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By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Governments from more than 90 countries have agreed to establish an independent panel of scientists to assess the very latest research on the state of the planet's fragile ecosystems. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Difficulties in hiring and retaining women scientists and engineers are worrying universities. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Alarmed at signs that the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals is blunting these key weapons against human disease, governments are taking action. In industrial farming, antimicrobials are commonly given to farm animals to treat infections, and prophylactically to prevent disease or spur growth. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Our last line of defence against hospital 'superbugs' is faltering, with resistance to the antibiotics usually used to tackle intractable pneumonia and urinary tract infections on the rise and spreading across European countries. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Solna, Sweden, announced last week that 29 new cases of bacteria resistant to the broad-spectrum carbapenem antibiotics had been reported across a total of six European Union (EU) countries between early October 2010 and the end of March 2011. The figures coincide with the publication, on 17 November, of a European Commission strategy to tackle antibiotic resistance.

LBy Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Delegates meeting this month in Durban, South Africa, to assess international progress on tackling climate change need to look beyond smoke stacks and car exhausts to a neglected source of emissions--agriculture. That's the message from an international group of leading agricultural and climate scientists in a report published on November 16. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Conservation organizations are looking for change. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine A desert may need no defining, but desertification is not so easy to pin down. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Consumers who flush unwanted contraceptives down the drain have long been blamed for giving fish more than their fair share of sex organs. [More]

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Tinkering with male mosquitoes so that they cannot produce sperm is a promising way to control the spread of the malaria-carrying insects in the wild. Researchers had been concerned that female Anopheles gambiaemosquitoes might not be fooled into mating with the spermless males, but lab tests show that they are just as attracted to sterile males as to normal ones1

By Natasha Gilbert of Nature magazine Kenya is expected to become the fourth African country to allow the commercial production of transgenic crops. The country's National Biosafety Authority is due to publish long-awaited regulations governing the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in open fields for research and commercial purposes