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. …
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 …
There is little question that global warming would increase the risk of wildfires by drying out vegetation and stirring the winds that spread fire. Until recently, however, land managers were unable to formulate appropriate responses because the spatial scales of predictions were far too coarse. Current research being done at …
fishy plant: A team of Australian scientists has created a plant that yields the highly beneficial long-chain omega-3 fatty acids usually found in fish oil. Allan Green of CSIRO, an Australian research organisation in Canberra, and his team have developed a type of thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) by inserting genes …
Are you the leaseholder for lease number 522/03? Yes, that lease is under my name Do you yourself operate the lease? No. It is being operated by Arjun Singh of Jaisalmer. I work as a daily wage labourer in the same mine. How did you get the lease? I did …
I had just finished a presentation to a gathering of Venetian academics on the time-tested water storage systems of Rajasthan. During refreshments, while some wondered at what went into making such elaborate water systems, I asked: how was water managed before pipelines came to Venice about a 100 years ago? …
Tropical cyclones—variously defined as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones—regularly impact human populations and periodically produce devastating weather-related natural disasters. The epidemiology of tropical cyclones is fundamentally determined by the physical forces of massive cyclonic systems intersecting with patterns of human behavior. The destructive forces of cyclonic winds, inundating rains, and storm …
scientists have developed a semiconductor device that may lead to improved, long-life batteries. Employing some of the same techniques that are used to produce microchips, they have created a porous-silicon diode that converts low levels of radiation into electricity and can last several decades. A team of researchers from the …
The controversy around embryonic stem cell research has resurfaced in the us, this time pitting president George W Bush against many other Republican leaders. The us house of representatives passed a bill on May 24, 2005, allowing public funding for such research through the National Institutes of Health (nih), under …
While Pentagon begins another round of operations to close military bases, a recent survey by a prominent media organisation shows that pollution cleanup at over 100 USdefence department facilities by the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is incomplete. As many as 34 bases closed since 1988 are on EPA's Superfund …
The Bush-administration is under fresh legal assault over the us Environment Protection Agency's (epa's ) recent mercury emission cut norms for coal-fired power plants. Eleven states filed a lawsuit against it on May 18, 2005, opposing the move to let such plants trade in mercury emissions. epa's rule directed these …
Multinational DuPont Company seems to have struck an easy bargain in its much-hyped pollution case. The company and the Bush administration recently reached an agreement to settle the allegation that the former hid the dangers of emissions of toxic chemical c8 or perfluorooctanoic acid (pfoa), produced in manufacturing Teflon. DuPont …
The very high prices of vanilla over the past few years have stimulated interest in this small-holder crop. Naturally, this has led to an increase in plantings in the traditional supply areas and in new origins. However, the subsequent sharp fall in demand, and the simultaneous collapse of prices, from …
us researchers have designed a food pyramid to ensure not only a nutritious intake but also one that, they claim, has a healing effect. "The foods we choose to eat are essential to how we care for ourselves. In choosing the healing foods on this pyramid, each one of us …
the us house of representatives passed a controversial energy bill on April 21, 2005. The bill gives billions of dollars of subsidy to fossil fuels and permits drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It also provides product liability protection to makers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (mtbe) against lawsuits …
the us Environmental Protection Agency (epa) recently halted a controversial study, initiated in October 2004, on the adverse health affects of pesticide exposure on children (babies to three-year-olds). Health experts opposed the study on the ground that it purposely exposed children, especially those belonging to low-income families, to toxic chemicals. …
