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 …
IF YOUR heart is in the wrong place, perhaps a gene is responsible for it. Researchers have recently identified a gene that plays a major role in deciding whether the internal organs in mice should be assigned to the right or left of the body and this has initiated the …
LINKING together individual molecules to make complicated structures, much in the same way as children playing with Lego, chemists are now trying to construct materials whose properties they can fix beforehand. At least half a dozen groups in USA, Canada, Europe and Australia are assembling large arrays of molecules to …
WHILE CHOOSING a fabric, fingers may be the best judge of a cloth's quality, but they are not reliable in predicting the cloth's behaviour after it is tailored. Now, a mathematical technique called fuzzy-set theory, may enable textiles to be designed according to predetermined attributes related to comfort and performance …
THE JUNGLES of Vietnam hide a hitherto undescribed mammal. Basing their claim on remains such as skins, skulls and teeth recovered from local hunters, zoologists reckon an adult specimen of the mysterious mammal -- named Pseudoryx nghetnhensis -- weighs about 100 kg, is 80-90 cm high at the shoulder and …
A tree testifying against a murder suspect? But that's exactly what happened recently in the US -- a "genetic fingerprint" from two seedpods found in the suspect's truck was found to be identical to that of a paloverde tree at the site of the murder (Science, Vol 260, No 5110). …
IS THERE a tenth planet in our solar system? Astronomers who have observed Uranus and Neptune deviate from their calculated orbits, attribute such irregularities to the gravitational pull of an unknown planet, usually referred to as Planet X (Nature, Vol 363, No 6424). But Myles Standish of the Jet Propulsion …
LIFE IMITATES art more than art imitates life, said Oscar Wilde. His statement was borne out recently when US scientists re-enacted in their laboratory the plot of Steven Spielberg's latest film, Jurassic Park, which shows dinosaurs being re-created from their DNA, procured from the blood sucked by mosquitoes and preserved …
FIVE YEARS ago, 52-year-old Don Nelson could barely walk because Parkinson"s disease had reduced him to a cripple. But today, thanks to the foetal-tissue therapy that he underwent in 1988, he is up and about, takes less medication and can once again indulge his passion for wood-carving. The new world …
US SCIENTISTS are making the most elaborate efforts yet to detect gravitational waves, which are the distortions in the fabric of space and time predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. These waves are produced during violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two neutron stars or …
TWO US oceanographers have used powerful supercomputers to perform the best-ever simulation of the world's ocean movements -- an important step towards forecasting how changes in ocean circulation will affect global climate over the next century. Albert Semtner of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and Robert Chervin of the …
PARASITIC flies that lay eggs in bumble-bees would not be so smug if they knew that the bees have a way of hitting back. Entomologists say parasitised bumble-bees render their abdomens inhospitable to fly larvae development by staying outdoors in the cold all night. Swiss researchers C B Muller and …
ANTS ARE hindering the return of forests on millions of hectares of abandoned pastures in Brazil by feeding on seeds of trees. According to a team of Brazilian and American researchers, two ant species -- Pheidole puttemansi and Solenopsis aurea found in the grasslands -- are voracious consumers of tree …
Cables as messengers of information between computers are on their way out. A cableless computer network called WaveLAN, in which each computer is provided with an antenna that picks up data in the form of radiowaves, was launched recently in Britain (New Scientist, Vol 138, No 1874). The new technology …
Two British consultants have developed an underwater pump that can irrigate riverside fields without using fuel or causing pollution. The prize-winning turbine is easy to construct and can work continuously (Ceres 141, Vol 26, No 3). Originally designed to harness the energy of the Nile to irrigate the desert areas …
WANT A healthy heart? Then eat a lot of walnuts. Just 28 grams of walnuts a day would be perfect, recommends a recent study that found the nuts to be an excellent source of heart-friendly fatty acids. And, to boot, walnuts do not contain any cholesterol (The Lancet, Vol 341, …
ARTHUR Nonomura, an American scientist-turned-farmer, may usher in another green revolution with his discovery that methanol (or methyl alcohol), traditionally thought to be toxic to plants, can stimulate crop growth in hot and dry regions. "I think it's going to save the world," says Andrew Benson of Scripps Institution of …
EVEN AS Calcutta's transport authorities plan to phase out the tram, it is making a comeback in other parts of the world as technology's solution for a low-cost, non-polluting urban transport system. British firm JPM Parry and Associates has developed a modern tramway system, which does not require overhead wires …
ELECTRICITY may soon be used to clean up chemical-contaminated soils using a new technology, which has been developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The technology, which is expected to be put on trial by the end of next year, will cost about $25 per tonne. Current …
SUFFERING from chronic asthma? Try swallowing a live fish and you may never wheeze again. For more than 150 years now, thousands of people have been gathering once every year in a bylane in the old city of Hyderabad, to avail of a secret herbal medicine that is placed inside …
MILK PRODUCERS in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri district have designed a portable, insulated biogas plant that produces enough gas for three hours of cooking per day. The one cubic metre capacity prototype, developed by the Nilgiri District Cooperative Milk Producer's Union, is a miniature of the now-famous, floating-dome type of biogas …
