Bananas genetically modified by QUT researchers to be higher in vitamin A are being grown in Uganda in a breakthrough initiative hoped to save the lives of thousands of east African children a year.

There is a fearful irony to recent news of flooding at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. This was supposed to be humanity’s most impregnable bulwark against famine, but it is now endangered by global warming, one of the very threats that it was supposed to protect us from.

Scientists at DPI’s Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute have unearthed genes in canola that boost resistance to major disease threat blackleg, paving the way for new canola varieties with “durable resistance” to blackleg fungal attack.

The yellow Cavendish banana is ubiquitous. But a global monoculture of these genetically identical plants leaves the variety vulnerable to disease. Now researchers have the tools to identify and transfer ‘resistance genes’ and are working towards hardier, better Cavendish crops.

Bugs that survive insecticides grow stronger. And discovering new, effective toxins through genetics is time-consuming – finding the nexus between a particular bug and its poison can take decades. Now, scientists at Massachusetts’ Harvard University are using advanced PACE technology speed up the search for new Bt toxins to kill insecticide-resistant super-bugs.

Almond trees that fertilise themselves, resist disease and produce more, higher-nutrient, better-tasting nuts? Yes, it is possible, say Uni of Adelaide researchers – and the first such trees could be on the market by 2016.