Wiping out all of Africa’s elephants could accelerate Earth’s climate crisis by allowing 7% more damaging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, scientists say. But conserving forest elephants may reverse the trend, providing a service worth $43billion in storing carbon, the academics found. The research, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that …
• Although the ministry of non-conventional energy sources spent Rs 69 crore -- 62 per cent of its expenditure on solar energy programmes -- on installing solar photovoltaic devices during 1986-92, evaluation studies indicate most of the units are not functioning because of "lack of proper maintenance, poor performance of …
A NEW variety of potato has its own armour against pests and does not need a helping hand from insecticides. Its armour of hair traps and kills insects trying to feed on it (Ceres, Vol 25, No 2). The hairy potato marks the first success for plant breeders trying to …
CAN WE unravel the composition of all objects -- both living and non-living -- as just an interplay of a handful of particles? Since time immemorial, humans have tried to make sense of their complex world by assuming a fundamental, underlying simplicity of structure. Until around 1950, scientists believed atoms …
IN GENOME Mapping, the entire DNA sequence is mapped in a square whose corners and the associated quadrants are marked A, T, G, C, to represent the four nucleotides that comprise DNA. A nucleotide is represented by a dot in the appropriate quarter or quadrant of the square on the …
A solar still, developed at the Centre for Energy Studies (CES) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi to make waste and saline water potable, has sparked a controversy concerning its inventor. According to a report in the British journal, New Scientist, the solar still's improved version was …
THIS IS probably one of nature's most intriguing survival games, involving two innocent players and a cunning third who eventually outwited. Caterpillars of the blue butterfly, Maculinea rebeli, masquerade as larvae of the red ant, Myrmica schencki, so that they can obtain free lodging and boarding at the ants' expense. …
FROM PERSONALITY traits to physical appearance, all characteristics are believed to be manifestations of what an individual's genes contain. But, what are genes made of? Now, Indian scientists have devised an ingenious computer programme that will enable researchers to analyse the complex structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and thus assist …
SCIENTISTS are using the latest equipment and most modern techniques to measure to an accuracy of 10 cm the height of Mt Everest and test the validity of an American astronomer's announcement in 1987 that Mt K2 (Godwin Austen) is the world's highest peak. Giorgio Poretti, who is implementing a …
IT TAKES energy to produce energy. But different commercial fuels yield different amounts of energy per unit weight. Scientists at the National Productivity Council carried out an "Embodied Energy Analysis" of Indian fuels and found it takes as much as 3 kilocalories of combined energy from coal, diesel and fuel …
STRUTTING and swimming through the Antarctic, some emperor penguins are working on a scientific mission: monitoring the sea resources of the polar region. Every winter, emperor penguins -- the largest of the species -- travel long distances searching for food in open water, called polynias, that punctuate the sea ice. …
EVEN AS European Community researchers are developing a powerful computerised translation system that promises to break through language barriers, scientists in Japan, Germany and USA are working on a telephone translation system whose implications for world trade are mind-boggling. Both systems are reportedly in the test stage. The EC project, …
A NON-SCIENTIFIC approach and closed-door decision-making in the sanctioning of grants, are blamed for hampering scientific research in India -particularly in government laboratories. This is one of the findings in a recent study of the problems of Jllanagement of scientific research, conducted by the National Institute of Science, Technology and …
I was talking the other day," said William Rogers to the other villagers gathered around the inn fire, 'to a gentleman about the place called Louvain, what the Germans have burnt down. He said he knowed it well - used to Wait a Belgian friend there. He said the house …
WHILE it was still dark on a recent February night, a swath of light streaked across Europe for a few moments, telling the world that brightness at midnight had become a reality. For six minutes beginning 0522 GMT (1052 AM in India) on February 4, sunlight reflected by a space-based, …
ALBERT Bruce Sabin, developer of oral polio vaccine, has died of heart failure in Washington. He was 86. A prominent figure since the 1930s in research on virus and viral disease, Sabin developed a sweet, cherryred vaccine after 20 years of research. It came into wide use in the first …
THANKS to the Bubble Space Telescope, scientists can now actually see ancient galaxies being forI The instrument, unlike earthbound telescopes, can be aimed at galaxies 4 billion light years away. Because le the light that is picked up was emitted 4 billion years ago, it provides a view of the …
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 …
"How here he sipped, how there he plundered smug And sucked all o'er like an industrious bug." That's how Alexander Pope, the 18th century English satirist, referred to the exploitative tendency of some humans in his poem, The Dunciad. But his lines could well describe the nightmarish feelings of Indian …
MINISTER of state for science and technology P R Kumaramangalam's announcement of the formation of a body to select and finance industrially useful projects is caught in a contention over its funding and scope. Hectic meetings are under way in New Delhi's Technology Bhawan to finalise the shape of the …
INSPIRED by the human sense of touch, robotics engineers are trying to build a mechanical hand that can feel, grab and manipulate objects just like the human hand. Ultimately, engineers trying to design sensitive robotic hands picture their research coming full circle to biology -- by restoring tactile sensibility to …
