Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
"Learn a lesson from the past, and stop the bombings and the blastings..," said UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali in a message on Hiroshima peace day. "This is an anniversary to remind us what we can do and just how far it is possible for us to go," he declared. …
WHILE localised prostate cancer is not fatal, its metastatic spread - occurrence or development of secondary foci of cancer at a distance from the primary site - is invariably fatal. Researchers have long been plagued by the question - what dictates molecular changes in metastatic prostate cancer making it life-threatening? …
TEARS tend to wash away most of the drugs that are administered as drops into the eyes. Now, scientists have developed an ilinproved way of delivering a drug to the eyes by making it tear-resistant, rendering it 4 times more likely to reach its target (New Scientist, Vol 14& No …
TAKING a cue from the traditional method of using moldy bread to treat wounds, scientists have developed dressings that employ fungi to provide the healing touch. Researchers have established that myceliurn (filaments) of fungi can be harnessed to enhance natural healing by promoting activities of cells to repair the damaged …
Do gender differences reflect in the functioning of the brain? Yes, say scientists who have confirmed the hypothesis that differences exist in the functional,organisation of brain for a specific component of language, that is, phenological processing, between males and females (Nature, Vol 373, No 6513). Using magnetic resonance imaging researchers …
Scientists at the Australia-based Queensland Institute of Medical Research have given the green light to the establishment of "DNA Vaccines" as the obvious choice of the future (Biotechnology, Vol 3, No 5). While the 2 earlier developments in vaccination included, first, using attenuated or killed forms of organisms, and second, …
AD artificial heart valves presently substituted for faulty ones, introduce a foreign substance into a patient's body and thus increase the chances of rejection by the body's immune system. Now, researchers at the Children's Hospital in Boston are trying to develop a tissue-engineered valve. Recent findings in this field indicate …
THE 9 billion humans inhabiting the earth today originated about 270,000 years ago from a population of a few thousand in one region of the world and then dispersed, says a recent study. This challenges the origin of species hypothesis which says that modern humans began evolving about a million …
Myths can sometimes be closer to reality the one would suspect. For instance, in Europeao folklore one finds mention of creatures called werewolves, who are described as peopoo who can change into wolves, with hair as over the body and face. However, there rs a human disorder called the congenital …
A NEW discovery has challenged the age- old belief that flowers came before bees. While the earliest angiosperms, or flowering plants, came into existence about 120 million years ago, the oldest known fossil of a bee is a specimen nearly 80 million years old, found trapped in amber from what …
The tiny fruit fly (Drosophila bifurca) holds the record for the longest sperm. Researcher Scott Pitnick of Bowling Green state university, Ohio, found that the fly produces sperm that are 60mm long - about 20 times its own length. In comparison, the human sperms are just 50 thousandth of a …
Canadian researchers have identified the first species of toilet-trained fish - pikes select secluded areas to deposit their faeces to safeguard against being detected by their prey (New Scientist, Vol 146, No 1976). When pikes attack fat-head minnows, the victims release an alarm pheromone that alerts other minnows to keep …
"Shut up and die," the orchid's flower tells its petals once it is pollinated. But the language used is not known to us - it is chemical talk and in orchids, ethylene does the talking. Now, botanists have found a way of tapping into the chemical talk of plants using …
IS HOMOSEXUALITY in the genes? Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, report that a single gene transplanted into fruit flies made the males show homosexual behaviour. This display of homosexuality is interesting to scientists because a gene similar to that transplanted into the fruit …
Some parasites that thrive in animals find their human hosts rather hostile. For instance, a protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei brucei (T b brucei), which infects both humans and cattle, quickly degenerates in the former's blood. But in cattle, the bug causes a disease resembling African sleeping sick- ness in humans. …
The planet's amphibians are under threat. Declining populations of frogs, salamanders and toads have been reported from all over the globe and some of the amphibian groups are disappearing completely from their natural habitats. Frogs are in close communion with their surroundings - both water and soil - at different …
FLYING insects have elastic mechanisms in their wings, which both store and release energy in an attempt to reduce the immense effort required for flight, according to Michael H Dickinson, assistant professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago. Dickinson has designed a sophisticated tabletop flight simulator …
Geologists have found in Mexico the filssil remains of a multicellular organism which is believed to have lived about 15 million years before the oldest known. The organism, resembling small jellyfish, lived an estimated 590 million years ago, said the lead researcher, Mark McMenamin of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
The tadpoles of the red-eyed tree frog can choose to hatch early to avoid being eaten by snakes, says Karen Warkentin from the University of Texas in Austin (New Scientist. Vol 146, No 1974). The eggs hatch in a matter of minutes and can do so when they are 5-7 …
The tabour of love for a courting male cricket often involves providing his mate with ample dinner - a large blob of a gelatinous substance known as spermatophylax. Besides its high nutritional value which helps the female lay more eggs, the blob serves to keep the female engrossed test she …
