The application of genetic engineering to food crops is controversial, and rightly so. Critics worry that changing genetics may have harmful, unanticipated effects on food safety and the environment.

Scientists like to say that their work usually proceeds two steps forward and one step back. But sometimes that’s optimistic. Case in point: A scientific effort I’ve been writing about since 2010, the ...

CRESSONA — Seeds lying deep inside a sleepy hillside orchard could play a crucial role in the regeneration of the embattled American chestnut tree. Early Friday morning, a team of volunteers dropped ...

Sara Fitzsimmons fights to resurrect a tree that once ruled the eastern U.S. forests. Billions of American chestnut trees once shaped life in Appalachia, but a foreign fungus erased them in a matter ...

Sunlight filtered through the overstory of a thick Pennsylvania forest and a few rays fell upon the long, serrated leaves of the American chestnut trees down below. The higher Mike Manes, 78, hiked, ...