“Bitter honey for the GMO lobby,” quips the Tageszeitung on its front page following the ban brought down by the European Court of Justice on honey containing traces – even minute ones – of genetically modified organisms. “The ruling is a slap in the face for the European Commission, which has left no stone unturned for years to help transgenic agriculture break through into the market – against the wishes of consumers,” writes the TAZ. “

In Brussels, other proposals for directives are still in the drawers. But with this ruling the Court of Justice has reminded the EU that things are not ‘as simple as that,’” writes the TAZ, which is pleased with the ruling. For the alternative Berlin daily, the decision will slow the “creeping contamination of our food” by GMOs. Importing honey from the United States, Canada, Argentina or Brazil, countries with no regulations on the subject, will now be virtually impossible.

"Vatican accuses Nobel", headlines Corriere della Sera. On 4 October, the Nobel prize for medicine was awarded to Robert Edwards, the British biologist who pioneered IVF in the late 70s. The news has made all Italian front pages because of harsh criticism from Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of Pontificial Academy for Life. "A misguided choice", he lamented. "Without Edwards… there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world." But even centrist and Catholic-friendly Corriere sides with Stockholm: "It's a hugely deserved prize", declares geneticist Edoardo Boncinelli. "Those who oppose this choice don't understand Edwards' fundamental contribution to the promotion of life".

“100 clone cows on UK farms,” headlines the Daily Mail, following revelations that milk from a cow born to a clone has illegally gone into high street shops without special labelling. The London daily further reports that eight direct offspring of the cloned cow have gone on to produce a further 97 animals: “Worryingly for opponents of clone farming, there is currently no legislation against meat and milk from this next generation being supplied to UK consumers without special labelling.”

In the Guardian, science author Johnjoe McFadden argues that fear of GM milk is “more science fiction than fact.” “But the fact is that millions of tons of GM food (mostly crops) have been consumed by people around the world for more than a decade. As far as is known, no one has ever died or even got sick from eating GM food.”

“And man made life,” leads The Economist, following the announcement on 20 May, in the pages of Science, that genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter and his team have created the first ever synthetic life form. The new organism is based on a bacterium that causes mastitis in goats, but at its core is a synthetic genome entirely constructed from “off-the-shelf laboratory chemicals”. “In the end”, the London weekly quips, “there was no castle, no thunderstorm and definitely no hunchbacked cackling lab assistant.” Frankenstein jokes aside, a new era for humanity has begun, it now being possible “to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.” Practical applications could include bacteria that produce biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines. Whatever our reservations that we are tampering with the creation, “for good or ill it is here”, the Economist leader notes. “Creating life is no longer the prerogative of gods.”

Scientists have created human sperm in the laboratory for the first time, reports the Independent. The breakthrough, achieved using stem cells derived from a human embryo, raises hopes that infertile men will one day father their own biological children. And also brings up ethical questions about the future role of men. If the finding is confirmed, the London daily continues, one single male embryo could theoretically yield an unlimited supply of sperm, meaning there would be no “reproductive need for men”. One scientist behind the project points out, however, that this would happen “only if you want to produce a population all the same size and shape.” The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates research, has estimated that it will be at least five or 10 years before such sperm could be produced and used in treatment.