British bread-maker Hovis has unveiled the crustless loaf. Alan Hamilton reports (Times) that surveys showed crusts to be unpopular.

Along with fruit, crusts are the most regularly uneaten item in lunchboxes when they come back from school. Two thirds of British children, it is claimed, do not like crusts. One third of British parents cut crusts off sandwiches before they despatch them and their children to school.

Even London's Dorchester Hotel, where the new bread was launched yesterday, cuts the crusts off its afternoon tea sandwiches. Hovis, a branch of RHM, have developed a new method of baking bread slowly but thoroughly in a cool oven, so that brown crusts have no chance to form.

This may not be entirely a good thing. Some will say we should change our way of life, and learn to live with crusts, rather than relying on technological solutions which eliminate them. Others will suggest that it is good for children to be made to do things they dislike doing because this 'develops character.' And there must be some who still believe what they were told as children, that eating crusts will make your hair curly (it was never explained why this was a good thing). The initial reaction of experts was not promising.

Fiona Hunter, a nutritionist, said: "If you throw away the crust you are getting less carbohydrate, which is the good part of bread, and a higher proportion of fat, the not-so-good bit." Of deeper concern is the possible psychological effect on a child raised on crustless bread. Dr Pat Spungin, a child psychologist and parenting expert, said: "If you allow your children to discard the crust, they spot many other opportunities to reject food they don't like."

The ASI supports this innovation because it extends choice, as well as cutting back on waste. It is a significant breakthrough, and is probably the best thing since…since…

Discussion of genetically modified crops should give pause to those who think it sufficient to be reasonable and to be right. While the NGO-led debate in the West has frightened the ignorant with talk of Frankenstein foods, scientific research has moved on elsewhere. A paper in the new issue of Science by Huang et al [subscription] is reported by Mark Henderson in the Times. It examines the record of two GM modified rice strains in field trials.

A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US National Science Foundation examined two varieties of rice, Xianyou 63 and Youming 86, each of which has been genetically engineered to resist insects. Xianyou 63 carries a gene for producing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a natural pesticide commonly used by organic farmers, while Youming 86 has an insect-resistance gene from the cowpea plant.

Instead of following rigid guidelines, farmers were left to spray their crops, as they do, according to perceived need. The GM rice required far lower use of pesticides (once per year compared with 3.7 times per year for unmodified crops).

None of the GM farmers reported any pesticide-induced illnesses, such as headaches, skin irritation or nausea, while 7.7 per cent of the conventional farmers suffered these in 2002 and 11 per cent suffered them in 2003. Yields of the Xianyou 63 variety were 9 per cent higher than conventional rice, while those of Youming 86 were comparable to the non-GM equivalent.

You might suppose that lower use of pesticides, fewer illnesses in farmers, plus increased yields, might convince opponents of their errors. Wrong. They will attempt to undermine the findings on ideological rather than scientific grounds. None of this will impress the Chinese, who are likely to roll out use of the GM modified strains on a national scale, benefiting the prosperity and the health of their farmers, together with those of their consumers.

The holding bay area, already occupied by the coming ice age, catastrophic over-population, and depletion of scarce resources, might still have enough room to accommodate the mortal danger of genetically modified crops. Meanwhile Europe has been deprived of a lead and a role in one of the important technologies of the future.

Technology can sometimes diminish or eliminate the consequences of foolish or indulgent behaviour. Obesity can be countered by the use of diet foods, and excess drinking ameliorated by low-alcohol beers.

Contraceptives remove some of the consequences of casual sex, and low-tar cigarettes might reduce some health hazards. The couch potato can lie down watching TV while a muscle vibrator exercises the stomach. Science has developed several products which enable people to get away with otherwise damaging behaviour.

Richard Irving reports in the Times on plans by Epitan to market the drug Melanotan to supply a sun-tan without the need for harmful exposure to bright sunlight, or recourse to tanning salons whose regular use may carry risks. It works by encouraging the body to produce Melanin in its brown-black form which helps block out the sun’s harmful effects.

The drug will initially be available in injection form at a cost of about £105. The jab takes about a week to work and lasts for between 60 to 90 days.

It sounds like a way to acquire the good-looking tan, but without the health risks. Ah, but there's more:

Originally developed by scientists from the University of Arizona, Melanotan could have two other potentially lucrative uses. The first is that in sufficient quantities it appears to suppress the appetite; the second is that it appears to ease erectile dysfunction.

The major problem with what appears to be a significant advancement in lifestyle choices is that it all seems too good to be true!

The Reith Lectures, aired annually by the BBC, sometimes show us what intelligent broadcasting can achieve. This year’s lectures are on The Triumph of Technology (Wednesdays 8pm, from April 6 to May 4th, Radio 4) and are delivered by Lord Broers, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. [details and text here].

The theme of his talks is that technology can and should hold the key to the future development of the human race. He contends that technology is sidelined and undervalued, but:

We need it to satisfy our appetite for energy, perhaps through nuclear power; to help us address hunger through plant breeding throughout the world; to monitor and find the means for avoiding global warming so that we can rescue our planet for future generations. Technology can improve our health, and lengthen our lives.

Lord Broers starts by showing how the story of human development is very much the story of technology, from flint tools to biotechnology. He suggests that modern technology is much misunderstood, and that its contribution and importance needs to be asserted.

He warns that Britain’s poor handling of the debate on Genetic Modification, for example, may cost it dearly, as the agrobiotech business pulls out of Britain. Critically important areas such as plant breeding "need to be considered carefully and rationally before being rejected," he says in Roger Highfield’s Telegraph report, but this has not happened.

The increasing importance of GM crops, notably maize, soybean and cotton, is highlighted by the amount of land planted with GM crops. It rose 20 per cent last year to 81 million hectares - five per cent of the Earth's cultivated crop land. More than eight million farmers in 17 countries planted GM crops in 2004, and 90 per cent were poor farmers in developing countries.

Superstition and barbarism are able to command media attention as never before, so it is particularly refreshing to hear the calm tones of science and reason. It will not go down well with those who sell the intellectual equivalent of snake oil, but the rest of us can appreciate its forward vision as well as its reassertion of important truths.

Trying to make phone calls over the internet used to be messy and fairly impractical. Instant Messaging software and webcams worked OK, but the person you wanted to call had to have the right hardware and software. They were no alternative to the real telephone. What was lacking was the ability to phone someone who just had an ordinary landline or mobile. Skype, a computer program, came along and let you make calls through the computer to ordinary phone numbers, but there's something that doesn't feel quite right about making phone calls through a computer.

But internet phone calls have finally come of age. I made my first real internet phone call yesterday. It wasn't through software but through a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone that plugs into an ordinary broadband internet connection. The phone looks, feels and works like an ordinary telephone. I called the USA (1.5p a minute) and the call quality was as good as calling on a British Telecom phone. I have to pay a line rental (£7 a month) but I do get an incoming London phone number, which is nice. If I spend a week overseas, I can unplug the phone, plug it into an internet connection there and still get my calls. (Or divert them to my mobile.)

There are downsides. Internet connections aren't always reliable. Due to government regulations, you can't currently phone 999 from a VoIP phone. And, unless you're on cable, you have to have a BT phone line in order to get broadband. So a VoIP phone can't replace your existing phone. But it is useful if you want a second line.

It's great to see technology helping to increase competition and reduce prices.

When a major computer virus starts to spead, providers of anti-virus software issue alerts and update their products. Television and radio news, along with the newspapers, tell the public about it. Sophos, an anti-virus company, offers a free service where it e-mails members of the public with virus alerts. The creators of Norton Antivirus let you syndicate the latest virus threats on your own website, also free of charge.

So I'm delighted that Hazel Blears MP, a Home Office Minister, has come up with a way of making taxpayers pay to replicate what is already provided free of charge by the private sector. She's launched a new government website which will enable you to receive e-mail warnings of new viruses. There doesn't appear to be much information up on the site yet apart from her photo. Perhaps the Home Office should give up and stick to doing things like justice?

Spammers are in the news again. A trial in Virginia has concluded with a ringleader being found guilty and the jury recommending a nine year jail sentence under the State's tough new anti-spam laws. Other reports say they had amassed a $24 million fortune from their scams. You may remember the one promising $75 per hour to home workers processing FedEx refunds - in one month alone they received 10,000 credit card orders at $39.95 each in response.

Maybe the government should take over spamming. Either they would completely mess it up and kill off this odious industry and thus save the rest of us from a plague. Or they would make it work on a bigger scale and profits from the suckers would displace normal tax thus considerably easing the burden on the rest of us.

We have been saying positive things here recently about Linux, a competitor to Microsoft Windows. Should we not as free-marketeers rally around the market leader?

It is often the new entrants into the marketplace that radically change the way things work for the better. It is thanks to Amazon that I can buy books online easily - their website lets me read reviews from other customers and get suggestions of products I might like based on my past purchases. But Amazon is a new entrant in the book market compared with, say, WHSmith, founded in 1792, or Blackwell's, founded in 1879.

The market process lets new entrants, with new ideas, come into the marketplace and displace incumbents. This competitive process drives innovation and lower prices. New entrants are a good thing. The existence of Linux has already led to price cuts - large purchasers of Microsoft products to able to negotiate substantial discounts simply by threatening to use Linux.

At a London reception last night to promote private spaceflight, I met Dr Norman Thagard (on the left), who flew five missions, four aboard the shuttle, and one Soyuz flight to the Mir station. He has joined with Space Adventures to push the notion that space is for everyone. They have already sent Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth to stay on the International Space Station, and also offer zero-g experience, flights on the Mig-25 and Mig-29, and have signed up several people, including me, for sub-orbital flights like those which won Burt Rutan the X-Prize on Oct 5th.

Details on all of this can be gained from Wildwings of Bristol, who handle UK bookings. The message was that the past few decades saw space as the preserve of governments, but it is rapidly opening up to private citizens. While the price is pretty steep at present, it will come down very quickly as new technology comes on line. Good thing, too. Leaving the planet at least once, like leaving the country, can be a mind-expanding experience.

The September issue of Wired (still, just about, on the newsstands in the UK), has an article on nuclear power in China. It won't appeal to ideological environmentalists who want us to use less energy. Then again, Wired isn't noted for an anti-technology line. The article discusses how China is going to cope with increasing demands for electricity and improve air quality at the same time. "What's an energy-starved autocracy to do? Go nuclear."

The article talks about how pebble-bed nuclear reactors are going to take over from more traditional and how these reactors have the nice side-effect of helping to extract hydrogen from water. The article doesn't mince words when saying that: "To power a billion cars, there's no practical alternative to hydrogen."

But what about safety? Wired says: "Suppose a coolant pipe blows, a pressure valve sticks, terrorists knock the top off the reactor vessel, an operator goes postal and yanks the control rods that regulate the nuclear chain reaction - no radioactive nightmare. This reactor is meltdown-proof."

It's an interesting article, well worth reading in full.

I watched a DVD yesterday evening that had been encoded so that it can only be watched on American ("region 1") DVD players. My DVD player, a British "region 2" player, was nevertheless able to play it. I typed in the model number of my player into Google and up popped a way to make it work. I typed 9990 on the remote control, and the American DVD played fine. Does this tell us something about what manufacturers think of the idea of setting DVD regions?

Trying to stop DVDs from playing in all regions is an attempt to control when films can be released in different parts of the world, and also to control prices. It doesn't seem all that effective. We are seeing that more and more movies are now opening in cinemas across the world at the same time, and it's possible to buy American DVDs on Amazon.co.uk.

The music industry is also trying to control usage. The extent to which peer-to-peer music sharing has reduced sales is difficult to measure, but the record companies are scared. There is some evidence, perversely, that music sharing increases CD sales. Well, it took record companies a while, but they're now endorsing pay-for music sites where you can download music. However, the music downloaded on these services contain Digital Rights Management (DRM). In an attempt to prevent piracy, DRM restricts which devices you can put music on and which software media player you can use to listen to it. Download music from file sharing systems and you can do what you like with the music, but pay for the music and you're restricted in how you can use it. Given that it's possible to crack DRM, and it's possible to get unprotected music from other sources, DRM seems doomed to failure.

Some CDs are now being shipped with copy-protection. But a cable from the headphones output of a hi-fi to the microphone input of a PC gets round this. It is no wonder that Philips, the inventor of the CD, doesn't think copy-protection has a future.

Putting restrictions on the use of content is just an annoyance for customers, and it doesn't actually work. It may even encourage people to get content from file sharing networks rather than the pay-for services. Is it time content producers took a more enlightened approach?

What is the most powerful piece of software you've used today? If you thought Microsoft Word, think again. Odd though this may sound, it's probably Google. Running off a huge 10,000 cluster of computers at Google HQ, it's a mega-database, simultaneously providing near-instant answers to millions of users across the globe. Like much of software we use on a daily basis, it is not even running directly on our machines. It runs on remote servers and we access it courtesy of the web. In a similar vein, many companies are saving money by providing staff with access to their databases through web browsers.

In the last quarter century software has come full-circle. It once ran on huge mainframes which users would access through terminals. The personal computer put software directly on people's desktops and enabled millions of people access to computers for the first time. Now, with the internet, software is increasingly being provided to us across the network again.

Additionally, we may find that the bread-and-butter software we install on our PCs - like the operating system and office software - does not cost as much in the future, in anything. Industry insider Tim O'Reilly says that software is becoming a commodity. There's something in this. It really doesn't matter much which e-mail program or web browser we use because they all understand the standard protocols. Nor does it matter much which operating system we're using. In office software, XML is a threat to Microsoft because it offers an open, industry-standard way of saving information. Even Microsoft has felt obliged to adopt XML (sort of). Attempts to make open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office are getting better.

If software tends to run off servers and doesn't mind what operating system is being used to access it, that poses a big question about what sort of system we need to run on our desktop PCs. The network effect which encouraged the use of Windows is losing its importance. Why pay for Windows to run on the desktop if Linux and a web browser will do the same job?

Russell Roberts discusses the effect of technology displacing jobs:

Ironically, the process of substituting technology for people is what creates our rising standard of living over time. It appears to be the opposite - surely we can't get richer as a people if we're losing jobs in the telephone industry - surely that makes us poorer. But it makes the nation as a whole richer to have cheap long-distance. The telephone operators who lose their jobs have to find a new job. Sometimes it will pay less because their skills may not be as useful in other industries that will arise. But their children and grandchildren inherit a richer world where people are closer together. Do that in industry after industry and you get a change in our standard of living over the last 100 years of something between ten and thirty TIMES higher.

A few months ago I was on a radio programme with a trade unionist who said that while British Telecom privatization had been good for consumers, people's jobs were sacrificed. There are however vastly more people employed in our liberalized telecoms section than there were before privatization - and we also get to call the USA for 3p a minute. Telecom liberalization has given us the best of both worlds.

Tim Cavanagh discusses the effect of making readers pay for online content. The New York Times, which charges for access to its archives, has a really, really poor Google ranking - but it gets $20m a year from the Lexis-Nexis archive service alone. Cavanagh writes:

Would you trade that kind of account receivable for a higher Google rating?

Maybe you would. I might too. Maybe at some macro, geological-time level, the Times really doesn't get the internet. Maybe Lexis-Nexis itself will be webbed out of business in a few years. But I've been hearing this same tune for many, many years now, and nobody singing it is getting a cool twenty large to repurpose their old news.

Having said that, while certain prestige publications like NYT, Financial Times and Economist can successfully charge for content, in a world of increasingly diverse media sources, I suspect that many publications would simply find their online readers move elsewhere. In the web world, consumers seem to prefer advert-supported content.

I'm posting this from a wi-fi internet connection while sitting at a bus stop on 16th Street, Washington DC. The internet connection isn't paid for by me. In fact, I don’t know exactly who provided the access. Across the street, Starbucks is offering a pay-for service, protected by a code, but this one's free.

If politicians were planning internet, they would probably conclude that wi-fi is a 'public good' and needs a Wireless Internet Agency, funded by taxpayers, in order for wireless internet to exist. Yet like so many 'public goods', without government interference, the 'public good' gets provided privately.

How wi-fi will develop is anyone’s guess, or how it will compete against cellphone networks. At the moment, there's effectively no cost in allowing passers-by free-ride on your wi-fi connection. Many businesses and conference venues offer open wi-fi connections to be helpful to their visitors. On the other hand, there are companies banking on the idea that we'll be prepared to pay for a better service. But one thing's for sure: wi-fi is getting provided without the state.

On May 13th private space travel drew closer as Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne flew over 40 miles high, reports Leonard David:

In a post-flight statement from the company, the SpaceShipOne team reported that their space plane flew to 212,000 feet altitude, almost 41 miles. NASA awards astronaut status to anyone who flies above 50 miles in altitude.

The $10m X-Prize, which expires at the year's end, requires a passenger carrying flight to over 100km, repeated in the same vehicle within two weeks.

Followers of Burt Rutan will spot his preference for anniversaries. The first private supersonic flight took place 100 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight. He might go for July 4th, but this summer sees the 35th anniversary of the moon landing on July 20th. This looks a more likely bet, given there are rivals who may attempt flights later in the year.

If he does do it, space will no longer be just for governments. The era of private space travel will have dawned.

Government attempts to control spam have not been successful. The EU's Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, introduced in 2003, has not had any noticeable effect on our e-mail boxes. E-mail, by its nature as a dispersed, non-centralised network is very difficult for legislation to manage.

The desire to legislate against spam is understandable. But spam is technological problem, and is one that better technology can solve. There are no easy Acts of Parliament or EU directives that can solve the problem.

Some have argued for a global e-mail tax to prevent spam. Yet this solution is worse than the problem. It would particularly hit young people who use e-mail to chat to friends. Many businesses and institutions that send out e-mail news to tens of thousands of interested parties would have to trim their lists. The spam tax would require new internet protocols to which users would be unlikely to switch. It is difficult to know how governments who implement such a policy even if they decided they wanted to - without an army of e-mail inspectors doing spot checks on people's computers.

Technology has not yet solved the problem of spam, but it is starting to produce offer tools to help fight spam. Spam filtering, though by no means perfect, does help reduce spam. Many internet providers provide some basic filtering themselves, without most users even realising. However, from anecdotal evidence, spammers seem to be getting cleverer, by reading up on the filtering tests done by such systems.

One innovation is the 'challenge-response' system. When e-mailing people, you get an automated e-mail back asking you to prove that you are a human, rather than a machine. You click through to a website, and have to type a code which appears on the screen as an image. One you've entered the code, your e-mail - and any future ones - get delivered. It costs money to have this sort of mailbox, but it offers more protection for those who want it. 'Challenge-response' systems are by no means perfect, though. They are an irritant for people trying to send you e-mail, and may result in e-mail being delayed because the sender has not waited for the automated reply. Or, if not particularly computer literate, senders may not be able to cope.

The mistake is to assume that because technology has not solved spam now, we need government to get involved. But since technology is where the problem is, and since we need a system that hackers cannot bypass, we would be best to leave problem-solving to the technological realm.

Many environmentalists believe that in a finite world, economic growth must also be finite. Growth will, in their view, cease at some point. Though their argument may seem to make sense, it is mistaken.

Economic growth is caused by the human mind working out ways of using finite resources more efficiently. One example was the division of labour during the industrial revolution. The same number of workers could produce far more if they specialised in a limited number of tasks.

The creation of new technology enables factories to buy machines that increase the output per worker, and lower the cost of production. Technology enables higher crop yields. By using genetically modified food, the food created per acre goes up. Technology also enables the life-expectancy of non-renewable resources to increase, and for the development of better and better sources of renewable resources.

To say that economic growth is limited is to say that at some point the human mind will run out of ideas, i.e. that science will stagnate. Certainly, if there are government regulations that ban the use of technology, then economic growth could indeed have limits. But without such government interference, the potential for growth is infitite.

A major study by the first World Internet Project has surveyed users and non-users of the Internet in 14 countries. It reveals that users socialize more with friends, read more, and watch less TV. This counters the image of the computer geek as the friendless loner with poor social skills, grooming habits and dress sense. (I will let our friends at Samizdata handle the last point). The survey also reveals that users generally trust the information they find online. They are richer, too…

Congratulations to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, on getting a knighthoood. He turned the internet from something accessible only by computer geeks into something that has changed how all of us live and work.

Berners-Lee's model for the development of the web is an excellent example of how standards can develop without the need for government bodies setting them. Through the World Wide Web Consortium, of which he is Director, he has ensured that the web remains a system based on open standards. His knighthood is well deserved.

The Left does not seem to like companies that succeed in the marketplace. One such business is Google. It entered the market late, but quickly became the top search engine simply by being being better than its competitors. However, since Google announced its plans to float, the company has been under fire.

BBC Online journalist Bill Thompson met Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2000 and found the man "completely devoted to making a better search engine rather than making himself rich... Now his search engine is the equivalent of programmes on ITV, there solely to attract eyeballs for advertisers."

Does Bill Thompson really think that Google was ever about benevolence? Isn't it more plausible that Google was created in order to make money? And isn't it a good thing that the founders of Google, motivated by the search for profits, created a search engine dramatically better than anything that went before it?

What worries the Left most of all about Google is that it keeps on adding new services. I find Google News great: I get an e-mail whenever the words "Adam Smith Institute" are mentioned in a participating newspaper. The Left says that Google is only adding new features in order to get more advertising. That's a bad thing? It means I don't have to pay, which suits me fine.

Thompson has called for a new government regulator to protect us from Google, called the Office for Search Engines. Why bother? If Google stops being any good, we can just dump it. That's what we did to AltaVista when Google came on the scene.

Of course, if we wanted to get rid of the profit motive from search engines, we could just pay for a search engine out of taxation. Oh… we already do.

Once again, clueless American politicians are about to create a new law that will exacerbate an already serious problem. Senators Conrad Burns (Republican) and Ron Wyden (Democrat) have brought forward a new Bill that looks certain to become law in the USA. It effectively legalises spam, the very opposite of their intentions. Why? Because it defines a framework under which spammers must operate. It assumes spammers want to be law-abiding and reasonable. These are people whose stock-in-trade is to behave dishonestly, yet Con and Ron think the new law will change all that. I currently receive over 600 spams per day, and the number is climbing relentlessly, so I have an interest in this topic.

The new law will give spammers the right to send us a first spam as long as it also gives us an opportunity to unsubscribe from that list. Just that list, not all lists. Of course, there is no reason to suppose spammers won't create a million lists and send us a million legal spams. Did Con and Ron think of that? Nowhere is it mandated either what the unsubscribing process should be, or even that it should work. Did Con and Ron think of that? The postal, fax and telephone opt-out systems work because we mostly have one address, one fax number or one phone number, and there is one point of contact to register. Then it applies to anyone who wants to send unsolicited correspondence. Did Con and Ron think of that? This law gives spammers legitimacy but because they are in the USA, those outside won't have any recourse to law unless we take the case up in America - as non-US citizens and non-US residents. Spam knows no borders. We can safely assume Con and Ron didn't give too hoots about us.

This is not the first time US legislators have tried to 'fix' the problem. Senator Frank Murkowski inserted a clause into a Bill going through the Senate some five years ago. It was a bad clause and the fact that it never made it into law didn't prevent spammers citing it as 'authority' and appending a disclaimer to the end of their spams. If you know this is called a 'Murk', you should get out more.

Everyone knows that governments are spectacularly inept at buying computer systems and getting them to work. But the scale of the cock-ups at Britain's Child Support Agency takes the breath away. Their system cost £450 million, but still arrived 18 months late, says the Daily Telegraph. But only a third of the 150,000 outstanding claims from parents have been processed. And less than 4 per cent have actually been paid any money by this big shiny brain.

In the government computer incompetence stakes, I think this must be a record. Or do any of our readers know of even greater IT cock-ups?

Ross Clark writes in The Spectator that - contrary to the claims made by environmentalist interest groups - the science is on the side of GM foods.

Recent field trials in the UK have shown that (surprise, surprise), GM crops that are designed to resist weeds do precisely that. The trouble is, there then aren't enough weeds and seeds for various birds and caterpillars to feed on. So this is seen as a great failure, and the eco-fascists want no more GM crops, nor even testing.

But how is it a failure when a crop does exactly what it's supposed to do? On the contrary, more efficient crops are good news. Good news for humans (including those in the poorest countries) who need food, and for the farmers who grow it.

And even the environmental issues are not exactly one-sided. It may be bad news for moths and skylarks, but it's good news for everyone concerned about the use of chemical herbicides in agriculture - and what they might do when the leach into our watercourses.

I think these trials are even good news for GM itself. By manipulating a single gene, the natural herbicide in the crops can be tweaked up or down to whatever level seems to bring the best environmental balance. Much quicker, easier - and safer - than with conventional breeding, which manipulates hundreds of different genes all at once, with much less certain results.

If we are going to feed ourselves, and save others in the world from crop failures and starvation, GM is a technology we need to embrace.