The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Human anthrax is difficult to contain. This is primarily because it is a zoonotic disease and the disease has never been contained in the livestock of India due to lack of adequate vaccination facilities. Animal anthrax is very common in many parts of India. The problem of anthrax is further …
Studies of patterns of antibiotic resistance in large hospitals that maintain regular records reveal that multi-resistance is rampant. We are facing 'an epidemic of antibiotic resistant infections'.
Concerns about antibiotics focus on bacterial resistance — but permanent changes to our protective flora could have more serious consequences, says Martin Blaser.
Coral reefs are in severe decline. Infections by the human pathogen Serratia marcescens have contributed to precipitous losses in the common Caribbean elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, culminating in its listing under the United States Endangered Species Act. During a 2003 outbreak of this coral disease, called acroporid serratiosis (APS), a …
IT WAS not until mid-1900s that scientists woke up to the importance of prebiotics—a non-digestible food ingredients that helps nurture bacteria in human gut. Consequently, nutritionists started recommending foods like whole grains and pulses more often. Now a study suggests that the secrets of nutrition related to prebiotics were well …
Atmospheric methane (CH4) increased through much of the twentieth century, but this trend gradually weakened until a stable state was temporarily reached around the turn of the millennium, after which levels increased once more. The reasons for the slowdown are incompletely understood, with past work identifying changes in fossil fuel, …
European foulbrood disease is a broad disease in honey bees caused by a bacterium, Melissococcus plutonius. By now, various herbal and chemical drugs have been tried to control it. In the present study, the effects of different organic extracts of three different bryophytes and a standard drug (positive control) have …
Soil microbial biomass is the living and active part of soil organic matter, which is re-established after disturbance of the land. Study of recovery time of microbial biomass is important for the development of self-sustaining ecosystem in mine degraded land. Increase in soil microbial biomass and organic carbon contents increases …
Remote lakes are usually unaffected by direct human infl uence, yet they receive inputs of atmospheric pollutants, dust, and other aerosols, both inorganic and organic. In remote, alpine lakes, these atmospheric inputs may infl uence the pool of dissolved organic matter, a critical constituent for the biogeochemical functioning of aquatic …
Cellulosic biomass is an abundant and underused substrate for biofuel production. The inability of many microbes to metabolize the pentose sugars abundant within hemicellulose creates specific challenges for microbial biofuel production from cellulosic material. Although engineered strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae can use the pentose xylose, the fermentative capacity pales in …
HealthDirty truth If you stop your children from eating mud, read this. Craving for earth—geophagy—can be one of the natural ways to protect stomach against pathogens. After studying 480 reports and analysing theories that geophagy is driven by hunger and for nutrients in the soil like iron, zinc or calcium …
THE spectre of superbug still hangs heavily on the residents of Delhi. To make matters worse, another study conducted in the capital has found that cholera bacteria might also be becoming resistant to drugs. Similar results were found in a study conducted at Solapur district of Maharashtra. The studies found …
The Chernobyl accident represents a long-term experiment on the effects of exposure to ionizing radiation at the ecosystem level. Though studies of these effects on plants and animals are abundant, the study of how Chernobyl radiation levels affect prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial communities is practically non-existent, except for a few …
Gut microflora co-evolved with the human evolution, performing health-promoting functions and protection from the enteric pathogens. The long association of the microflora sustained through ages, which in the light of new research, needs specific nutrients that are not required by the humans. The present article revisits the ancient foods and …
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a global pathogen and an important but seldom investigated cause of morbidity and mortality in lower and middle-income countries where it can place a major burden on limited resources. Quantifying nosocomial transmission in resource-poor settings is difficult because molecular typing methods are prohibitively expensive. Mechanistic …
Contamination of aquatic resources by a variety of heavy metals is of growing concern because of health risk posed by the exposure to flora and fauna as well as human being. The vast majority of toxic metals are the waste products/by products of industrial and metallurgical processes. Other possible sources …
BACTERIA could be the new hero in the fight against the spread of malaria. Researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US have demonstrated how two different bacteria can halt the growth of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria. It is estimated that the …
IT IS a case of deadly food poisoning. Caused by a new strain of Escherichia coli bacterium, the outbreak has sickened over 2,000 people in the EU in the past month. At least 25 succumbed to the disease in Germany, the epicentre of the outbreak; more than 600 were hospitalised …
Organic farming must ditch its irrational mistrust of science or risk losing its reputation as being safer and healthier. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028186.200-irradiating-organic-food-would-save-lives.html?full=true&print=true
