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. …
Close on the heels of neem, turmeric, basmati and isabgo/, an Us-based company, has filed a patent for Phyllanthus Amarus, a medicinal plant used to cure jaun- dice. This plant is found allover south India and is used for the treatment of Hepatitis B. Meanwhile, several non- governmental organisations have …
A colony of green iguanas has travelled more than 300-odd km by raft across the ocean to a Caribbean island. Unbelievable? But it is true, my experts. Scientists had assumed that some animals can float huge distances across oceans, but this had never been seem Now Ellen Censky at the …
Self-focusing spectacles are on the horizon, doing away with the need for bifocal or progressive lenses. Universal Ventures of the Cayman Islands, USA, is developing variable focus glasses that measure the dis- tance to the object the wearer is looking at. The trick, say the inven- tors, is triangulation: infrared …
Ask children who playa lot of video games and they will tell you. Realistic video games and flight simulators induce a form of motion sickness, admits Hughes Electronics of Los Angeles, USA. Most lose the ability to perceive depth for a time after they leave the simulator, and later see …
A NEW look at a fossil discovered over a decade ago has strengthened the theory that bats evolved from flightless creatures that hung from tree branches by all four legs. Most paleontologists now believe that birds evolved from small ground-dwelling dinosaurs that had developed feathers for another purpose. The origins …
US regulators have approved thalidomlde, the drug which was banned for causing birth defects. The drug will be tested for cancer treatment. Celgenc, a New Jersey-based company, has been permitted to test Thslomid, the company's version of thabdomide, against multiple myeloma, the most common form of bone marrow cancer. The …
A novel polymer coating, the echocoat polymer, could make heart operations Wer by helping doctors keep track of medical devices used in heart surgery. The plastic works by reflecting ultrasound scans, enabling surgeons to see devices such as pacemakers more clearly. The device would allow doctors to perform more accurate …
DNA can survive without water in the vacuum of space for hundreds of thousands of years, researchers in California have suggested. Their discovery will encourage those who maintain that life may have origi- nated in outer space. Water plays a crucial role in keeping proteins folded into three-dimensional structures. However, …
MOTORISED boats are polluting lakes and reservoirs in California, USA, with a cancer causing additive, according to the scientists. The findings coincide with an announcement that the US government is setting up an expert panel to investigate the findings. Researchers at the University of California have just completed the first …
ON NOVEMBER 5, two teams of US scientists announced that they had independently achieved a major breakthrough in biology by growing some "primitive" undifferentiated cells, known as the human embryonic stem cells, by isolating them from human embryos and foetuses. These cells have the capacity to rapidly multiply and grow …
IF you are above 40, suffering from high blood pressure and heart problems, your doctor must have told you to eat less salt. But very few of us know that the ,to eat or not to eat salt' debate is eternal in medical sciences. Researchers say that by making salt …
THE us National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has come out with alarming findings about corals, tiny marine organisms which secrete calcareous shells that combine to form coral reefs. Record-breaking depletion of corals and extremely warm waters occurred throughout the tropics during the first half of 1998, the NOAA announced …
GLOBAL warming is perhaps the biggest threat the Earth has ever faced. Scientists and environmentalists grappling with ways to avoid the disaster have found a bacterium that eats up methane. The researchers hope the organism could be used to fight global warming by preventing greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere. …
LEARNING, by video conferencing can be just as effective as attending classes. Researchers at California's Silicon Valley, the fabled birthground of some of the world's top software, have compared the examination performance of students who met face-to-face with those who met over their video monitors. There were no differences between …
RESEARCHERS have developed a new catalytic process to turn a common industrial chemical into an essential ingredient used in energy efficient alternative fuels. The technique could be the first to make the process economically attractive to chemical companies. Scientists at the US department of energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory claim …
ONE truck pollutes as much as 50 cars today, but all this is soon going to become history. Diesel engine manufacturers have agreed to pay US $83 million in fines and spend $1 billion to clean up the environment to avoid a US federal lawsuit over alleged cheating on engine …
Two independent experiments in the US and Europe will study the properties of neutrinos, the most elusive particles of the Universe. One experiment, called NUMI, proposes to send a beam of neutrinos from the accelerator at Fermilab in Chicago to a detector placed in a disused iron mine in Minnesota. …
The Rubble Space Telescope has revolutionised the study of the Universe. A survey of the early Universe completed recently has revealed some unusual results. It suggests that the giant clusters of galaxies were already formed when the Universe was much younger. Researchers have found 92 cluster candidates and evidence that …
Astronomers have assumed that the strong gravitational force exerted by black holes helps them capture any gaseous cloud that they can pull. When this happens, the region surrounding the hole shines brightly as the gas' gravitational energy is converted into heat. But some black holes are not as bright as …
ONE peek at genetic behaviour and the microscopic world of cellular biology seems no less dramatic than the larger socio-political ethos of human societies. A team of two researchers has recently come up with some eye-opening findings following research on ants. The findings indicate that the interplay of cooperation and …
