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The companies announced a $1.5 billion research and development collaboration that, over a decade or more, could deliver hundreds of varieties of genetically modified corn, soybeans, cotton and canola.

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A unit of BASF uses computers and robotics to measure more than 1,000 important chemicals that plants produce. It can track changes in the chemicals to see how a plant functions differently with the addition or subtraction of a particular gene. And it can do so quickly on many plant samples, said Peter Oakley, a member of BASF’s Board of Executive Directors responsible for Agriculture, Health and Nutrition.

With this technology, Monsanto “has just connected a firehose to our pipeline,” Grant said. He promised product development “more, better, faster.”

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Europe’s concern over global warming and demand for renewable fuels from plant sources could outweigh apprehension about biotech crops, said Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California-Davis. “If the benefits are appealing, the people in surveys say they would consider biotech crops,” she said.

If the world is to produce enough crops to feed people and livestock, while providing corn for ethanol and soybeans for biodiesel, farmers will need high-yielding biotech crops, the companies said.

“This collaboration brings something to the table that European farmers need just as much as American farmers, and that’s yield increases,” Oakley said. “It will become very, very difficult long term for European farmers to remain competitive without access to these technologies. … It’s a door opener in Europe.”

Fraley called yield “the Holy Grail of agricultural research — in part, because it has historically been one of the most complex characteristics to dissect scientifically. Today, we have the tools to tackle that opportunity,” Fraley said.

The benefits could extend around the world, Grant said.

In suburbs like this one, officials are installing alarms, fixing broken windows and mowing lawns at the vacant houses in hopes of preventing a snowball effect, in which surrounding property values suffer and worried neighbors move away. The officials are also working with financially troubled homeowners to renegotiate debts or, when eviction is unavoidable, to find apartments.

“It’s a tragedy and it’s just beginning,” Mayor Judith H. Rawson of Shaker Heights, a mostly affluent suburb, said of the evictions and vacancies, a problem fueled by a rapid increase in high-interest, subprime loans.

But in Los Angeles, where having a car is as essential as owning a home, many are sleeping in their vehicles to ensure a roof over their head.

Campaigners for the homeless expect more to hole up in their cars as they lose homes due to the problems that have dogged “subprime mortgages” – those granted to low-earners with little capital of their own.

The trend comes despite the fact that sleeping in a car is illegal in the Los Angeles area.

“The subprime meltdown is the kind of situation that pushes people into cars. It’s a very common story,” said Ruth Hollman, of Self-Help And Recovery Exchange, a group that helps homeless people.

Advocates hope Los Angeles will adopt programmes in place in cities such as Eugene, Oregon, and Santa Barbara, California, that enable people to live in cars while receiving services they need to get back on track.

“It’s an old saying in social services that most people are one to six paychecks away from being homeless. But if you can’t make your mortgage, it’s more like a month or two,” said William Wise, of the relief agency St Vincent de Paul of Eugene, which works to find overnight parking spots for homeless people.

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist’s trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that “the very existence of beekeeping is at stake.”

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn’t abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case — including the mere fact that I received an NSL — from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.