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 …
scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (nist) in the us have created a new material that can store up to 10 per cent of its weight in hydrogen, taking hydrogen fuel cells closer to reality. Automobiles run on hydrogen is one of the potential applications of emerging …
signatures of the past, embedded deep inside polar ice, reveal that the current levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (co2) and methane, are the highest over the last 650,000 years. An international team of scientists studied air bubbles trapped in cylindrical pieces drilled from a depth of up …
a project to develop peas with pest-resistance induced through genetic changes has been given up after tests on mice showed allergic lung damage. Scientists at Australia's Common wealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation had taken a gene from the bean plant and transferred it into peas. The gene expresses a …
Few studies have been done in support of the popular medical opinion that physical activity reduces occurrence of chronic diseases. Now, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Vol 165, No 20, November, 2005), quantifies the positive effect of physical activity on cardiovascular health. A team of scientists …
US scientists have found antibacterial soaps and washes are not any better than plain soap and water in killing germs at homes. An advisory panel on non-prescription drugs to the Food and Drug Administration, the US, in its report on October 20, 2005, said studies showed clear benefits from hand …
Every organism has two aspects: phenotype and genotype. Phenotype refers to the physical and behavioural traits of the organism and genotype to its internal, genetic composition. The relationship between the two has been for long the subject of fierce
scientists in the us have designed a bioelectronic device exploiting a bacterium's ability to puff up and deflate in tandem with humidity in the air. University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientist Ravi Saraf and his doctoral student, Vikas Berry, created a silicon chip covered with several extremely fine gold electrodes to which …
australian scientists have developed a biomaterial more resilient than rubber. Its constituent molecules are naturally found in many insects, such as the fruitfly and flea. The new substance
us scientists have developed a chip smaller than a rupee one coin that can scan for thousands of disease-causing microbes in an air sample in just 24 hours. Called the dna Phylochip, it would be especially useful in the aftermath of disasters
abundant bacteria: Scientists say soil contains 100 times more bacteria species than believed. Previous studies estimated a gramme of unpolluted soil contained about 10,000 bacteria species. But a fresh analysis of soil data by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the US, suggests the actual number …
the Indian government and the country's scientific fraternity have reacted sharply to a proposal by two British researchers that the Mad Cow disease could originally have been caused by contaminated cattle feed imported from the Indian subcontinent. "The theory is based on a wild speculation and is not backed by …
Scientists of the Chennia-Tamil Nadu based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation identified 101 edible wild greens. Not all are consumed regularly. The frequently eaten leaves: Ponnamkanni (Alternanthera sessilis) , mullencheera (Amaranths spinosus) , kuppacheera (Amaranths virdis) , mudungachappu (Solan nigrum), maracheera (Emberia tsjeriam-cottam, eaten only by the Kattunaikkas). Leaves eaten …
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (icar) is the world's largest agricultural research system, but the government does not know what to do with it. In the last 30 years, 10 committees (including sub-committees, working groups and task forces) have meandered through its faults, proferring correctives. The most recent one …
scientistshave found a way to use solar energy to extract zinc metal, which readily reacts with water to produce hydrogen. With some improvements, the process can be used to produce hydrogen for vehicles powered with fuel cells that would emit just water. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in …
scotland, uk, is renowned for its seabirds. But this year, seasoned bird-watchers are mourning. On the south side of the isle of Shetland, off the coast, almost 24,000 nests of the migratory arctic tern lie abandoned. A few kilometres away, on the island of Foula, the world's largest colony of …
When ice melts in the glacial tarn of Roopkund, located 5,000 metres above sea level in Chamoli district, Uttaranchal, hundreds of corpses can be seen floating. Thus gets exposed a mystery that dates back to more than 60 years and has begun to be understood only recently. In 1942, a …
heady odour: US scientists have found how odours generate signals that eventually travel to the brain. As per the current knowledge, our sense of smell converts odours into brain signals, just as our vision converts light into brain signals. But the researchers at the Johns Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical …
at a time when grants dictate the direction of research, one of the greatest challenges for public health advocates is to find scientific research carried out in the public interest, as against research that is funded by private interests. Which is why, when a scientific paper throws light on the …
