A trend of increasing victimization of women and children in situations of war and community violence has emerged in the 20th century. Children are also exposed to violence in their own families, as witnesses of parental violence, targets of physical abuse, and recipients of TV violence. As regards the direct physical effects of violence, children's injuries are no different from those of adults, while indirect effects comprise increases in, for instance, malnutrition. Psychological effects of danger include post-traumatic stress disorder and maladaptations, such as aggression, cognitive impairment, and truncated moral development. Different scenes of violence are interrelated. The cycle of violence lives its own life, but breaking up the cycle is not a hopeless task.

Nationalism as a historical phenomenon should be reassessed in light of the re-emergence of nationalism, and national conflicts, in post-communist societies. Democratic values and the mechanisms of the free market are not the only issues central to the political discourse of these societies, and issues of national identity and historical memory sometimes take precedence. Both the legacy of the way in which communist ideology and practice dealt with nationalism, as well as the void left by the collapse of the whole Lebenswelt fostered by communist regimes should be seen as contributing to the role played by nationalism in these emerging societies.

Gene therapy makes use of cloned DNA molecules as pharmaceutical agents aimed at the treatment of both inherited genetic disease as well as acquired disorders such as cancer and viral infections. A major hurdle to be overcome in this approach is the introduction of genes into cells. Both viral and non-viral vectors have been used as ‘gene ferries’ and the design of vectors with desired specificities is under way. Today, the field has reached a stage where one can safely say that the principle of gene therapy has been proven and has been shown to represent a realistic therapy for patients, but much development is still required, especially in the area in in vivo gene transfer.

The experimental observations and techniques upon which the ‘Recombinant DNA’ revolution was founded are introduced; these often came from esoteric research, but nevertheless have promoted a dramatic change in both biotechnology and our molecular understanding of eukaryotic organisms. The basic approaches to the cloning and analysis of foreign genes in E. coli are described, followed by some indication of how the technologies continue to evolve, thereby enabling the current attack on major problems in agriculture and medicine.

This critical essay is addressed to those Western intellectuals who draw the conclusion that contemporary development in post-communist countries is dominated primarily by the growth of irrational and destructive nationalism. A number of terminological and methodological misunderstandings are pointed out. Nation-forming has occurred in the form of national movements, a type which started from a non-dominant ethnic group and not from an Early—Modern state-nation. Such development towards a modern nation was prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe, although it is also found in Western and Northern parts of Europe. This type of nation-forming resulted in some permanent characteristics and stereotypes which developed typically in the members of ‘small nations’. It is necessary to discriminate in the use of the term, nationalism: we must recognize that national identity is different from nationalism. Ideas about real or partially imagined national interests accompany the existence of every (and hence also East European) nation. The process of education toward a European identity cannot ignore the existence of nations as a sociological fact with regard to the post-communist countries. The decision about the inclusion of these countries in the European identity does not only depend on the members of these nations, but also on whether the West will cease to perceive the small post-communist countries as mere accidental foci of ‘nationalism’ and the recipients of economic aid.

The article concerns group-and-culture-related manifestations of interpersonal violence and aggression in children and youths. It is well documented that the intensity of aggressive behaviour in children depends more on the socio-cultural environment in which they live in than on their sex per se. One typical form of group-related violence is bullying/victimization in schools. Violence and hostility against some members of the ingroup and outgroups can develop as a result of a threat to positive social identity of the individual's own group. However, such social groups as juvenile delinquent gangs are organized/integrated around hostile and violent activities as basic values. The juvenile delinquent gang is a product of several societal processes and structural influences, which include socio-demographic factors as well as a criminal subculture. Several socio-normative conditions, i.e. disorganization of social life, diffusion of responsibility, moral approval of aggression, are important prerequisites of violence and aggression escalation in the world of young people.

Transgenic animals are organisms in which permanent gene modifications have been experimentally introduced into their germline. Most knowledge of modern biology relating to the tissue-specific regulation of genes and their function in development and diseases stems from studies using transgenic mice. Transgenic technology also offers the unique opportunity for generating animal models for human diseases and for producing large quantities of biomedically important proteins in farm animals. Furthermore, the recent development of ‘gene switches’ regulating gene expression in a temporal and/or tissue-specific manner opens up new possibilities for the study of gene function in the context of the whole animal.

We can now genetically engineer many of the world's major crop plants. Generally, transformation strategies based on the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens are used to generate transgenics, although success in cereal and legume transformation has been achieved by the introduction of DNA by particle bombardment. Plants have now been engineered to be tolerant of herbicides, produce fruit storable for prolonged periods, be resistant to insect predation and fungal pathogens, as well as have changed biochemical characteristics. Plant transformation can itself be used as a means of isolating genes from plants by gene tagging and this may provide a means of isolating plant genes of agronomic value. These advances, coupled with the recent demonstration of the ability of plants to produce novel pharmaceuticals and biodegradable plastics, have the potential to revolutionize agricultural practice, as well as to increase our knowledge of plant growth and development.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international project to map, clone and determine the nucleotide sequence of the entire human genome. The estimated length of our genome is 3 × 109 nucleotide pairs and contains approximately 70000 to 100000 genes and a large amount of extragenic DNA. A dense linkage map produced with highly polymorphic markers has already been constructed and a physical map of overlapping cloned DNA fragments has been achieved for nearly 90% of the human genome. A partial nucleotide sequence for about half the human genes is in public databases (with full-length sequences for over 4200 genes) but only approximately 0.4% of the entire human genome has been sequenced. It is the goal of the HGP to determine the full human nucleotide sequence by the year 2005. The HGP has already made, and will continue to make, important contributions to medicine in the understanding of the pathogenesis of disorders, accurate diagnosis and realization of effective, logical treatment. The ethical, legal and social aspects of the HGP are numerous and complex; funding for the consideration, debate and resolution, and thus the ability to use the information from the HGP for the benefit of medicine and all society is included in the HGP.

The publisher wishes to apologise for a printing error on page 318 of Volume 3, Issue 4. The photograph of a male-sterile corn plant compared with a normal, male-fertile plant was inadvertently printed upside down.