BBC News:
Most GM plants contain a gene for antibiotic resistance, but there are fears this could transfer to bacteria, making them immune to common drugs.

Researchers from Tennessee say their new method carries no such risk. They use instead a gene which comes from a plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, perhaps the most widely-investigated plant in science; and they have inserted it into tobacco.

The Agricultural Biotechnology Council, the lobby group for GM crop companies in Britain, described the work as "an interesting development"...
The reaction from environmental groups was less enthusiastic...

"I would like to see a science-based approach to the regulation of GM crops," said Professor Stewart...

Democritus: Read more or the full story at BBC News

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ScienceDaily:
According to the Vision for Space Exploration, humans will visit and explore Mars in the decades ahead. Inevitably, they'll want to take plants with them...

On Mars, plants would have to tolerate conditions that usually cause them a great deal of stress --
severe cold,
drought,
low air pressure,
soils that they didn't evolve for.
But plant physiologist Wendy Boss and microbiologist Amy Grunden of North Carolina State University believe they can develop plants that can live in these conditions...

They're some of Earth's earliest life forms--ancient microbes that live at the bottom of the ocean, or deep within Arctic ice. Boss and Grunden hope to produce Mars-friendly plants by borrowing genes from these extreme-loving microbes...

"By using genes from other sources," explains Grunden, "you're tricking the plant, because it can't regulate those genes the way it would regulate its own. We're hoping to [short-circuit] the plant's ability to shut down its own metabolism in response to stress."
If Boss and Grunden are successful, their work could make a huge difference to humans living in marginal environments here on Earth...

Democritus: Read more