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. …
asbestos' fireproofing and insulating properties were first discovered by the ancient Greeks, but they knew nothing about the hazards associated with its use. When inhaled, asbestos fibres can cause asbestosis, a stiffening of lung tissue that contributes significantly to heart disease and lung cancer. Because of this risk, asbestos is …
Unholy smokeWith a cigarette in your hand you would be a dead man. Yes, by the time you would have finished reading this particular box, smoking would have claimed another six lives across the globe. According to the World Health Organisation (who) estimate, smoking killed a staggering three million people …
The US military pumps over 700 million rounds of ammunition, or some 2,000 tonnes of lead into the environment every year during training. The metal pollutes the water supply and poisons the wildlife. So the Texas Research Institute in Austin, Texas, has developed a lead substitute whose density is comparable …
A global positioning system (gps) receiver, a laptop computer and some software can be used to warn pilots if they are flying too close to the ground. California-based Dubbs and Severino has developed the software from technology originally researched by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Military pilots are …
Humans suffer from an inherent disadvantage in using a computer: both hands are occupied with the keyboards and a person is unable to operate a mouse at the same time. So Sun Microsystems of California, USA, has filed several lengthy patents on a system in which the user's eye controls …
six people in the us and one in Brazil have died reportedly due to the consumption of viagra, the supposedly potent drug to combat impotency. This has led to debates at several fora about the safety aspects of using the drug. Vietnam has banned it until the doubts of its …
It beats the poet's imagination. Jupiter's moon Io is the closest to the fire and brimstone of hell in the Bible. The most volcanically active body known to humans is dotted by volcanic eruptions on the sulphurous surface. The Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has now reported a surface temperature of …
increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere could result in some fundamental changes in the growth pattern of plants, say scientists at the University of Michigan Biological Station, usa. While studying the impact of atmospheric conditions in near future, these scientists have discovered that trembling aspen trees grow …
the most devastating wildfires in seven decades raged across Mexico and other countries in Central and South America, gobbling millions of acres of forests and grasslands, and forcing closure of international airports. Blankets of smoke from these fires pushed into the us as far as Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Georgia …
The mysterious pathogen that has been killing coral near the coast of Florida, USA, for the last three years has been finally identified. Scientists Laurie Richardson and his team at the Florida International University in Miami, USA, have said that a bacterium called Sphingomonas is single-handedly responsible for the coral …
the most devastating wildfires in seven decades are raging across Mexico and Central America, gobbling millions of acres of forests and grasslands, closing international airports and pushing blankets of smoke into Texas and gritty haze as far away as Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Georgia. Smoke from the fires has forcedofficials in …
though the factors responsible for a woman's risk of breast cancer have been known to the doctors for years, there was little they could possibly do except issue warnings and suggest preventive measures to cut down the chances of aggravating the disease. However, there has been little consensus on what …
hospitals in the us performed radiation experiments on mentally retarded Norwegians during the Cold War, reveals a retired senior health official. Fredrik Mellbye, a top government doctor from 1950 until 1972, says that these people were used to determine the effect of radiation on humans. Such experiments were carried out …
Microbes seeking extreme heat do not seem to care much about how their genes are organised, say scientists who have completed the second DNA sequence form such a creature. Unlike genes in most other organisms, genes that work together
Alexander Domijan Jr, a professor at the electrical engineering department of University of Florida, USA, has recently completed his two-year study that monitored the US automobile-giant General Motors' EV1, the first mass-produced, commercial electric car in the US, and its impact on Florida's power company Power & Light's power distribution …
Many environmental groups and a number of cetacean scientists are campaigning strongly against the US navy's use of its Low Frequency Active Sonar. The groups fear that using the sonar will harm all marine mammals. They also say that there is a distinct possibility that tests similar to those just …
High-pressure gas refrigerants leaking from the cooling systems that chill supermarket display cases are a major source of environmental pollution, according to engineers at the University of Illinois, USA, who think that they might have a solution at hand. Predrag Hrnjak, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and a …
poultry just discovered a new feather in its cap: that it can help make this polluted world a little cleaner. It came as a pleasant surprise when us-based scientists recently announced that chicken feather can help clean up those ugly oil slicks quickly, efficiently and - most important of all …
The gravity of the problem of freshwater scarcity on a global scale was recognised as far back as 1977, when the un Water Conference took place at Mar del Plata, Argentina. The action plan drawn up at Mar del Plata is considered by many as "an excellent road map", much …
modern drugs are a boon to some and a bane to others. About 100,000 people may be dying every year in the us as a result of unintended side effects of therapeutic drugs. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, side-effects from drugs is the …
