Professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute will deliver the Rubbo Oration at this year's Australian Society of Microbiology (ASM) annual meeting, being held in Melbourne next week.

Wei wins premier award for early-career researchers.

With the lifting of two moratoria on genetically modified crops in Australia recently, so did the inevitably polarised debate take off. Those for and against are unlikely to change their minds and, unfortunately, some scientists are now afraid to speak theirs.