Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
Incinerating unrecyclable waste plastic is environmentally the most benign way of disposing of it, new experiments show (New Scientist, Vol 143, No 1932). Europe's Association of Plastic Manufacturers incinerated municipal waste containing 3 different proportions of plastics -- without added plastic, with 7.5 per cent extra plastic and with 15 …
PLANTS have been doing it for millions of years now, but it is only now that scientists are tasting success in trapping the sun"s energy in chemicals and then using it to produce fuels. Plants and some bacteria harness solar energy through photosynthesis. But scientists trying to tap almost unlimited …
NOURISHING fodder, nutrition for the soil and brilliant yellow flowers from a plant that suppresses weeds and several pests. All this, for peanuts. Literally. Although the common peanut, Arachis hypogaea, remains a major source of oil and protein for most of the Third World, scientists are now promoting it as …
THE last of the woolly mammoths -- an ancient elephant look-alike -- disappeared somewhere in Siberia around 10,000 years ago. This widely accepted fact was challenged last year when new fossil finds from Wrangel island in the Arctic Ocean suggested a miniature version of the mammoth was very much around …
SO FAR, a great deal of US space exploration has been the hegemony of massive spacecraft such as those used in the Apollo moon exploration programme, the Voyager flybys of the outer planets and the latest Galileo and Cassini missions. However, a severe resource crunch is compelling the National Aeronautics …
BEAVERS, known for their ingenuity at damming small streams using branches, are unwittingly contributing to global warming (New Scientist, Vol 142, No 1931). Beaver ponds flood low-lying areas and, like wetlands, cause the decay of submerged vegetation, which produces the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide. But Joseph Yavitt and …
STRANGE as it may sound, research projects aimed at saving small populations of endangered species may have actually helped sign their death sentences. This possibility is being seriously examined by researchers probing the extinction of packs of wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), which were the subject of a scientific study between …
A STUDY carried out by a team of researchers in Belgium has found a significant relationship between renal disorders and cadmium pollution (The Lancet, Vol 343, No 8912). The study was carried out on 703 randomly selected residents in 10 districts, 6 of which are close to zinc smelters that …
MEN with low sperm counts should insist on organic agricultural products. A Danish study of 41 male organic farmers showed they had a significantly higher sperm count than blue-collar workers. The average consumption of organic dairy products of 28 of these farmers was at least 50 per cent during the …
SWEET potato produces more biomass and nutrients per ha than any other food crop, but only now has it become the focus of sustained scientific research. Recognising its potential as a source of food, animal feed and industrial raw material, scientists around the world are now exploring its properties to …
SCIENTISTS at the University of California at Berkeley in the US have developed a method that cuts to 1/10th the cost of cleaning up nitrogen oxides produced when fossil fuels are burned (Nature, Vol 369, No 6476). The new technology is also environmentally less harmful than the techniques currently used …
Millions of years ago, some adventurous amphibians left their watery abode, forayed on to beaches and evolved into reptiles that started laying eggs on dry land, breaking away from their ancestors, who laid eggs in fresh water. The reptile eggs were shrouded by a special fluid-membrane called the amniotic membrane, …
Apart from massively polluting the air, 4-wheelers present another environmental problem -- the annual disposal of billions of litres of engine oil that need to be replaced every 4,800 km for cars and every 32,000 km for trucks. Engineers at the Florida-based TF Purifiner Inc, recently devised an oil-cleaning system …
Plants have long been known as air purifiers, but now Paul Jackson, a microbiologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is using plant cells to purify liquids contaminated with heavy metals like barium and uranium, and with the residue of explosives like TNT. Jackson's "green filter" consists of a silica-based powder …
Rats and mice used for cancer tests in the US may soon have a diet regimen. Studies show that modern lab rats are about 25 per cent heavier than their ancestors were 20 years ago, which has caused a rise in the natural incidence of mammary and pituitary tumours, interfering …
A carnivorous pack of bacteria has struck terror in parts of the US and Europe. Known as group A streptococcus, the bacteria, say researchers, can cause a fatal drop in blood pressure, toxic shock and organ failure. In their most macabre form, they eat away human flesh. Over the past …
Are we alone in this vast universe? Perhaps. Perhaps not. However, those who believe in the plurality of life have so far had little luck in their search for extraterrestrial intelligence. But recently, astronomers at the University of Illinois in Urbana, USA, detected one of life's building materials, the amino …
To understand the complexity of life, biologists are busy deciphering its language, encoded in structures called chromosomes. Two years ago, scientists announced the first-ever map of how the genetic script -- a sequence of chemical molecules that make up the life-giving DNA -- of chromosome III of the yeast Saccharomyces …
A NEW drug to treat thalassaemia -- a genetically transmitted children's blood disorder that causes the rapid destruction of red blood cells leading to anaemia -- is set to hit the Indian market. Developed by George J Kontoghiorghes at the haematology department of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine …
IF YOU fail to respond to a drug, it could be because your body is smashing it up without so much as a hello. Scientists have known for some time now that this happens particularly with drugs that mimic proteins. These drugs usually occur in 2 molecular forms -- one …
