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 …
SHORTAGE of space is a familiar lament of city folk fond of gardening. But now, architect Gosta Nilsson has found a novel way to make walls using hollow concrete blocks that could be filled with sand and manure for plants to grow in. These "growing" walls would be ideal around …
WHEN CITIZENS of Arcata, on Humboldt Bay in northern California, were faced with the need to treat the industrial waste water and sewage that had been pouring into the bay for decades, they decided against building a $30 million chemical treatment plant and chose instead to spend $5 million on …
CANCERS occur when some cells break free from the body's control and multiply prolifically. That's the classical view. But now there is a new way of looking at cancer -- it may be because cells are not dying fast enough. Advocates of this novel view are confident that if death-defying …
VIOLENT aggression in humans may be because of a genetic defect, a recent Dutch study suggests. Han G Brunner and his colleagues at the University Hospital in Nijmegen report that a change in the gene coding for an enzyme called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) may be responsible for unprovoked, aggressive …
AUDIO compact discs (CDs) were only half the story. Electronic entertainment manufacturers are now getting ready to flood the market with high-resolution video CDs that can be played on an audio CD player by simply attaching an adaptor. They are also planning to launch video recorders that can record digital …
AS THE global warming debate heats up, scientists are looking towards the most unlikely source for clues -- penguins. They suspect the availability of fish on which penguins feed is increasing in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, which are warming slightly. Therefore, fatter penguins would indirectly confirm the greenhouse …
DOES A hare flee when it spots a fox? Interestingly, no. Instead, it stands upright and signals its presence by flashing its ventral fur. As a brown hare can run much faster, once the fox knows it has been spotted, it desists from chasing the hare, thereby saving a lot …
SORTING out similar types of plastics from waste may now be possible through a system based on the different ways various plastics reflect a near-infrared light (Environmental Science and Technology, Vol 27, No 7). The different reflection patterns are then analysed by an artificial nerve-like computer programme, which is "trained …
A TEAM of US scientists has developed a technique to enable hand-held computers that work with a pen to recognise handwriting quickly and more accurately than their present level of literacy allows them (Science Vol 260, No 5115). The new system, which has been developed by Rohini Srihari, Stayvis Ng, …
PEOPLE with strong body odour may probably be carrying a faulty gene, according to researchers from London's St Mary's Hospital Medical School. The researchers say they are close to nailing the gene defect because of which the carriers cannot process a chemical called trimethylamine, a product of digestion that smells …
FOR MOST girls, fear emanates from an under-the-bed-world. In an experiment in which children aged three to four years were asked about their night-time fears, significantly more girls than boys referred to an underworld peopled with ogres and monsters, says Richard Coss, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis. …
IN RUDYARD Kipling's The Jungle Book, the sagacious elephant reveals to a rapt animal audience the mystery of the black stripes on the body of Sher Khan, the tiger: They were nothing but bramble scratches. That was Kipling's pigment of imagination. Scientists now believe the designer of colourful patterns on …
ANAMICA, a computer software developed by scientists at the Advanced Numerical Research and Analysis Group (ANURAG) in Hyderabad, is poised to revolutionise medical diagnosis and surgery by producing three-dimensional images of the insides of organs such as the brain, heart and even bones. What ANAMICA -- ANURAG's Medical Imaging and …
SCIENTISTS have discovered a gene that could make a person more prone to developing Alzheimer's disease -- a brain disorder that induces premature senility -- after the age of 65. The suspected gene codes for a protein that transports cholesterol through the bloodstream and researchers have found abnormally high levels …
A GROUP of Japanese companies has developed a robot that can wash and wax 2,000 sq metres of floor in an hour. The machine is first guided around the area to be cleaned, after which it memorises the cleaning route and then automatically washes or waxes the floor, stopping only …
SWEDISH doctors have developed a painkilling device that can be implanted into the spine to relieve patients suffering from angina pectoris -- pain in the chest brought on by exertion and caused by inadequate blood supply to the heart. Clas Mannheimer and his team from Gothenburg claim the device enables …
HEAVY metal music buffs who are compulsive hand-bangers need beware because jerking the head to the beat could cause severe injury to their necks (New Scientist, Vol 139, No 1887). Marilyn Kassirer, a neurologist at the Boston University School of Medicine, studied 11 girls and six boys who admitted to …
TIRED of waste paper baskets full of photocopied waste? Now, you can reuse those sheets of paper, thanks to a machine that erases clean photocopied documents. But Ricoh Co of Japan, which has developed the erasing technique, say their copy eraser is still at the prototype stage. To reverse the …
LEWIS Carroll would have been delighted to put Alice into this wonderland. And James Thurber's Walter Mitty would have found in it an excellent refuge from his importunate wife. Virtual Reality (VR) is the latest in fantasyware -- a three-dimensional, computer-simulated landscape in which, unlike the dreamworld created by novelists …
THE FRUITS of technology are usually publicised much before they become achievable and this seems to be true of the high definition television (HDTV) -- the much-advertised new generation of television -- as well. HDTV promises sharper images and bigger screens as compared to conventional televisions and manufacturers claim it …
