WHO, UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF have partnered to create a new compendium of 500 actions aimed at reducing death and diseases driven by environmental risk factors, the first such resource to unite this expertise
Owing to the increasing mobile towers atop residential buildings, schools, hostels and hospitals, the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has decided that they will not allow indiscriminate installation of mobile towers atop newly planned buildings as the electromagnetic radiation emitted by them are harmful for human body.
Ionizing radiations are a grave threat around the high background regions of the globe. Selected pockets of Brazil, China and India are reportedly under the grip of high background radiation. Presence of monazite sand along the beaches of these regions, among other factors, has contributed to these dreaded radiations. Recent studies have indicated the availability of monazite deposits throughout the erstwhile South Travancore region comprising parts of Kerala, and Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu.
The police tried to stop anguished relatives from streaming into one of the worst affected areas of China's massive earthquake on Sunday, as another strong aftershock hit the area and the death toll rose to nearly 32,500. Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating 7.9 magnitude quake, and officials are concerned the tremors could bring down more unstable buildings and rupture already leaky dams. Six days after the main quake hit, the overall death toll stands at nearly 32,500, state news agency Xinhua reported, with a further 220,000 injured.
China is on precautionary alert against possible radiation leaks from the deadliest earthquake to hit the country in three decades, according to a government website. The disaster area is home to China's chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power stations. Minister of environmental protection Zhou Shengxian convened an emergency meeting late on Monday, hours after the 7.9 magnitude tremor rocked the southwestern province of
Peering far: Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST can detect faint infrared radiation coming from very distant sources in the universe. The James Webb Telescope, the next step after the Hubble Space Telescope, is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013. It will find the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems.
ALMOST without exception, scientists and policy makers agree that hybrid vehicles are good for the planet. To a small but insistent group of skeptics, however, there is another, more immediate question: Are hybrids healthy for drivers? There is a legitimate scientific reason for raising the issue. The flow of electrical current to the motor that moves a hybrid vehicle at low speeds (and assists the gasoline engine on the highway) produces magnetic fields, which some studies have associated with serious health matters, including a possible risk of leukemia among children.
Tropospheric ozone contributes significantly to human-induced greenhouse warming. Calculations from satellite measurements of spectral radiance suggest that ozone in the upper troposphere caused an average reduction in clear-sky outgoing long-wave radiation over the oceans of 0.480.14 W m- 2 for the year 2006 between 45
Among the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, there is one that provokes public anxiety like no other: the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer. Though a link has long been suspected, it has never been proven. Now that seems likely to change.
Astronauts may be at increased risk of premature aging due to exposure to radiation found in space, suggests a study that could have major implications for long-duration space travel. The findings from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Georgetown University Medical Centre in US shows that astronauts may be at increased risk of colon cancer due to exposure to the high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation found in space. The study shows that the high-energy radiation found in space may also lead to premature aging and prolonged oxidative stress in cells.
