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. …
US okays bill to cut marine pollution In March, the US House of Representatives approved legislation to cut polluting emissions released by diesel-powered ships. Under the legislative initiative, the US coast guard and EPA will be given the authority to develop and enforce emission limits on thousands of domestic and …
For the first time, Taiwan closed a busy motorway section to make way for butterflies. The effort was to create a safe passageway for swarms of milkweed butterflies that flit along its city roads during their annual migration. With white dots on purple-brown wings, these butterflies are indigenous to Taiwan. …
traffic fumes decrease lung function among children and make the organs vulnerable to irreversible long-term damage, a new study has found. The study published in The Lancet (Vol 369) links local traffic fumes to lung development deficits. Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California …
When American writer O'Henry coined the pejorative term banana republic, he most certainly did not have the doings of the banana producer Chiquita in mind. But the us company was recently forced to pay a fine of us $25 million after admitting that it had paid terrorists for protection in …
The Ranbaxy-Pfizer dispute involves three drugs:Lipitor, Caduet and Norvasc. The last named is a blood pressure drug. Pfizer's patent over it was annulled recently ending a lucrative monopoly: Norvasc, Pfizer's second biggest selling drug, earned the company about US$5 billion in sales in 2006. But the company combined one of …
If it is bad for rats, it could be bad for you. Driving on highways can harm your heart. A study by Alison Elder and team from the department of Environmental Medicine of the University of Rochester, US, has found a link between long drives on highways and risk of …
scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, usa, have developed a new method of monitoring animal range sizes and distribution. The study, published online in PLoS One, analyses data from the latest global positioning systems (gps) technologies through a computational model to produce an effective map of an animal's …
Strong indicators Plans are underway to install lightning detector on Mount Cleveland this summer. Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA, have found that lightning is a good indicator of volcanic activity. Their paper documents the electrical activity that occurred during the January 2006 eruption of Mount Augustine. While …
thailand's capital Bangkok witnessed protests outside the office of us multinational Abbott Laboratories on March 14, 2007. A day before, the company had withdrawn applications to register seven new formulations including a new version of the anti-hiv-drug Kaletra. It claimed the Thai government had violated international patent laws by permitting …
recently the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, denounced us president George Bush's new-found fondness for biofuels. Food stocks for millions would be threatened, Castro warned. The octogenarian Communist speaking on ecology doesn't get much press. Castro's fulminations were duly consigned to back pages of newspapers, where they had more to do …
Humanity has just crossed a major landmark in its history with the majority of people now living in cities. Cities have long been known to be society's predominant engine of innovation and wealth creation, yet they are also its main source of crime, pollution, and disease. The inexorable trend toward …
The passing of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is a landmark towards cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions must be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. California's leadership in combating global warming is in line with its trendsetting role, which inspired the US government to enact the Clean …
a soil bacterium that helps deposit calcium carbonate (calcite) on sandy soil could hold the key to protect buildings against earthquakes. Researchers at the University of California unravelled the wonder property of the bacteria, Bacillus pasteurii, while trying to precipitate calcite on sandy soil. They found that calcite precipitation in …
>> At 2 am on March 11, 2007 (0700 GMT), the US pushed forward the hands on its clocks by an hour. The shift came three weeks earlier than usual. Normally US clocks "spring forward' on the first Sunday of April and "fall back' on the last Sunday of October. …
PacifiCorp Energy, a power company operating in northwest us, has criticised a recent government study that claimed it would be cheaper to remove barriers blocking the migration of endangered salmon than to keep them. PacifiCorp owns four hydroelectric dams on the river Klamath. Conservationists say the dams are blocking migration …
The us and Brazil, which account for more than 72 per cent of global ethanol production, recently finalised a pact to jointly research biofuels and develop standards for their global commercialisation. Presidents George Bush and Luiz In
in february, the us state of New Mexico rejected two bills demanding a ban on the use of aspartame, an artificial sweetener in food items. Aspartame, found in products like cough syrups, chewing gum, candy, desserts and soft drinks, is said to increase the risk of cancer, among other things …
Throughout the second week of March people from the west Texas town of Sweetwater were out with their tongs to catch rattlesnakes. They were preparing to attend the world's largest rattlesnake roundup, organised every year at Sweetwater over the second weekend of March. According to the organisers, the three-day event …
The Southern Shrimp Alliance (ssa), the us petitioners pushing for the imposition of an anti-dumping duty on the shrimp trade, has filed applications to ascertain whether over 250 Indian shrimp exporters are paying dumping duties. Indian exporters feel, however, that ssa is making a mockery of the whole exercise, given …
>> Viacom on March 13 slapped a billion-dollar lawsuit against Google and its affiliate YouTube in New York. It accuses the video-sharing website of massive copyright infringement. It alleges that almost 160,000 unauthorised clips of Viacom's programmes are available on YouTube, which recently said it would remove more than 100,000 …
