New research by the University of Plymouth has found more than 200 measures to protect sharks and rays across the 22 coastal states of the Mediterranean region. However, while elasmobranchs have made it onto many policy agendas, the study found considerable differences in how effectively any legislation was being monitored with no single source for tracking progress in the conservation and management of sharks at national levels.

Genome editing with CRISPR-Cas is often associated with the induction of mutations. However, a team of researchers from the Swiss University of Lausanne now shows that it can also be used to repair natural mutations.

A new study, co-led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher, set out to identify the most effective strategies for helping people quit vaping. The findings, published today in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, suggest that varenicline, a prescription medication often used to help people stop smoking, and text message-based interventions can help people quit.  

So-called "phantom agents" are suspected pathogens that have been reported in scientific literature going back to the early 1900s with no real evidence they exist. Most of these phantom agents were described before modern molecular techniques, and there are no samples or genome sequences available to study them. Despite the lack of evidence of their existence, the suspected pathogens made their way into international regulations that control the shipment of plant materials. The result is a confusing mix of real and phantom agents on regulatory lists that must be ruled out by the sender before plants can be shipped from country to country. In a Plant Disease article recently published by the American Phytopathological Society, Ioannis Tzanetakis at the Arkansas Clean Plant Center and co-authors from more than 40 countries identify phantom agents in eight crops that still appear on regulated pathogen lists even though there is no way to accurately test for them.

A new €3 million EU research project led by University College Dublin (UCD) Centre for Digital Policy will explore the benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a societal perspective in order to enhance AI capabilities and EU regulatory frameworks.