The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has published the R&D; Roadmap for Green Hydrogen Ecosystem in India. This document was published on 13th October, 2023. One of the central pillars of the National Green Hydrogen Mission is the establishment of a supportive research and innovation ecosystem for green hydrogen …
the pathbreaking innovation of P Ramar, the young south Indian farmer who has developed a process for producing a petroleum-like fuel from water and a few plant leaves ( Down To Earth , Vol 5, No 6), is now a national issue. Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has been …
There is reason for hope for fair skin individuals worrying about UV radiations triggering sporadic basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Researchers at the Stanford University, Palo Alto and the University of California, both in the US have identified mutations in the patched gene as a …
jute workers of West Bengal got a fresh lease of life with the development of a substitute for the environmentally suspect jute batching oil (jbo). The Jute Technological Research Laboratory (jtrl) in West Bengal has developed a process of softening the jute fibre that can substitute jbo in an inexpensive …
petrol from water? That too in India, a country surrounded by water on all three sides! Imagine the entire world's petro-dollar industry becoming petro-rupee? No jokes. No magic. A young Indian farmer showed how to do it, leaving awestruck the top scientists of some of the most respectable institutions in …
a huge increase in public spending on science and technology attempts to motivate Japanese researchers towards strengthening the creative research sector. The council for science and technology has asked the national government to spend about us $155 billion on basic research over the next five years. At present, Japan is …
WHEN Mt Vesuvius erupted in Italy, the town of Pompeii vanished. All that was left behind were crusts of dried lava. For long, scientists have held that it is the run-off streams of lava from volcanic eruptions that kills thousands of people, sweeping away entire civilisations. But recent reports have …
A RECENT report could throw open the portals of the us research and development (R&D;) industry to let in foreign talents. A committee of the National Academy of Engineering has recommended that the government should avoid limiting foreign access to the nation's R&D; efforts except when such participation poses a …
A fossilised jaw discovered last year in the Yuanqu river basin, in the southern part of China's Shanxi province is probably an early ancestor of the modern monkey, ape and even humans. Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, US, and the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and …
FOR most lay persons, the conservation of biodiversity is a concept that remains confined to the realm of forests. It is a subject which leaves their day to day existence untouched. But as Australian ecologist Robert Lambeck suggests, this disinterest will end if conservationists change their way of thinking (Science, …
Scientists at the University of Virginia, USA, have found that circadian clocks in vertebrates arose 450 million years ago. The circadian clock is the brain's light-sensitive timepiece which regulates hormone and sleep cycles. The components of the clock being soft tissues, they do not fossilise; so scientists devised an interesting …
A CURIOUS dichotomy in the development of higher animals (plants are exceptional in this respect) has come to light following recent research. During the course of embryogenesis, a fertilised egg goes through a series of multiplications that, along with growth, are responsible for a tremendous increase in the number of …
A SMALL group of proteins, collectively known as heat shock proteins (HSP), have been the cause for considerable excitement lately. These proteins had initially attracted attention because they seemed to be generated in an extraordinarily large variety of organisms - ranging from bacteria to humans -in response to an increase …
Biologist Robert Wharton of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, US, is convinced that there once existed life on the Mars, planet. For the past 17 years, Wharton has been melting holes into the surface of Antarctic glacial lakes and diving below in search of life in any form. …
AN ESSENTIAL source of facts, figures and discussion@ information on present day science and its modus operandi, the World Science Report, 1996, presents a global perspective on the state of science today. "Although there is almost universal support for this idea of science as an engine of economic and social …
CARBON is a remarkable element; not only is it the basis of life as we know it, it also has an amazing diversity in its inorganic form. From coal to graphite to diamond and carbon-60, the variety in its structure and properties is unmatched. Diamond is the hardest substance known …
Hypertension and anaemia are the new buzzwords in health circles in Bhutan. For the first time, under the health systems research programme, the two ailments which primarily affects pregnant women, will be the focus of thorough research after they were identified to be the most common prevalent illnesses in the …
THE concept of environment concerns itself with issues likewaterforests and podutionall of which exercise inutti-dimensional impacts on common people's lives. With the rising con-sciousnes;s in the fieldpolitical parties of all hues hageover the yearsadded 'green sections' to their manifestoes. Our analysis shows that the parties' responses to environ-mental issues are …
In India, the issue of food security has always been intimately involved with that of ecological degradation. In 1he late '60s and early'70s, the green revolution was introduced to increase food productivity, along with an emphasis on large dams, new seed varieties,' chemical Fertilisers and pesticides. It led to an …
IN WHAT could be a dream come true for farmers, especially from poor countries, scientists have announced that they are just a, step away from creating a maize plant that can be planted year after year without using a new seed. Five years and a study of 50,000 plants later, …
THE Centre for Ecological Research (CER) was set up at Kyoto University in April, 1991, to "promote fundamental research in various ecological topics, and provide facilities for the collaborative utilisation by ecologists throughout Japan and the rest of the world." In December 1991, the Indian Academy of Sciences -brought out …
