Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Nine-year-old Rani is unhappy. She has to stay away from her mother Janki Patel, who is taking part in a clinical trial at a centre 10 kilometres from her house at Bapu Nagar in Ahmedabad. “I do not like these trials. They take my parents away,” says Rani. In their …
To tighten regulations around clinical trials, a bill was drafted in 2002. Framed as per the guidelines of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it was submitted to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2007 to be tabled in Parliament. But it has seen no progress ever since. …
The biggest problem with the Rio conference has been its petty-mindedness. It has consistently refused to look into the basic processes that lead to environmental destruction. The world’s political leaders have shown great fear of the economic and political restructuring that such an approach would demand. The result is a …
WITH dwindling natural gas and oil reserves, the world is increasingly looking for alternative sources of energy. Industry people say shale gas is one promising option. It is the natural gas trapped in shale, a type of flaky sedimentary rock. It already accounts for 22 per cent of USA’s gas …
BACTERIA could be the new hero in the fight against the spread of malaria. Researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US have demonstrated how two different bacteria can halt the growth of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria. It is estimated that the …
MANGROVES are known to be reservoirs of carbon. While it is known that widespread degradation of the mangroves by 30-50 per cent over the past half century due to coastal development, aquaculture expansion and over-harvesting may be responsible for an increase in carbon in the atmosphere, nobody has been able …
THERE have been many indicators that global warming could be hurting the world food production, lowering yields and increasing prices. Turns out the warming of the planet over the past three decades has already led to a measurable reduction in crop production of wheat and maize. Researchers from Stanford University …
Disclosure is now at the heart of the misappropriation debate—and the centrepiece of vexed international efforts to hammer out a treaty to protect the last major resources of developing nations. Talks in the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) last month on protecting genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural …
It is a legal victory with ramifications beyond small English town South Tyneside, where the local government claims Twitter released information about the tweeter who allegedly made libellous statements. The South Tyneside Council petitioned a court in California, US, to identify the user of the site after three councillors and …
American Egyptologist Sarah Parcak’s methods might seem placid compared to Indiana Jones’. But they are far effective. The tinsel character had to battle snakes and Nazis to find the lost ancient Egyptian city of Tanis, while the University of Alabama Egyptologist pored over satellite images to uncover not just Tanis …
The journal Science has asked the authors of a 2009 research paper, which linked chronic fatigue syndrome to a virus, to withdraw their findings. It has also published an editorial saying the validity of the study was “seriously in question”. In 2009, a study at the Whittemore Peterson Institute was …
American defence strategists have plans to categorise cyber attacks as acts of war, the Pentagon says. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response. All appropriate options would be on the table,” Pentagon spokesperson Dave Lapan told BBC. A US president could …
Five per cent of the clinical trials conducted across the world will be in India by 2012. They are vital for confirming the efficacy of a new drug, but compromise on ethics. While doctors and organisations conducting trials make big bucks, the rights and safety of the subjects are often …
Once again there is a food safety scare. A deadly strain of E coli bacterium has hit Germany, where it has taken the lives of 25 people and affected another 2,300 till date. German food inspectors on the trail of the source of contamination have as yet made two errors—blaming …
Too close for comfort: fires burn in the hills above the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a nuclear site in New Mexico Firefighters on Tuesday battled a wildfire that threatened a government nuclear facility in New Mexico, raising fears about the safety of radioactive materials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. …
The soaring price of petrol and greater road congestion have encouraged more North American motorists to opt for coach transport, boosting revenue and profit at Stagecoach. The London-listed bus and rail operator, which provides budget coach transport in the US and Canada through its Megabus operations, on Wednesday said revenues …
The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling that would have significantly restricted withdrawals from Lake Lanier, the main source of water for metro Atlanta, starting next year. The United States Army Corps of Engineers must decide whether Atlanta can get …
Johnson Controls expects the number of vehicles built to allow "start-stop" technology will more than triple in five years as automakers worldwide seek better fuel efficiency. Already included in some vehicles, start-stop allows a car's engine to shut off when the vehicle is at rest, for instance, at a stop …
