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. …
dolly, the cloned sheep, has celebrated her fifth birthday. Most other cloned animals aren't so lucky. They rarely reach adulthood. Some die in the process of cloning itself. The unpredictability of cloning seems to arise from some uncertain genes. Researchers based in the us are now beginning to understand the …
the International Whaling Commission (iwc) has never faced such a threat to its very existence. The 53rd meeting of the iwc, held in London from July 23-27, is a definitive pointer to it. As its 43-member countries stood sharply polarised on the line of pro and anti-whaling, the meeting discussed …
the us has another issue to grumble about. The European Commission has introduced its long-awaited proposals on the labelling and traceability of foods containing genetically modified organisms (gmos). But this has evoked a sharp response from the us, the world's largest producer of gmos. Washington has termed the plans as …
Human-made wetlands do not act as good water filters suggests report that connects a restored coastal marsh in California, USA, with the contamination of a nearby beach. Persistently high levels of faecal bacteria forced the temporary closure of Huntington Beach in southern California in 1999 and led to a hunt …
A group of scientists at the University of Rochester, USA, have devised a simple system that can perform a database search of 50 items using light. Ordinary computers use electrons in their circuits to compute. A single pulse of light is generated with many colours. The pulse is split into …
A landlord in Washington DC has admitted that he violated laws by not notifying his tenants about the health hazards associated with the lead-based paint applied on the walls of his house. The case is the first ever-criminal prosecution in the US related to lead hazard warnings that are required …
Random access memories or RAMs form an important part of a computer. M Reed and his collaborators at the Yale University, USA, have built molecular switches which could be used for storing data. These switches consist of rod-like carbon based molecules that can carry a current between two gold electrodes. …
A detector that can detect small quantities of explosive material mixed in seawater has been devised by M Sailor and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, USA. The device is portable and hence could prove to be immensely useful for detection of sea mines. The device uses …
titan, Saturn's largest moon, has conditions that resemble those that prevailed on the Earth before the advent of life. Now scientists have discovered that the moon has high velocity winds which blow from west to east. This new information will prove invaluable for space scientists who are planning to land …
us companies operating in Europe have rejected a plan to introduce lower sales tax rates on ecolabelled products, saying it is "backward looking and innovation stifling.' Tax incentives for ecofriendly products were one of the many provisions of the European Commission's ( ec ) green plan on integrated product policy. …
the us Environmental Protection Agency ( epa ) has denied California's request to waive the federal requirement for oxygenates in its reformulated gasoline, leaving the state with no choice but to use ethanol as a blending stock for petrol. California's governor Gray Davis recently ordered a 90-day study regarding the …
the world's first solar-powered aircraft, Helios, successfully completed its 18-hour test flight over the Pacific Ocean on July 15, 2001. Helios, the unmanned aircraft of National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( nasa ) powered by 62,000 solar cells, reached an altitude of almost 22 kilometres (km) before descending. The craft …
The purpose of this report is to describe the current uses of biosolids in the United States, especially the progress being made at mine reclamation sites. The background section will define and describe the production and traditional uses of biosolids. It will respond to common concerns over biosolid use, such …
The us President George Bush’s obdurate stance on climate change has driven negotiations under the critical un Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) to a feverish pitch. The world has now two options
each year, hatcheries release millions of chinook into the River Columbia in the us in a bid by state game managers to save wild stocks of this salmon. The fish there is so beleaguered that many of its populations, threatened with extinction, are protected under the us Endangered Species Act. …
The global pharmaceutical industry is feeling the heat. Following the industry's embarrassing withdrawal in April from a case against the South African government over the issue of access to cheap aids drugs, the us government dropped its complaint against Brazil's law dealing with the same issue at the World Trade …
a us district government has sued Exxon Mobil Corporation, the world's largest oil company, for contaminating Minnesota's Plainview district's water supplies following a spill of methyl tertiary butyl ether ( mtbe) from one of the company's stations. mtbe is a known human carcinogen and its level in the district's groundwater …
scientists in the Alaskan Arctic, in the us , have discovered that shrubs are growing larger and spreading across previously barren territory in the tundra region. The findings add to the growing scientific consensus that the region is gradually getting warmer. us- based researchers combed through archives of aerial photos, …
The UN world food body has reached a landmark agreement for saving the diversity of agricultural crops. Members of the body, including the US, have decided to make it mandatory for plant breeders and geneticists developing new crop varieties to pay for having access to public seed banks. The agreement, …
Dust blown from Africa not only produces striking sunsets in Florida, usa, but also carries with it lethal stowaway bacteria and fungi. The dust plumes begin their trans-Atlantic journey from the topsoil of the Sahara Desert. The dust is transported into the atmosphere and crosses the Atlantic Ocean to reach …
