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. …
EFFORTS to abolish the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in developing countries, has received a jolt: evidence of a thriving black market for CFCs has been detected recently in the US. The chemical, which is wreaking havoc on the earth's fragile ozone layer, is used primarily in air-conditioning and refrigeration industries. …
Recently, the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) in the us accomplished one of its most well known public health campaigns of the past quarter century, when it officially ended the phase-out of lead from gasoline. According to a ruling issued by the EPA on January 29, automobile manufacturers in the us …
Glaucoma is an eye disease resulting in the loss of eyesight due to fluid accumulation inside the eyeball which in turn builds-up pressure over the optic nerve, eventually leading to blindness. A new drug developed by the US-based Pharmacia Upjohn Incorporated, latanoprost, is more effective than the standard drug for …
GREEN cars are winding their way to an era of less polluted Istreets. General Motors (GM), the world's largest automobile 'manufacturer, has announced 'that it would begin selling the Electric Vehicle (Ev) I electric motor cars in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucon in the us from late 1997. …
Disgruntled with the apathy of manufacturers towards their complaints, a group of frustrated PC users have taken a "PC maker, Leading Edge Products Inc of Westborough, Massachussets, to court. They have filed a case of fraud and breach of warranty contracts in the State Supreme Court, New York, contending that …
THE bullets were not meant to kill rice cells; they were aimed to impart resistance in them to fight off a destructive menace - bacterial leaf blight, a disease that routinely destroys rice crops around the world. Researchers led by Pamela Ronald from the University of California, us, recently performed …
IN THE run up to knowing more about outer space and its intricate components, especially the asteroids - rocky leftovers of the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the first ever space probe to orbit an asteroid …
A solar-powered water pasteurising device called Solsaver, designed by John Grandinetti, president of Grand Solar Incorporated of Hawaii, USA, may bring an end to people falling prey to water-borne diseases (World Watch, VoJ8, No 5). The Solsaver uses thermal action to move the water which flows through copper tubing into …
The US government has just given The Canadians a well-deserved kick on their pants. It has forced Canada not just to cut subsidies to its domestic lumber industry but also accept effective quotas on lumber shipments to the US. The US argued that the Canadian lumber industry is unfairly subsidised, …
HELL bath no fury like the US scorned! Venezuela and Brazil have touched on the raw the Big Brother of the First World, by evoking an anti-US ruling from the one-year old World Trade Organization'(WTO). The organisation came into existence on January 1, 1995, as a successor to GATT (the …
BETA carotene, the amazing vitamin found primarily in carrots and promoted as a preventive cure for both cancer and heart disease may not work wonders after all. Contrary, to popular beliefs, two studies financed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), US, reveal that beta carotene is completely ineffective in preventing …
THE race to save the depleting ozone layer may yet be won. Scientists belonging to the Yale University in New Haven, us, announced recently that they have discovered a new method by which chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which eat into the ozone layer can be broken down into harmless derivatives. A particular …
REJUVENATING RUBBER: India will soon have access to a new technology which can provide some answers to the environmental problems posed by stockpiles of used rubber tyres. The Bombay-based REPL Engineering Ltd has tied up with Polymers SDN BHD of Malaysia, to introduce the De-Link process to manufacture revulcanised or …
An antiviral drug, which was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating AIDS, has been found to have the potential to treat chronic hepatitis B infection too. Lamivudine, or 3TC, .the drug manufactured by the Glaxo Wellcome group under the brand name Epivir, is reported to …
SERIOUS efforts are on in the us to develop vaccines to fight cancer. Cancer could be described as the inability of the body's immune system to recognise a sudden, inexplicable mutation of cells and the manufacture of killer T-CeIIs to destroy these cells. Scientists are not entirely sure as to …
MELATONIN gets secreted by the pineal gland, a pea-size structure at the centre of the brain. A potent hormone, melatonin is the natural nightcap. It sets the body's clock and helps it sleep. Most animals, including humans, produce a lot of melatonin early on in life but its level in …
Researchers at the Palomar Observatory, Caltech, USA, have recently reported the coolest brown dwarf with the lowest mass. Brown dwarves are star-like objects which have a mass less than 0.08 times that of the sun and are unable to sustain the thermonuclear reactions in their interiors. Most of their gravitational …
VIRTUAL reality (VR) is a concept which allows people to experience an :s if world. In other words, computer programmes and imaging hardware create a three-dimensional world with which actual interaction is possible. A report released by a committee of the National Research Council, an operating agency of the National …
Shoppers in the US will now have a choke of refrigerators apprising them about the effect of the product on the environment thanks to a lawsuit. Four big refrigerator manufacturers agreed recently to relabel their products to inform the buyers that their appliances will harm the ozone layer, even though …
