Barbara McClintock's research plot attacked

LONDON, July 21 (Science Analysed) Protestors against genetic engineering in the US — an increasingly common breed — have damaged a research plot at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where 1983 Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock studied Indian corn in the 1940s, according to the New York Times today.

"Officials say they believe that the field was attacked for that very reason," reports the Times. "The destruction, they said, appears to be the latest of several recent incidents across the country in which experimental crops have been destroyed and research centres vandalized by militant environmentalists who oppose the genetic modification of plants. Graffiti denouncing genetic engineering were found scrawled near the trampled rows."