Counter affidavit on behalf of Chief Municipal Engineer, Patna Nagar Nigam in the matter of Saurav Narayan Vs Bihar Pollution Control Board & Others dated May 20, 2025. The report said that the corporation has been diligently performing its statutory duties within the limitations of the available resources and infrastructure. …
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 …
RESEARCHERS are contemplating the use of pig organs in order to overcome human donor organ shortage. The pig organs - such as hearts, kidneys, pancreatic glands - will be extensively researched and ready for use probably within 3 years, they contend. Pigs have been selected because their organs are about …
J. Craig Venter, till now just another scientist who once worked with Washington's National Institute of Health and whose only claim to fame, or rather notoriety was his much-publicised row with the Institute authorities which refused to grant funds for his project on human genome sciences, has finally hit the …
Edible vaccines made from plants? This seemingly unusual proposition is on the verge of becoming a reality. Preliminary studies in the US indicate that genetically altered potatoes, bananas, alfalfa sprouts and other foods could revolutionize medical care by providing cheap and plentiful sources of "edible" vaccines and other medicines to …
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela have joined forces to keep marauding multinationals off their biological resources. These signatories to the Andean Pact decided upon drastic steps to protect their home grounds, After a new us intellectual property legislation allowed co-porations to patent genetic information taken from any bio- logical source …
A new patent dispute - the New York-based Enzo Biochern Inc vs Calgene Inc - is expected to tie the US judiciary into knots. Calgene's technique for genetically altering its Flavr Savr tomatoes (Down To Earth, Vol 3, No 4) has been called into question in a federal court case …
Biologist Walter Gehring and his colleagues from the University of Basel in Switzerland have developed genetically engineered swarms of fruit flies, helping them understand how nature fashions the eye in living organisms. They identified the master control gene, eyeless, instrumental in eye formation in fruit flies. They inserted multiple copies …
HE HAD jet black hair when he quit the Oval Office 12 years ago, at unnerving variance with the network of age-lines on his face, wattles, dewlaps and all. But even then, his brain had already kicked off into the bottomless abyss of Alzheimer's disease. "I now begin the journey …
Parkinson's disease affects millions of old people. The symptoms include progressive tremor, rigidity of limbs and difficulty in body coordination. The cause of Parkinson's is unknown, the pathology poorly understood. The main physiological change is the depletion of the neurotransmitter -- a chemical that helps transmit nerve impulses -- dopamine. …
Coronary Heart Diseases (CHD) such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris and strokes, are the leading cause of death among elderly persons. Eighty per cent of all deaths due to CHD occur in persons over 65. Most common forms of CHD, such as atherosclerosis, are caused by structural and functional …
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a mental disorder resulting from brain degeneration. It affects almost 1 in 10 individuals over the age of 65. The disease is characterised by confusion, personality and behavioural changes, impaired judgement and difficulty in following words and directions. Eventually, it robs its victims of volition. Identified …
Late January, the European Patent Office took a tough stand on gene patenting by upholding a patent granted to the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine, Melbourne, Australia. The patent covered the gene for H2-relaxin, a protein that allows the pelvic girdle to widen during pregnancy and childbirth. …
A groundswell of opposition is brewing against studies claiming that a wide range of behaviour patterns like criminality, alcoholism, schizophrenia, homosexuality and manic depression are genetically determined. Garland Allen, professor of the Washington University in Missouri, usa, debunked these theories. He told the American Association for the Advancement of Science …
THE 7-year-long debate over patenting of life-forms in Europe has finally reached its denouement. On March 1, the European Parliament decided to drop a proposed directive that would have introduced common standards throughout the European Community (EC) for the patenting of new plants and genetically-altered animals. Ethical issues seem to …
FOR Russians, 'genetic engineering' may soon become a medical Chechnya... to be done away with. Currently, the Russian government is debating over a draft law that would strictly regulate all genetic experiments, from basic research involving recombinant DNA to industrial efforts, in order to engineer transgenic plants and pollutant-eating microbes. …
Molecular biologists at the University of Florida have succeeded in inoculating rye, an important European crop, against the herbicide Basta by injecting into it 2 foreign genes (Biotechnology, Vol 12, No 13). Till now, all improvements in the rye crop had been through classical breeding methods. In fact, rye has …
The makers of transgenic beings -- customised life-forms fitted with foreign genes to endow them with desirable qualities, such as disease-resistance -- need no longer be in suspense over whether the recipient would accept alien genes. A team of researchers from the US Agricultural Research Service and the University of …
Every year, millions of tonnes of food are lost to the most voracious and abundant of animals -- the ubiquitous insects. Whether seeds be present on the plant or stored away carefully, insects worm their way into them, making them inedible. But humans have built up an impressive arsenal of …
SCIENTISTS at the University of Minnesota in the US have developed a new strain of bacteria to fight pollution caused by organohalides -- compounds of carbon and halogens such as chlorine and fluorine which cannot be degraded by naturally occurring bacteria (Nature, Vol 368, No 6472). Pseudomonas putida G786 -- …
A LITTLE learning is a dangerous thing. That wisdom is increasingly dawning on scientists who are unravelling the truth about genes and diseases. Thanks to breakthroughs in molecular biology, scientists can ascertain from blood or tissue samples the presence or absence of genes that are responsible for about 10 to …
