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. …
A single genetically-modified fish is enough to invade and wipe out local populations of fish species. William Muir and Richard Howard of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, injected the human growth hormone gene, hGH , in embryos of fish called the Japanese medaka ( Oryzias latipes ). They …
for the first time ever, an international framework has been set up to regulate the trade in genetically-modified ( gm) products. Following a week of intense negotiations in Montreal, Canada, delegates from over 140 countries framed rules which will allow countries to ban the import of gm seeds, microbes, animals …
An alien invader has taken over the cypress trees at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound, just north of West Palm Beach in Florida, USA. The state has its share of botanical invaders but Lygodium microphyllum , popularly known as the Old World Climbing Fern, has beaten them all. …
If a team of scientists are to be believed, it will rain even in the desert. A joint project of National Aeronautics and Space Research, USA, and the Israel Space Agency say seeding clouds with silver iodide can enhance precipitation by up to 13-14 per cent. "We can produce giant …
they are called "prairie remnants" by some people. Forgotten strips of land in the corners of farm fields or the rough of some golf courses. These are the few remaining pockets of the once-vast American prairie. They are left to sustain the diversity of life in what was at one …
the us energy department is abandoning plans to sell its surplus stock of nickel, mainly leftovers from nuclear weapons manufacture, for fears that it may be too radioactive to sell on the open market. In August 1997, the departmenthad announced that it would sell6,000 tonnes of nickel in late 2000, …
burning of household waste in one's backyard barrel may release more dioxins, furans and other chlorine-containing pollutants into the atmosphere than tonnes of trash burned by a municipal waste incinerator serving tens of thousands of homes. Furthermore, recycling could only make matters worse. Higher concentration of pollutants containing chlorine were …
general motors corp ( gm ) recently announced that it had developed a sedan prototype that is powered by fuel cells and is four times as efficient as its current gasoline engines. According to engineers of the company, the fuel cells operate on hydrogen and get the equivalent mileage of …
Some birds stutter just like people. Sometimes they repeat syllables, alter them or insert new ones into songs they have learnt until finally breaking out into the rest of the song. David Rosenfield of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas and his colleagues Nagalapura Viswanath and Santosh Helekar recorded …
many people are familiar with raga s and are able to say which musical note is being sung or played. However, not all can determine the absolute frequency at which a note is played, that is they may recognise a sa (doe) or a ma (far) but they may not …
using a technique called embryo-splitting, researchers hope to grow genetically-identical rhesus monkeys in the laboratory. The technique has, so far, produced one living rhesus monkey, a female named Tetra, but Gerald Schatten of the Oregon Health Science University in Portland, usa , said that four more are on the way. …
Termites under attack from fungi send out an alarm signal warning the rest of the colony, says James Traniello, who studied the termites along with his colleagues at Boston University, USA. Traniello's team created an artificial nest with the central gallery divided by a wire mesh. The termites could escape …
B F Goodrich's General Chemical Plant in Akron and its surrounding area in Ohio had to be evacuated after approximately 1,500 litres of butadiene was accidentally released. Butadiene is a flammable material used in the production of synthetic rubber. Immediately after the chemical release about 100 employees and visitors were …
for over 20 years, the Paducah uranium processing plant in Kentucky, usa, hid information about radiation levels in the factory from its staff. This was despite the fact that its employees used to collapse on the factory floor or suffered from serious ailments, including leukaemia. These findings have come to …
only one of 10 us metropolitan areas required to submit anti-pollution plans in 1999 have met the government's goals to crack down on smog into next millennium, the Environmental Protection Agency (epa) said recently. The 10 urban areas, that have violated the federal ozone standards, are mandated under the Clean …
For the first time, scientists have been able to "see' another planet outside the solar system. On the night of November 7, the shadow of a planet was observed directly in front of a distant star named HD 209458. The transit was predicted by G Marcy of the University of …
