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 …
The solar powered UV disinfection plant was developed and installed at Haiderpur Waterworks, Delhi Jal Board. It was evaluated for treatment of microbial contamination of western Yamuna canal water for different microbial count and turbidity and flow rates.
With the view to promote organic farming practices to reduce the burden on Chemical Fertilizers, to ensure effective utilization of farm resources and to cater domestic and international growing Organic Food Market, a National Project on Organic Farming was launched during 10th Plan with an outlay of Rs.115.00 crores. The …
The union health ministry is finalising the national antibiotics policy to check indiscriminate use of drugs. The move comes close on the heels of the detection of multi-drug resistant bacteria, dubbed superbug, in foreign patients who underwent treatment in India and Pakistan; it was reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases …
Biodiversity is rapidly declining, and this may negatively affect ecosystem processes, including economically important ecosystem services. Previous studies have shown that biodiversity has positive effects on organisms and processes4 across trophic levels. However, only a few studies have so far incorporated an explicit food-web perspective. In an eight-year biodiversity experiment, …
The dehydrogenase activity (DHA) has been proposed as a measure of overall microbial activity and used as index of the soil microbial biomass. DHA is measured by two methods using TTC and INT as substrate, however, various authors reported poor results when TTC is used as substrate.
Purpose of this policy paper is to invoke general awareness about the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in agriculture and its impact on human health and terrestrial environment. Growth promoting properties of antibiotics in farm animals were first discovered in the late 1940’s in chickens and pigs. Feeding of sub-therapeutic doses …
In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and …
The efficacy of Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) based on activated sludge process employed for treatment of tannery effluent was analyzed for the efficiency to reduce chromium and other contaminants. Physico-chemical parameters of treated effluent were found within permissible levels of statutory limits. A significant reduction in COD and BOD …
HUMAN gut is host to numerous species of bacteria that enhance metabolism, protect against pathogens and prime our immune system to fight diseases. Dietary habits determine the diversity of this bacterial flora. Understanding this interplay is important as it controls the abilities of our gastrointestinal tracts. With increased use of …
THE pathogenic bacterium Salmonella has a protective role too: it enhances the cancer-fighting ability of the body. Researchers from Italy and Russia tested the bacterium on melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer that has no effective treatment. Their experiment was centred on the function of connexin 43 protein, that …
Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. If even at a large dose, the antibiotic is not effective in treating an infection, then the microorganism that is responsible for the infection is declared resistant to that antibiotic. Antibiotic resistance is a global …
The dramatic increase in use of antibiotics by farmers over the past decade may be spreading antibiotic-resistant bugs from farm animals to the food chain.
Antibiotics can cause long-lasting changes in the bacteria living in the human gut. As changes in gut flora could increase the risk of some chronic diseases, such as inflammatory bowel syndrome, each course of antibiotics may represent a trade-off between short-term benefit and long-term risk. Les Dethlefsen and David Relman …
THE little brown bat seen roosting in the eaves of buildings, crevices in trees and caves across North America could go extinct by 2026. So could several other bat species. Researchers warn that a cold-loving fungus is quietly attacking the bats in hibernation, waking them up in mid-winter. Once they …
A DRUG-RESISTANT bacteria dubbed superbug has triggered a debate. A gene—New Delhi metallo-beta lactamase (NDM 1)— transforms some bacteria found in the gut, like Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, into superbugs. They are resistant to all antibiotics, except tigecycline and colistin, said a study published in the August 11 issue …
Bacteria regularly evolve antibiotic resistance, but little is known about this process at the population level. Here, a continuous culture of Escherichia coli facing increasing antibiotic levels is followed. Most isolates taken from this population are less antibiotic resistant than the population as a whole. A few highly resistant mutants …
The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2010 provides a wide range of indicators covering various areas of intellectual property: patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs and microorganisms. It presents statistics on microorganisms for the first time, and introduces a variety of new patent-based indicators (for example, academic patents by field of …
Bacteria are amongst the most adaptable organisms on Earth. Long evolutionary timescales, extremely short generation times, exposure to the most diverse and often hostile environments, together with the remarkable power of natural selection have made microorganisms the most resilient of life forms on this planet. In the last few days …
