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 …
Two chemicals widely used in cleaning agents for homes, offices and hospitals cause birth defects and fertility problems in mice whose cages have been in contact with them, according to Patricia Hunt at Washington State University in Pullman. The quaternary ammonium compounds ADBAC (n-alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride) and DDAC …
Many aspects of the Indian scientific development are extremely unsatisfactory, lacking in both quality and quantity. Although the outreach of teaching and research programmes has increased considerably, populist political themes are favoured and special institutions have been created where research is undertaken independent of the university system. This article reviews …
The cost of carbon dioxide emissions would need to be at least $200 per tonne - many times today's levels - to deliver the cuts scientists propose will be needed to avert the threat of global warming, the International Energy Agency said yesterday. The rich countries' energy watchdog warned that …
In September 2006, Tara, a 36-metre schooner crewed by eight scientists and engineers, moored up on the Arctic sea ice and spent the next 15 months moving slowly with it across the top of the world. The expedition wasn't aiming for the pole: it was an ambitious attempt to record …
The primary contributors to the sharp rise in global temperatures are humans in a sea-ice region of the Arctic Ocean, scientists have observed polar bears stalking, killing and eating other polar bears. Many species of plants across the middle and higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere are now flowering earlier …
The politicization of us's Environmental Protection Agency (epa) has reached its acme. On April 10, the epa announced a new procedure to assess toxicity of chemicals. epa in its new avatar gives greater say to government agencies and corporate groups, and undermines scientists and public health professionals. The changes proposed …
In 1985, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) to establish "safe levels' for toxic chemicals. The levels set in IRIS are used as the scientific foundation for most EPA regulatory programmes, and for many state programmes, to establish health standards for air and water …
A survey by a scientific advocacy group has revealed that the George W Bush administration has frequently meddled with scientists at the us Environmental Protection Agency (epa). The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that nearly two-thirds of the 1,586 epa scientists, who responded to a questionnaire, complained of recent political …
Professor at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Anders Levermann's interests range from monsoon in India to glacier melt in Antarctica. He has contributed to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last year. He talks to Mario D'Souza on the geopolitics of climate …
Bitter-Sweet: According to World Health Organization figures, more than 32 million Indians suffer from diabetes (Pic By Subhabrata Das) If you feel Indians have a tendency to acquire that extra bit of flab around the waist, you're not alone. Now a scientific study has confirmed it, and here goes the …
As a war of words rages over biofuels and their impact on world food supplies, researchers in India are promoting sweet sorghum as a crop that combines the best of both worlds. The plants, which grow three metres high in dry conditions, yield grain that can be eaten by people …
Climatologists have called for massive investment in computer and research resources to help revolutionize modelling capabilities. The eventual aim is to provide probabilistic climate predictions that are as useful, and usable, as weather forecasts. At the end of a four-day summit held last week at the European Centre for Medium-Range …
Scientists have decried the decision by two German universities to pull the plug on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops, calling it a "disgraceful' interference with scientists' freedom to research.
If anyone remakes "Erin Brockovich," this is a scene I want to see. A scientist launches a study to determine the toxicity of hexavalent chromium, the drinking-water contaminant at the center of the lawsuits Brockovich spearheaded. The study will be a meta-analysis, combining existing individual studies to, he says, produce …
Scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs are focusing on ways to help the environment. Some of our favorite ideas. If Wes Jackson, founder and president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kans., has one complaint, it's what he calls "our deficit spending of the Earth's ecological capital," from oil and minerals to …
Ug99's symptoms are dark orange pustules on the stems and the leaves. Stems can be completely girdled by the pustules damaging the tissue and preventing grain fill. This can bring in yield losses of up to 70 per cent. The disease is so strong that it can even wipe out …
When Edzard Ernst became the UK's first professor of complementary medicine, he was attacked by both alternative therapists and conventional doctors. The doctors have come round, but he is now alternative medicine's public enemy number one after sticking the needle into everything from acupuncture to homeopathy. He insists he is …
It was supposed to prevent blindness and death from vitamin A deficiency in millions of children. But almost a decade after its invention, golden rice is still stuck in the lab.
