ever more challenges to sports officials, and all have at their root the same conundrum: what is sport really about?

(NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) Imagine a polka-dotted postage stamp-sized sensor that can sniff out some known poisonous gases and toxins and show the results simply by changing colors. Support for the development and application of this electronic nose comes from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.