The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
THE distasteful task of grading beef by inspecting carcasses can now be bypassed. Two researchers at Iowa State University in the US have come up with a far more accurate technique to rate meat. They use ultrasound readings of fat deposits on live animals to offer gourmets "select", "choice", or …
CLASSIC movies can now be preserved for generations without fearing loss of print quality. Though movie films are kept in sealed cans to keep dirt out, they are vulnerable to the "vinegar syndrome", a decay caused by traces of acetic acid released by the film as it ages. Researchers at …
Lockheed Corp of the US has developed an inexpensive, part liquid, part solid telephoto lens that guarantees a sharper and better-contrasted picture than the conventional lens. Besides correcting colour distortion from light bending through glass, the new lens is unaffected by imperfections on its surface, reducing the need for polishing …
ASTRONOMERS say the sun is losing its brightness and some billions of years from now -- a short period in astronomy -- it will disappear into cosmic darkness. But life on earth may still continue as particle physicists have conceived of a sun in the lab. Particle-hunters in the US …
Whichever way we look at the future, nobody can deny that today's world is in deep crisis. The central task must be to provide adequate living conditions for a growing world population that restores and maintains a sustainable relationship with nature. This is not only a moral imperative but a …
Enter the "smart" window: an insulated, multi-pane, electrically-controlled glazing that can be used to control the amount of light coming through and rejecting excess heat, thereby obviating the need for air-conditioning. Though most components of such a window are still laboratory prototypes, a few semi-intelligent glazings have already hit the …
A TEAM of US scientists has developed a technique to enable hand-held computers that work with a pen to recognise handwriting quickly and more accurately than their present level of literacy allows them (Science Vol 260, No 5115). The new system, which has been developed by Rohini Srihari, Stayvis Ng, …
DESIGNER science is coming of age. Scientists are combining the growing understanding of processes and structures at the molecular, atomic and subatomic levels with computer modelling techniques to synthesise new products. And, they are now discovering that their theoretical simulations are borne out by reality. Scientists hitherto used trial-and-error methods …
FROM THE house of Nikon have come electric spectacles that are battery-operated and change 0 from dark to light and back again at the touch of a button in less than 10 seconds. In contrast, the better known photochromatic lenses can take up to an hour to turn clear on …
AN INDIAN-born biologist, Prafulla K Bajpai, and his colleagues at the University of Dayton, Ohio, have developed a novel drug delivery system that will bypass the harmful side-effects of AZT -- the primary drug used in AIDS treatment. AZT, which is usually taken orally as pills, causes swollen tongues, bleeding …
THERE seems to be no limit to the miniaturisation of computers, because in the wake of laptops comes pocket-sized computers that allow the user to write on a liquid crystal screen with a special pen and even fax messages. Personal digital assistants (PDAs), as they are called, can store even …
TILL THE 16th century, so little was known in Europe of Africa and Asia that the main task for Western scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries was to record the bewildering variety of strange new worlds and reconcile them with their constricted medieval vision of the earth. The works …
PEOPLE confined to wheelchairs will be able to reach for anything stored on the topmost shelves because a wheelchair has been developed in USA that can be raised a couple of metres without loss of normal mobility (Design News, Vol 49, No 1). Named Full Access Wheelchair, the new design …
A NEW V ACUUM cleaner has over come the perennial problem of dust clogging the filter and reducing the machine's efficiency. Dyson Dual Cyclone whizzes dirt and air around at high speed, but instead of using filter, the dirt is collected in a plastic container that can be clipped off …
JAPANESE scientists hail environmental technology as the new frontier of science. Surveyed on breakthroughs they consider likely in the next generation, scientists listed 1,149 topics in 16 fields. The survey was conducted by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency. Among their predictions: the first major discovery will probably be a …
Scientists at the University of California, Irvine, have made the world's smallest battery -- about the size of the common-cold virus (Science, Vol 257 No 5074). Chemist Reginald Penner and his co-workers stumbled on to it while trying to prove that silver and copper could be deposited as closely-spaced nanodots …
PHYSIOTHERAPY researchers in Australia have developed a device that can predict the probability of back pain in humans. Many devices can measure spinal muscle functions, such as strength and endurance, but the Australian device called the Pressure Biofeedback Unit (PBU), can calculate the supportive capacity of muscles that protect the …
KIDNEY stones, a human nerve disorder and a fungal crop disease may all be relegated to history, thanks to the discovery by scientists at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi of a gene that helps to break down oxalic acid, the main culprit. Asis Datta, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, …
WAS ROBERT C Gallo guilty, along with his colleagues at the US National Institute of Health, of scientific misconduct for their conduct and reporting of the crucial experiments that led to the development of a diagnostic blood test for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS? No, says the NIH finally, …
The eighth International Conference on Sustainable Water Resources Management will present the more recent technological and scientific developments, associated with the management of surface and sub-surface water resources.
