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 …
HONDURAN scientists have come up with an ecologically friendly banana and named it Goldfinger. They maintain their banana is hardier than the more common varieties and immune to black sigatoka, one of the two major fungal diseases that attack banana crops. "It (Goldfinger) could just be the saviour of our …
FIVE-DAY-OLD Andrew Gobea became the first newborn to undergo gene therapy when surgeons at a Los Angeles hospital injected him recently with gene-altered cells obtained from his mother's placental blood to cure a usually fatal defect in his immune system. Andrew suffers from bubbly bay disease and lacks an enzyme …
A FORMER British hairdresser, Maurice Ward, who traded his shears in the early 1970s for an executive desk at a plastic-recycling firm that he set up, says he has invented a fireproof plastic called Starlite. Ward says the plastic can withstand temperatures as high as 10,0000 C and can be …
PERHAPS one of the worst fears a woman harbours is that of getting breast cancer, a justifiable fear for, in USA alone, 46,000 women die every year of breast cancer -- and, this rate is increasing by 1 per cent annually. Despite the vast amounts of time and money pumped …
TRADITIONALLY associated with young lovers and new life, spring may soon become a time of worry because new data shows winter depletion of the protective ozone layer over Antarctica begins much earlier than was believed. The data also shows ozone levels over the Northern Hemisphere are falling rapidly. Both findings …
THE EFFICACY of azidothymidine (AZT) in delaying the onset of AIDS symptoms is in serious doubt following a three-year study in Europe, which indicates it makes little difference whether AZT treatment starts early or late. The Anglo-French study, called Concorde, found 29 per cent of the volunteers who took AZT …
PICTURE this: One species invades another to sponge off it and then alters the victim's basic characteristics so it cannot reproduce itself. Finally, the victim adds insult to injury by exploiting the victim's altered biology to perpetuate itself. Bizarre, yes. But this is precisely what happens when Puccinia monoica -- …
A FOUR-tonne stela -- an upright slab usually used as a gravestone -- discovered accidentally by fisherfolk at the small fishing settlement of La Mojarra near Vera Cruz, Mexico, has enabled archaeologists to crack a complex pictorial script widely used in Central America 2,000 years ago. Part of the engravings …
SCIENTISTS have found in the foothills of the Andes mountains the remains of what they contend is the earliest dinosaur. Unlike its giant descendants, the discovery by a US-Argentinian team measured just over a metre from nose to tail-tip and weighed only 11 kg. The newly-found dinosaur has been named …
SHEEP treated with a protein found in the salivary glands of male mice can shed their fleece on their own. Scientists use the protein produced artificially through genetic manipulation in a technique called biological wool harvesting. The technique has been found to be so effective nets have to be put …
AMERICAN physicists are taking increasingly to a computer-based electronic bulletin board developed by physicist Paul Ginsparg that enables them to exchange research information. Physicists can use the system to submit unpublished papers or scan papers submitted by other scientists and they can access the system from anywhere (Science, Vol 259, …
A NEW variety of potato has its own armour against pests and does not need a helping hand from insecticides. Its armour of hair traps and kills insects trying to feed on it (Ceres, Vol 25, No 2). The hairy potato marks the first success for plant breeders trying to …
STRINGENT environmental stipulations and falling quality, due to techniques used to boost production, have resulted in a crisis in the high-tech, $2.8 billion a year Dutch flower industry. Dutch growers are also hurting because of increasing competition from southern European countries, Israel and some developing countries, which has reduced prices …
HEAT ALWAYS flows from a hotter body to a cooler one, according to the second law of thermodynamics. But then why is the Sun's atmosphere hotter, by several million degrees, than its surface where all the energy is generated? Astrophysicist Jack Scudder has furnished an ingenious mechanism to explain how …
AN INDIAN-born biologist, Prafulla K Bajpai, and his colleagues at the University of Dayton, Ohio, have developed a novel drug delivery system that will bypass the harmful side-effects of AZT -- the primary drug used in AIDS treatment. AZT, which is usually taken orally as pills, causes swollen tongues, bleeding …
THIS IS probably one of nature's most intriguing survival games, involving two innocent players and a cunning third who eventually outwited. Caterpillars of the blue butterfly, Maculinea rebeli, masquerade as larvae of the red ant, Myrmica schencki, so that they can obtain free lodging and boarding at the ants' expense. …
THE RESURGENCE of infectious bacterial diseases in the developed world is proof that the battle against them is not over. But there has been no corresponding surge in drug research, because multinationals consider large investments in research to be uneconomical (Science, Vol 257, No 5073). Scientists warn against complacence in …
A RECENT find of fossils may help geologists break through the ice obscuring Antarctica's past. David Harwood of the University of Nebraska and his colleagues have collected fossils of marine molluscs, microscopic organisms and leaves and twigs, all from the Eocene period of 35 to 55 million years ago (Science, …
JAPAN'S Canon company, world-famous for its cameras, has adapted a technique used in making photocopiers to produce cheaper and more efficient solar cells. The technique involves sandwiching amorphous silicon between two layers of amorphous silicon germanium (New Scientist, Vol 137, No 1865). Silicon and germanium are semiconductors, which means while …
THERE seems to be no limit to the miniaturisation of computers, because in the wake of laptops comes pocket-sized computers that allow the user to write on a liquid crystal screen with a special pen and even fax messages. Personal digital assistants (PDAs), as they are called, can store even …
