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. …
the us Environmental Protection Agency (epa) has proposed to revise the national ambient air quality standards for ozone for the first time since 1997. The proposal recommends an ozone standard within a range of 0.07-0.075 ppm (parts per million). At the same time, it has asked for comments on a …
An international consortium of scientists recently emphasised on the irreversible harm that toxic chemicals can cause to foetuses and infants. The consensus was reached at the International Conference on Foetal Programming and Developmental Toxicity held in May at the north Atlantic Faroe Islands. Over 200 experts came out with the
The United States needs a robust minerals production industry to help meet the needs of American consumers. Unfortunately, America is ceding to others the responsibility for meeting the minerals needs. Increased import dependency created by lack of U.S. mineral development is not in the national interest and causes a multitude …
Afghanistan is once again under pressure from the us government to implement a controversial counter-narcotics plan for eradication of its poppy fields. As per the us plan, Afghanistan should spray poppy fields with a crop-killing herbicide, much as is done with coca in Colombia, and develop new sources of income …
A fragment of an exploding harpoon used by whalers in the 1800s has been found in a whale caught off Alaska, suggesting that the animal could be nearly 130 years old. The find has given researchers a rare insight into the precise age of the whale, as till now a …
Avian malaria killed two rare Humboldt penguins at the Sedgwick County Zoo in the us. Pathology tests on the penguins confirmed the cause of death, which occurred just days after the new exhibit opened. Penguins are particularly susceptible to the disease because historically they have not been exposed to malaria, …
In 1999, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the US faked crucial evidence linking power lines to cancer in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and F E B S Letters. In 2002, claims by researchers at Bell Labs in the US on creation of …
Settlement with Naveda: The US Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a US $60.7 million Clean Air Act settlement with a Las Vegas-based company Nevada Power. As per the settlement, the company will improve air quality at its Clark power generating station by reducing air pollutants …
There is something not-so-comical about our comic channels. A recent study says Nickelodeon, the popular entertainment channel, is spreading junk food among kids through its advertisements. Center for Science in the Public Interest (cspi), a us-based ngo, has examined 168 Nickelodeon television food advertisements, another 21 food ads in Nickelodeon …
pesticides have so far been touted as protectors of plants. For the first time, a new research says some of them may actually be harming the very crops they are supposed to protect. Reason: many of them cut off the communication between crops and nitrogen fixing bacteria and are a …
american scientists have found strong evidence to suggest various levels of gesticulations preceded human language as means of communication. A team at the Yerke Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia studied gesticulations, facial and vocal expressions of chimpanzees and their smalled cousins bonobos to establish levels of communication. …
This analysis, Environmental Benefits of Alternative Fuels and Advanced Technology in Transit, summarizes the findings of work done to estimate the level of pollutant emissions produced by the current national transit bus fleet and to evaluate the potential reductions that could be achieved by greater adoption of alternative fuels including …
A solid phase extraction and gas chromatography with negative chemical ionization mass spectrometry in scan mode (GC-NCI-MS) method was developed to identify and quantify for the first time low levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCs) in plasma samples of less than 100 ?l from wild birds. The method detection limits ranged …
Childhood obesity has become a major societal concern. Rates of obesity among preschool and school-age children have more than doubled in the past three decades: 14% of 2- to 5-year-olds and 19% of 6- to 11-year olds are obese (Ogden et al. 2006; Ogden et al. 2002). The increased rates …
hydrogen can now be conveniently used as fuel without the usual hassle of storage and distribution. Scientists have developed a method to produce hydrogen on the spot for internal combustion engines from an alloy of aluminum and gallium. The alloy GaAl28 with 28 per cent aluminum by weight, has the …
The international body on whaling has renewed a five-year whaling quota for Eskimos for subsistence hunting in the us and Russia on May 29. The 76-nation International Whaling Commission voted by consensus to allow 280 bowhead whales to be hunted and caught until 2012. About 260 bowheads were reserved for …
Even as uproar over Paul Wolfowitz' conduct as the World Bank (wb) president is subsiding, the us's nominee for the next president is causing familiar controversy. us President George W Bush nominated Robert Zoellick as the next wb president introducing him as a "committed internationalist, deeply devoted to the mission …
India's retail sector's estimated worth is US $350-380 billion. About US $15 billion of this is in organised retail chains. Although the retail boom in India started quite late, the growth rate in the past two years has been very high
discrimination: On May 29, the US Supreme Court ruled that under a federal job-bias law, workers can't sue to claim they are underpaid because of gender or race discrimination that occurred many years ago. The court rejected a US $360,000-award to Lilly Ledbetter, who worked in Alabama Goodyear Tire and …
