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 …
US SCIENTISTS are making the most elaborate efforts yet to detect gravitational waves, which are the distortions in the fabric of space and time predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. These waves are produced during violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two neutron stars or …
TWO US oceanographers have used powerful supercomputers to perform the best-ever simulation of the world's ocean movements -- an important step towards forecasting how changes in ocean circulation will affect global climate over the next century. Albert Semtner of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and Robert Chervin of the …
PARASITIC flies that lay eggs in bumble-bees would not be so smug if they knew that the bees have a way of hitting back. Entomologists say parasitised bumble-bees render their abdomens inhospitable to fly larvae development by staying outdoors in the cold all night. Swiss researchers C B Muller and …
When did life on earth begin? The question continues to stoke the curiosity of scientists, stimulating the search for fossils that provide the only source of direct evidence of when a particular organism existed or how it evolved. Now, J William Schopf of the University of California, Los Angeles, says …
Fears that India's burgeoning population has become the "mother of all problems" may yet be belied. Vasant Gowariker, former scientific advisor to the Prime Minister, says his analysis of Indian population trends has convinced him that contrary to the assertions of some demographers, India will never overtake China and become …
THE US patent and trademark office last December issued patents for three transgenic animals, which are animals that have been implanted with genes at an early developmental stage. The only previous animal patent issued was four-and-a-half years ago for the Harvard onco-mouse, into which cancer-causing genes had been introduced. Animal …
TRANSPORT authorities in USA and Europe, where the motor car culture first spawned, are now developing sophisticated technology to monitor and direct traffic in order to reduce congestion on their roads. Several US firms are developing what are called intelligent vehicle highway systems (IVHS) to regulate traffic more efficiently than …
SCIENTISTS of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries have recommended exchanging the germplasm of fruit, vegetables and potatoes; trials of popular potato varieties in different parts of the SAARC region, and organising training programmes on potato breeding. At a meeting on horticulture held recently in Shimla, the scientists …
ARTHUR Nonomura, an American scientist-turned-farmer, may usher in another green revolution with his discovery that methanol (or methyl alcohol), traditionally thought to be toxic to plants, can stimulate crop growth in hot and dry regions. "I think it's going to save the world," says Andrew Benson of Scripps Institution of …
SOCIOECONOMIC factors greatly influence pregnancy rates among teenagers, according to a 11-year study by Trevor Smith published in the British Medical Journal. The study, based in Tayside, Scotland, found the pregnancy rate in girls below 16 years was three times as high in the most deprived areas as in the …
EVER SINCE man realised that sex is not limited to procreation, he has experimented with various concoctions to increase his libido. For scientists, however, aphrodisiacs such as ginseng and the Spanish fly have been little more than objects of ridicule. But now a traditional Indian sex vitaliser called Ipomea digitata …
A RICE shortage is imminent by the turn of the century because of paucity of funds and a declining interest in projects to improve yields, says Gurdev Khush of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. Recession-hit Western donors are considering cutting aid to IRRI and passing on …
BRITISH scientist William Bateson, who is responsible for coining the word "genetics", had an unusual scientific career. He started out as a student of animal morphology -- a branch of zoology that emphasises such obvious aspects of an organism as its form and the way it looks to us. Later, …
SCIENTISTS have found that the ability of certain rats to reject a tumour can be transferred to other rats using a simple technique that could one day be used to enhance human resistance to cancers. Ashok Khar of Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) discovered a certain type …
MOST OF us know fish to be cold-blooded creatures that alter their temperature to match that of the surrounding water. But some fish, the tuna for example, are warm-blooded, a fact that had long puzzled biologists. Barbara A Block, biologist at the University of Chicago and three of her students …
AFTER ten years of frustrating toil, a band of gene-hunters from USA and the UK have at last nabbed the gene that causes Huntington's disease, a debilitating disorder of the nerves. The researchers are hopeful the discovery will provide a better understanding of what causes the nerves to degenerate, and …
INDIAN science is being made to go commercial. With funding cuts and a new technology policy that aims at enabling India to fulfill its role in the "global economic environment", the ministry of science and technology has been working to turn the various scientific institutions in the country away from …
HOW DID birds learn to fly? For over a decade now, this question has been at the centre of a debate about whether Archaeopteryx, the world's oldest bird-like creature -- found nearly 150 million years ago -- was a bird or a dinosaur. While ornithologists believe Archaeopteryx was a bird …
A PLANT indigenous to Ethiopia and whose berries have been used traditionally as a shampoo and laundry soap could attract a huge market in the West. The berries of the plant, called endod (Phytolacca dodecandra), are deadly to zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha), a snail species that carry the parasite that …
CHEERS! But be warned, the champagne in your glass may actually be a genetically engineered brew. A team of French researchers at a research centre run by champagne manufacturers Moet-Hennessy-Louis Vuitton in Colombes, near Paris, has genetically engineered grapes and implanted their cells with genes that protect them against the …
