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 …
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US, is planning to improve the EGRET (energetic gamma-ray experiment telescope) -the best high energy gamma-ray instrument installed in the Compton gamma-ray observatory satellite. Observations of gamma-rays in the cosmos provide us with important clues to young pulsars and gamma-ray bursts from different …
Particle physicists are planning to make the largest linear accelerator called the Next Linear Collider (NLC), which, though not as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider, will complement it. Most colliders in the world are circular accelerators where the beams of particles are bent using huge magnets. This process makes …
Pipelines have to be continuously monitored and checked in order to estimate damage. Uptill now this was done by installing flowmeters inside the pipe. Now, using a technique developed by Rostock University, Germany, it is possible to discover what is going on inside a pipeline from outside. Ultrasonic transducers are …
INITIALLY developed for electron microscopy, holograms have found a range of applications from gift shop CHIJositics to identification labels on credit cards, Recently, a new application Was added to this list - holographic data stora-e. R H Berg and his collaborators at the Riso National Laboratory in Deninark have investigated …
THE centre of the Milky Way, a wispy band of faint white light, has long been an object of speculation. There have been conjectures that there is a huge black hole at the centre. The latest reports, however, for the first time seem to confirm the existence of a compact, …
RECENTLY, two groups of researchers published their findings on comet Hyakutake. They have detected certain compounds in the comet which could provide us with valuable information about the composition of the nebula from which our Sun and the planets emerged. Comets are also believed to have been a source of …
CARBON thin films are one of the most important applications of carbon nanotubes and elongated fifflerenes, named after Buckminister Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome. G A i Amaratunga and his collaborators Zihe University of Liverpool, UK, have reported the development of a hard, elastic, carbon thin film made …
Ganymede, the Jovian moon, has two planet-like features which were discovered last year: a magnetic field and the trace of an atmosphere. New data from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals that it might have a third planetary feature, an aurora at the poles. Doyle Hall and his colleagues of the …
Holography with laser beams is commonplace. Now, F Shimizu and others at the NEC Fundamental Research Laboratories in Tsukuba, Japan, have used waves of neon atoms to form a small physical image. The image is coded as an interference pattern between two laser beams (a reflected and a reference beam) …
The Internet has even changed the way we compute. Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI) is planning to send the data gathered by the radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to the general public. The data and the relevant software will remain in one's machine and whenever the machine is idle, …
pattern formation in nature is an almost universal phenomenon, be it biological, like patterns on animals or geological, like striations in rock formations. Though the physical interactions leading to development of patterns may differ, the evolution and dynamics of patterns could be provided an universal mathematical description. Paul Umbanhowar and …
lasers, like integrated circuits, are now an important part of many devices and techniques. Their unique properties like coherence and their non-dispersive nature help them play a crucial role in research in areas like quantum mechanics and communications. N Tessler and his colleagues at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, uk …
interactions between quarks and gluons is a key area which presents gaps in our understanding of the nature of matter. Quarks (the smallest particles comprising matter) and gluons (massless particles that carry a strong nuclear force) are usually not seen by themselves. In ordinary matter and under normal circumstances, these …
One of the things which is striking about Mayan archaeological sites in Latin America is the blue colour used on pottery. Till recently, the origin of this unique colour and its resistance to biocorrosion were mysteries. Now, scientists from Mexico have carried out high resolution electron microscopy alongwith X-ray microanalysis …
The initial promise of commercial applications of high temperature superconductivity (HTS) has not really materialised. However, scientists at Argonne National Labs and University of Pittsburgh, US, have found that adding a small amount of silver to the interior of a HTS wire increases the current-carrying capacity almost three-fold. Though ordinary …
the dynamics of glass is what recent work by P Chandra and colleagues at the nec Research Institute, Princeton, us , may shed a new light on. In our understanding of the nature of the states of matter, it is generally accepted that for any substance, rigidity and order always …
heavy ion accelerators are usually thought of as poor country cousins of the big particle accelerators. While particle accelerators explore the realm of the smallest distances known, the ion machines are used for understanding the behaviour of atoms and discovering new elements. But now, Germany's heavy ion laboratory, the gsi …
one of the most remarkable advances in material science has been the development and study of thin metallic films. These are made by evaporation of metals onto a substrate in highly controlled conditions. The unique properties of these films
