Four Chinese nationals have been charged with visa fraud after revelations that they sent information on the layout of US labs and research carried out by colleagues back to China.

The Department of Justice also released the names of two Chinese researchers who allegedly acted against US interests.

The Department of Justice plans to require cheek swabs at the border, with the data then entered in a national criminal database.

The researcher stole genetically modified seeds and planned to give them to a crop research institute in China, the US Justice Department says.

The hacking involved data belonging to thousands of professors at 320 institutions worldwide.

As part of a $4.5 billion settlement with the federal government over the catastrophic 2010 oil spill, BP will continue to fund research in the Gulf of Mexico.