From the telegraph
Future criminals could be identified as toddlers
Tantrums and lack of self control in toddlers is a sign they may grow up to be drugs addicts and criminals, claims research.

Badly behaved children as young as three are also the most prone to financial and health problems in adulthood.
Researchers believe that identifying youngsters at such an early age could be a cheap way of tackling a range of issues from drug abuse to prison overcrowding.

The long term study followed more than 1,000 children in New Zealand through their lives to see if there was a connection between early behaviour and success in adulthood.

The youngsters were assessed by teachers, parents, observers and the participants themselves on a range of measures including "low frustration tolerance, lacks persistence in reaching goals, difficulty sticking with a task, overactive, acts before thinking, has difficulty waiting turn, restless, not conscientious".

They were then followed up later in life to see how they had turned out.

Prof Terrie Moffitt and Prof Avshalom Caspi, of Duke University, North Carolina, said the impulsivity and relative inability to think about the long-term gave them more difficulty with finances, like savings, home ownership and credit card debt.
They also were more likely to be single parents, have a criminal conviction record, and be dependent on alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and harder drugs.

The New Zealand children with low-self control were more likely to make poor choices as adolescents including taking up smoking, having unplanned pregnancies and dropping out of school.

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FROM DAILY MAIL

The rice with human genes
By SEAN POULTER
Last updated at 08:57 06 March 2007

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.

The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.

Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhoea, a major killer in the Third World.

The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.

The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars.
The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this."

Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.

"If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers' plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating.
"The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain.

"The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause."

In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.


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