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 …
A once top-secret manuscript by Wernher von Braun, the Nazi physicist turned leading figure in us space exploration, which is widely recognized as a milestone in the development of modern space science went under the hammer in New York. The 166-page document, which von Braun wrote for his PhD dissertation …
As far as climate change is concerned, the world is running out of time and options. We now know that the global atmospheric concentration of co2 has increased from a pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 379 ppm in 2005. We also know that if this increase …
British explorer and environmentalist Pen Hadow and two colleagues are at the North Pole measuring the depth of ice. Equipment from Vanco, a virtual network operator, was used to transmit videos almost in real time. Excerpts from Hadow's blog: Saturday; October 27, 2007 To fly from Yellowknife (Canada) to our …
a global alliance of experts against diabetics was launched at a two-day workshop convened by the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in the us. Scientists and researchers from more than 20 countries came up with proposals to curb the disease, which claims most of its victims in the poor countries. The …
Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Dewey Watson has attracted a lot of flak for claiming that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites. In an interview to the Sunday Times, Watson, who in the 1950s helped identify dna, declared himself to be "gloomy about the prospect of Africa
Can an art museum provide clues to pollution 200 years ago? Maarten van de Guchte, director of the Museum of Art and Cummer Gardens at Riverside in the us believes it can. "Look at the yellow sunset light reflected in the ponds,' he says pointing to a brightly coloured area …
how does moist soil get the sweet smell? It's a protein called geosmin that contributes the rich aroma. Though geosmin was identified more than a century ago, researchers from Rhode Island have recently been able to discover it and identify its characteristics. Led by David Cane, scientists from Brown University …
how does moist soil get the sweet smell? It's a protein called geosmin that contributes the rich aroma. Though geosmin was identified more than a century ago, researchers from Rhode Island have recently been able to discover it and identify its characteristics. Led by David Cane, scientists from Brown University …
During the survey, the team will send back films, photographs and scientific data on environmental and physiological features of the North Pole. Oceanographers, glaciologists and climatologists at Cambridge, the US Naval Postgraduate School, NASA, the uk Met office and the European Space Agency are also part of the project. Down …
A P MITRA (1927-2007) In the early 1990s, the US Environmental Protection Agency had come out with a report incriminating Indian rice fields of emitting 38.6 million tonnes of methane per year and thus adding to global warming. A P Mitra, the then director general of the Council of Scientific …
Even as actor Salman Khan's brief stint at the t Jodhpur jail hogged the headlines, scientists at the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LacoNEs) held a quite celebration. Their experiment in artificially inseminating a black buck had proved to be a success. Blacky, as the fawn was …
The recent claim by researchers from the uk that Indian scholars predated Isaac Newton in making a key mathematical discovery has run into controversy. An Indian researcher has alleged that the findings are not new. The Manchester University had reported on its website on August 13 that according to new …
Atmospheric scientist V Ramanathan fromthe Scripps Research Institute, California, USA, says brown clouds heat up the lower atmosphere. He explains to Archita Bhatta how the media misinterpreted their findings What's the study about? It shows the atmospheric brown clouds (ABC) enhanced solar heating of the lower atmosphere by about 50 …
India sent its first team to the Arctic recently. Two of its members have returned with a variety of samples, some dating back to millions of years. ARCHITA BHATTA spoke with them "We found round worms wriggling at 300-1,000 feet below sea-level. The temperature there was around 1.5-1.8
Energy: Using photosynthesis to capture exhaust gases from power plants could reduce the emissions produced by coal-fired stations T7 OR its supporters, the idea of growing 17 single-celled algae on exhaust gas piped from power stations is the ultimate in recycling. For its detractors, it is a mere pipe dream. …
The National Natural Science Foundation of China has blacklisted 13 academicians for fraud, according to the daily Xinhua. This is the institute's fourth round of "naming and shaming' of scholarly fraudsters since 2005. The fraudulent practices included plagiarism, fabricating data, falsifying signatures and violating application procedures and other rules to …
Diganta Narzary, a scientist at the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, discovered a dinosaur egg fossil at Assam's Manas National Park in October 2006. amarjyoti borah talks to him about the importance of the discovery in terms of the geology of north-eastern India The discovery The egg is 30-cm long, …
Will Indian scientists measure up to the challenge of climate change? I ask this question because of the nature of the science as well as the nature of our scientists. Climate change science is young, being tutored and evolving. We know much more today about what the future will hold …
We couldn't fathom why a friendly scientist should refuse an interview, even on e-mail. And instead want to write down answers and fax them back. Having heard from Jean Pierre Petit, the renowned French astrophysicist-artist, recently on a tour to India, we now know why. Excerpts from a 12-page fascimile …
The river Amazon, not the Nile, is the world's longest river, claims a group of Brazilian scientists. Scientists from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics have recently traced the Amazon's source to a snow-capped mountain in southern Peru. The Amazon, though the world's largest river by volume, is believed …
