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. …
INVESTIGATORS from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have found fundamental weaknesses in a major US air pollution control programme that may have allowed many "significant violators" of the federal and state regulations to escape inspections and sanctions for years. According to the EPA's Office of inspector general, these lapses occurred …
THE first telescope images of dust rings around distant stars reveal powerful new evidence of planets formed beyond the solar system. This was stated by US astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, USA. Pictures from the Hubble space telescope of two distant stars show …
DUTCH elm disease (DED), a dreaded fungal disease that afflicts elm trees, has had a ghastly record. Spread by bark beetles, DED has wiped out tens of millions of trees around the world. It first appeared in the Netherlands in 1917, from where DED reached the UK through infected elm …
UNDER proposed timber purchasing laws in Los Angeles and New York, USA, preference would be given to wood certified by an environmental organization called the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Environmentalists are pushing to implement this certification process to keep logging at sustainable levels. "If these laws arc passed, it could …
SCIENTISTS have long been perplexed by a question: how many galaxies are there in the universe? Taking a census of the galaxies is like counting the grains of sand on a beach. But thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, they have now come up with an estimate: 125 billion. Arriving …
LIKE most other tissues in the human body, nerve tissues, too, can regenerate after being damaged. However, a damage to the central nervous system - the spinal cord and the brain - is a different matter. When this happens, the nerve bundles begin to repair themselves feebly, but soon degenerate …
MICROSCOPIC glass beads wrapped in artificial cell membranes have been made to glow red in the presence of cholera. Chemists in New Mexico, USA, say detectors with the beads can 'sniff' out cholera bugs in hospitals and disaster zones before people fall ill - and that the technology could also …
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says it wants Russia to abandon its Mir space station so it will not be in competition with its international successor. Paradoxically, NASA officials are considering another space shuttle mission to Mir. The proposed mission would retrieve a docking module which, according …
Students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA, have devised a more efficient trike, a human-powered vehicle somewhat like a bicycle but with three or four wheels, for disabled people who cannot use their legs to get around. it has a novel up-and-down pump drive mechanism that people work …
to the dismay of many environmentalists, it seems that a potent ozone-depleting pesticide scheduled for a gradual phase-out would be retained after all. us researchers have found that emissions of the agricultural fumigant gas methyl bromide could be reduced to what they claim are insignificant levels by applying composted manure …
for the first time the us and the uk scientists have mapped the entire gene pattern of an animal, a tiny worm. This achievement is providing clues to human health problems such as cancer, ageing and Alzheimer's disease. "This worm is really an animal just as we are. It has …
noise from aeroplanes in the us has reduced considerably and will reduce further, says the Federal Aviation Administration, usa . A law passed by the Congress in 1990 says that airlines will have to reduce the number of noisy planes they fly. By 1999, these planes will make up less …
US researchers recently stated that climate change is most likely to have severe widespread impacts on human health with significant loss of life. The researchers also reported that global warming will put as much as 65 per cent of the world's population at risk of infection
under pressure from the us food industry, the Environmental Protection Agency ( epa ) has modified a new brochure on pesticides, putting less emphasis on their health risks and barely mentioning organic foods as an alternative to foods grown using toxic chemicals. The original strongly blamed pesticides for inducing heath …
An estimated US $2 million worth of lobsters were found either dead or ill off the coast of Maine in the US in 1998. Though some of these lobsters were found to have bacterial infections, researchers believe that the mystery infection is not bacterial. Maya Crosby, marine biologist with the …
even though it is too early to establish the damages caused by the Operation Desert Fox in 1991 by us and uk forces in Iraq, uk -based newspaper Guardian has thrown some light on it. This was for the first time that heavy metal-depleted uranium was used in a battlefield. …
h g wells's 19th century vision of a Martian invasion of Earth, The War of The Worlds , saw Earthlings emerging victorious in the end of a lengthy, devastating war through sheer persistence, a will to fight back and those ever-popular human strongpoints
the us Supreme Court did not change the ruling that said that the federal government may be sued for damages resulting from a failure to collect nuclear waste from disposal sites. The judges rejected lower court ruling that the government could not be required to dispose of wastes but could …
Cell Pathways Inc, a tiny US company based in Pennsylvania, recently claimed that it is conducting human trials of a novel drug that can prevent and treat cancer by forcing tumour cells to commit suicide. The company also said that it will soon receive European and US patents for its …
in 1998, the average global sea level rose by about eight tenths of an inch before returning to normal. Scientists studying the topex/ Poseidion satellite measurement of the sea surface ( topex /Poseidon satellite measures average global sea level at ten-day intervals) believe that El Ni
