About three years ago 18 research institutions coordinated by FEM got their teeth into the well-known cultivar Golden Delicious’ genome sequence. Golden Delicious is one cultivar of the domesticated apple Malus x domestica.

What has been the biggest challenge during the apple genome sequencing and mapping? The real problem in our case was that the variety, Golden Delicious, we had chosen is heterozygous.

His aim was to develop a system that could capture the oil right at its source, before it disperses on the surface of the ocean.

Oil is less dense than water and therefore the oil escaping the sea bed travels up to the water surface. Dr. Fivos Andritsos and his colleagues from the Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy have now developed a reservoir which can be applied on top of the leakage.

It does look like a resounding, spectacular success. During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.