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. …
There is something surprising about the way our brain organises the components of language. Kathleen Baynes, cognitive neurologist at the University of California, Davis, USA, and her colleagues studied an epileptic patient whose brain was surgically divided to control her seizures. They found that the centres for speech and writing, …
ASTRONOMERS in Hawaii, USA, have discovered a solar system that seems to be forming around the star Epsilon Eridani, about 10 light years away. The astronomers, who were using a British telescope, say that the star, which is similar to the Sun, has a ring of dust around it like …
THE first mass action by ailing smokers in the US to reach court opened in Miami, Florida, in the second week of July. The tobacco industry is being sued for US $320 billion in compensation and damages. If successful, the action could cripple the US tobacco industry. Lawyers say that …
ALL life depends on the exchange of signals among cells. From important events such as conception, to sensations such as itching, everything depends on signals exchanged within your body. It has been known for long that calcium is a common intermediate in many signalling processes in living systems. When a …
The US Trade Representative (USTR) has filed a formal notice of appeal of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that held the US import restrictions on shrimp as inconsistent with the country's WTO obligations. The WTO report, issued in April 1998, restricts the import of shrimps harvested with equipment that …
MORE than 1,900 fires have devoured forests, green cover, shops, business establishments and homes in an area comprising more than 100,000 hectares (ha) in Florida in the US. The fires have been blazing away for more than a month less than 40 kilometres away from the legendary Disney World, the …
DOW CORNING, the US silicon products manufacturer, has agreed to a US $3.2 billion deal, ending the long-running US battle over breast implant litigation. The company will pay the amount to compensate about 170,000 women worldwide who have made breast implant claims. If all the money went to the claimants, …
Beware of the dog, particularly if it is a puppy. Never mind how cute it might be for it could make you seriously ill. That is the message of caution from Clement Ng and his team at the Milwaukee Health Department, USA, who have found potentially deadly parasites lurking hi …
'There is no consensus among G-77 nations' espen ronneberg, counsellor, Permanent Mission to the United Nations of the Republic of the Marshall Islands The US expects developing nations to take their word for the workability of the emissions trading scheme without explaining how it would work. There is no de …
On entitlements: Each human being is entitled to a share of the global commons. This entitlement should not be dependent on wealth. However, it is difficult to get people to agree on the principle of per capita entitlement. Countries want to continue with current levels of emissions. The Montreal Protocol …
"we've had it. Enough is enough,' said Gary Locke, governor of Washington state, at a press conference, announcing that the state would sue the us energy department for failing to clean up the worst nuclear waste dump site in the us. He said the energy department had missed two deadlines …
leaded petrol will be phased out across much of the developed world by the year 2005 in order to help reduce emissions of toxic heavy metals. The us, Canada and European countries pledged to stop sales of the fuel in a recent summit of environmental ministers from 54 nations held …
Overweight children face a greater risk of heart attacks than those of normal weight, reports a study from the US Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health conducted by Johanna Dwyer of Tufts University, Boston. These children have a distinct possibility of very serious cardiovascular problems when they grow up. …
if two types of bacteria that cannot naturally live together are forced to do so, they can rapidly clean up sites contaminated with toxic metals. Geoffrey Gadd and colleagues at the uk's Dundee University claim to have designed a system that allows two types of soil bacteria to work in …
Accidents in the operating theatre can now be reduced significantly, thanks to a new, cordless portable vacuum cleaner developed at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, that removes fluids easily and efficiently. At present, most surgeons use suction tubes from central vacuum systems mounted on the wall to remove blood, saline …
linzhou , a tiny mountain province in China, has seen a lot of action lately. Here, in a nondescript red-brick health centre, next to a metalworking shop that could be perfectly at home in the Middle Ages, us and Chinese doctors operated recently on Chinese peasants with high-tech medical equipment …
The ocean covered about half the surface area of other continents seventy million years ago. However, Australia managed to stay dry. How did it happen? Geophysicist Michael Gurnis of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, USA, may have the answer. During this period, Australia was 250 metres higher than …
fifty five million years ago, one trillion tonnes of methane suddenly burst out of the ocean, shooting up the temperatures and killing thousands of species in the ocean depths. The first evidence of this prehistoric event was unearthed by researchers in 1991. But they were not sure of the causes …
it is fascinating to find colourful hot springs and boiling mud ponds in Yellowstone national park, Wyoming, usa. However, there are several mind-boggling facts that people do not know. Nearly seven kilometres (km) beneath the park's surface, there are gigantic globs of partly melted rock and pressurised gas. This may …
rice tec inc, the us seed company that sent shock waves across India by staking patent rights on a particular variety of basmati rice at the us Patent and Trademark Office, will not be able to pull the same trick on Thailand. Thai farmers have pledged to protect Khao Dawk …
