Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of HC Singla Vs State of Punjab dated 31/10/2022. The matter is related to biological pollution by the Susri insect. This pollution is being caused due to decaying grains, due to negligence in storage arrangements of grains by Food Corporation of …
Swarms of locusts in North Africa could be on the verge of threatening crops further south. If a plague were to break out, maize, sorghum, millet and wheat worth us $2 billion could be destroyed. There is a possibility that winds might sweep the breeding pests in Morocco, Algeria, Libya …
genetically modified (gm) insects are being developed at a fast pace for a variety of purposes, but the us government fails to develop a regulatory framework to review the safety of releasing the transgenic beings into the environment. This concern has been raised in a report of the Pew Initiative …
Technology is the new buzzword in the field of entomology. The Oregon State University in the us has received a us $1.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a method for identifying insects. The plan is to use pattern recognition systems of the kind employed by a …
How do pests select which plants to attack in the field? By smelling odours plants emit, believe most entomologists. And an entire industry of pesticides has evolved around this principle, to ensure pests can't get that appetising whiff of the plant they want; insecticides are made to confuse them. But …
an eerie feeling overwhelms you, the moment you step inside a rainforest. There are ants all over, hundreds of thousands of them crawling in the deep woods. The situation becomes creepier if you know they exist in abundance by defying the laws of nature. Ants are supposed to be carnivores, …
model town: Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, is likely to be the northeast region's first planned township. The move to prepare the city's master plan was actually triggered by fears about an impending earthquake and a rapidly expanding hill town that is already bursting at its seams. In stark contrast …
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has not only affected human beings, but has even drastically changed the lives of worms. Scientists have recently discovered that worms exposed to excess radiation have started copulating instead of reproducing asexually. This find is the first clear evidence of how wildlife is affected by radioactive …
bird species now face a wave of extinction not seen on the Earth since the dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute, a us-based research organisation. Pressures from a human population of more than 6.2 billion have put about 12 per …
Southern Mexico's Chiapas state boasts of a bizarre export: radiated flesh-eating flies. Chiapas' capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, is home to an unusual screwworm factory which breeds millions of insects notorious for burrowing into human or animal flesh. In the 1950s us scientists first adopted the method of sterilising the dangerous screwworm …
Bangladesh is planning to conduct an aerial raid on mosquitoes, which are attacking cities in droves. Larvicide will be sprayed from helicopters on an estimated 20 million insects. The country considers the pest its enemy number one. Be it slums or government offices, mosquitoes make their presence felt with their …
THE IRRITABLE HEART: THE MEDICAL MYSTERY OF THE GULF WAR Jeff Wheelwright . W W Norton & Company . New York . 2001 . 427 pages Bill is 46 and a military veteran in the United States. In February 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, he was based north of …
The Bandi river in Rajasthan is dying. Flowing through various villages of Rohet tehsil in Pali district, its water has a reddish hue like red rum. It can no longer be used for irrigation or drinking. "Even animals do not drink this water,' says Gangadhan Charan, a resident of Gadhawara …
The lac dye is bright red. It is derived from insects like cochineal, kermes and lac, also called Kerria lacca. It takes about three lakh insects to yield one kilogramme of dye. These scale insects thrive on a variety of trees and bushes such as kusum (Schleichera oleosa), palash (Butea …
We know the potential, we know the opportunity. We have the necessary diversity and the knowhow. But still, not many plants are in use for extraction of dyes in India. Of 40 species of indigo found in India, only 16 yield the dye and only four are commercially grown in …
Five years ago, Ama Herbal, a Lucknow-based company, quick to see potential in the natural dye industry, started to manufacture natural dyes. “The response was tremendous. Everyone asked us for samples within 15 days of writing to them,” says Y A Shah, the company’s managing director. “But later, everything backfired. …
Many new pest varieties are sneaking into India. To prevent this, a quarantine bill draft is under consideration of the Union ministry for agriculture. Even though the quarantine stations have checked the entry of some diseases, many pests are believed to have made their way into the country due to …
There is a quiet revolution sweeping across the forests of Mexico. The movement seeks to save the endangered Monarch butterfly. Even as millions of these butterflies spend their winters in Mexico yet the government has failed to protect their forest habitat from illegal logging. The 200,000-odd largely impoverished people, who …
mystery continues to shroud the recent sporadic spells of green-coloured rain in Sangrampur village, located in the Basirhat sub-division of West Bengal, with consensus on their actual cause proving elusive. While state environment minister Manab Mukherjee and West Bengal Pollution Control Board (wbpcb) officials have explained away the phenomenon as …
