Genetically engineered yeast have been designed to produce medicines, flavorings and other useful things.

Although "in principle" the substances that are made ought to be safe, that can have exceptions — and each case is a different issue.

Can we stop using disposable plastic cutlery by bringing our own?

It will be hard for travelers to do this unless they can bring their cutlery onto an airplane. Given that there is no real danger in this, the TSA ought to permit it.

The negotiations with Iran seem to have failed over a rather small disagreement, which gives hope that further discussions could bridge the gap.

The Philippine government is planning how it will cope when global heating gets even worse.

But since that will become impossible in a few decades, it is also pushing for strong action to curb global heating.

A designer drug could give the pleasure of alcohol without some of the damage.

This new drug might be less addictive than alcohol, but that's not automatic. Addiction results from the body's physiological adaptation to the effects of the drug. Whichever receptors respond to the new drug as they do to alcohol, they would tend to adapt and produce addiction. Meanwhile, whichever body systems are not affected by the new drug would not develop addiction; that might reduce the total addictive effect, but how much that occurs would have to be seen.