GM Crops Make Good Neighbors
Date: 28.9.2008
When scientists in China girded cotton with an **insect-killing toxin** in the late 1990s, they knew it would be a boon for cotton farmers. But in an unexpected twist, researchers have now found that **genetically modified (GM) cotton** that produces the natural pesticide casts a protective net over other kinds of crops in nearby fields - and not because introduced genes have spread beyond the cotton field.
The **findings**, reported in tomorrow's issue of Science and at a press conference here yesterday, "**are of major importance**," says Huang Jikun, director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
"Science":[ http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/918/3?rss=1]
