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 …
WHAT DIRECTIONS are science and technology going to take now that UNCED has put environment on the political agenda? Though they were not very much in the spotlight, many scientists were present in Rio to stress that while the development of science and technology has been held responsible for the …
EVEN AS the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) goes ahead with Delhi's first mass residential colony based on solar passive architecture, architects continue to hold reservations about the project. Officials in the department of science and technology (DST), which is bearing half the project's research and development costs of Rs …
HEPATITIS B is a disease more lethal than AIDS, claiming more lives in a day than the latter does in a year. But now genetic engineering has made possible large-scale production of hepatitis B vaccine at only 2 per cent of the earlier cost. The worldwide Expanded Programme on Immunisation …
NEWS FOR smokers gets worse and worse. According to earlier studies, about one-fourth the number of regular smokers were expected to die of tobacco-related diseases. Latest estimates put the figure at one-third. Richard Peto of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in UK, along with the World Health Organisation and the …
The current drought has spurred Indian agricultural scientists to formulate guidelines for combating different rain scarcity situations -- when rains start late, when they are less than normal, when they taper off early, and when there is a big break in rainfall in between. This exercise will be the first …
EVE MAY not have been the mother of the human race after all. Molecular biologists have been arguing that the genetic components of human beings indicate that all family trees lead back to a single African woman, nicknamed Eve, who lived about 200,000 years ago. But there is a school …
IT'S BEEN a rat race to get the patent. But Harvard University's onco-mouse, a creature designed in a laboratory for cancer research, may still not make it. In mid-May, shortly after the European Patent Office published its patent for this mouse that has been given cancer-causing genes, European green activists …
THE GAS-guzzlers of today may speed their way to extinction as the electric car of the future changes to fourth gear. USA's Advanced Battery Consortium -- formed by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors -- recently awarded Ovonic Battery Company a US $18.5-million contract to develop a battery which will take …
BIOTECHNOLOGY is turning flower farming into a very lucrative profession. Growing middle-class affluence has swelled the demand for ornamental flowers, which have become fashionable at social ceremonies, be it a wedding, a birthday, or a funeral. Doing business in flowers is not something new. It dates back to the 17th …
DIAMONDS may be forever, but the dinosaurs of yore must have wished it otherwise. The glittering jewel is now being held responsible for their extinction. Canadian scientist David Brez Carlisle feels that dinosaurs perished in a storm of diamonds from outer space. This adds a now dimension to the traditional …
AN entirely new breed of detectives has come up in the USA - the forensic entomologists. Detectives were stumped at the discovery of a 34-year-old man's decomposing body,'with a bullet through his neck, in a Washington house completely locked from inside and with no sign of the killer weapon. Till …
AN octopus can learn tasks simply by watching other octopuses at work. This observation has surprised researchers who believed such mental capacities to be the sale preserve of higher vertebrates like mammals. The octopus belongs to the family of molluscs which are invertebrate. Research on Octopus vulgarid, the common octopus …
MERCK and Co's "hair raising" research involves Proscar, its experimental prostate shrinking drug, which holds out a promise of greening the bald heads of men. Scientists believe Proscar might grow hair by blocking the formation of the male hormone dihydrotestosterone. People born with reduced levels of this hormone are rarely …
MANUFACTURERS of hydraulic hammers are being forced to make them quieter, largely following environmental legislation which originated in Germany a decade ago and is rapidly spreading.'Most of them have come up with a solution which involves wrapping the harnmer in a mattress-like material. Krupp's Compact System, introduced three years ago, …
You won the 1991 Lok Sabha elections with a thumping majority. This must have raised local expectations. What are your future plans? While the barrage has solved the problem of water, other problems have emerged. The easy availability of water has encouraged sugarcane cultivation. Now we have too much sugarcane …
WESTERN governments have touched the panic button because of the recent evidence of ozone depletion over the Arctic and large parts of the high and middle latitudes. The ozone hole is no longer confined to the atmosphere over the South Pole. Temporary depletion of ozone over the northernmost parts of …
Hot aluminium THE aluminium industry is responsible for spewing out two potent greenhouse gases - CFC-14 (tetrafluoromethane) and CFC-116 (hexafluoroethane). In terms of their global warming potential, they are over 8,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide, their atmospheric lifetime being over 10,000 years, according to Dean Abrahamson of the …
BIOTECHNOLOGY was the fastest growing area of scientific research in the 1980s, followed by anaesthesia and intensive care in medicine, says a report published by the Institute for Scientific Information. The report has based its conclusion on the number of papers published in each field. The number of papers in …
FEARS of ozone layer depletion have inspired research into refrigeration technologies that do not depend on ozone-destroying chemicals and which may even be more efficient than the conventional coolants. The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Naval Postgraduate School at California,. USA, have jointly developed thermoacoustic devices that chill nitrogen …
SHOPPING can now be as mindless as' you'd like it to be - the smart shopper can opt for the smart trolley. It directsr,@-Idvises, locates, tempts, and c&n; even draw up a menu. Videocart Incorporated, a Chicago-based company in USA, has developed a small liquid crystal display screen which can …
