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. …
WHY is a city hotter than its surrounding countryside? The first answer that comes to mind is the availability of open space and trees in the countryside. Now, Haider Taha and his colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) in Berkeley, California, and the University of California, Los Angeles, say …
In a significant development towards tackling brain disorders, American researchers claim to have successfully transplanted immature brain cells in mice to treat a genetic brain abnormality similar to one that may cause mental retardation in humans. Evan Smith of the Harvard Medical School and John Wolfe of the University of …
A court ruling in the US in January 1995 cleared the way for an ambitious plan to reintroduce the gray wolf (Canis lupus) to parts of its former range. One of the 2 sites selected is the famous Yellowstone National Park, which was established in 1872 and is well known …
HISTORY informs us that the year Galileo died was the year Newton was born, thus ensuring a seamless continuum of the spirit of the ongoing revolution in physics. Martin Bernal's recent volumes on the Afro-Asiatic Roots of Western Civilisation, which appeared a couple of years ago, could be seen as …
AMERICAN greens are seeing red. April 22 this year, the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, saw them bludgeoning the Republicans with slogans and protests. America"s environmentalists, so far one of the most influential pressure groups in the country, have never felt so betrayed before. Congress" attempts to "remodel" the major …
A SHOW of muscle by the us oil industry has sent the country's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the powerful agricultural lobby into a tailspin. In late April, a federal appeals court threw out an EPA rule requiring oil refineries to include maize-based ethanol in the new cleaner-burning fuel. The …
Physicists at the University of California, Los Angeles, have built a device that uses a novel method of producing short tunable pulses of radiation. Working much like the musical accordion, the device employs an extremely short, highly energetic laser pulse from a short-pulse laser moving in a low pressure gas …
AN AMERICAN company, Ultralife Batteries, has launched the world's first lightweight rechargeable battery made entirely from solid materials. The battery, launched a few weeks ago, can be recharged more than 1,000 times with only a tiny loss of capacity. In comparison, conventional batteries can be recharged a maximum of 200 …
The American industry is pushing for a new lease of life to solar thermal power technology. As a first step in this direction, Solar One, a solar thermal power project located in California is being renovated (Solar Today, Vol 9, No 2). The Luz International Company which set up and …
Researchers from the US department of energy's Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) in Richland have developed a new fibreoptic sensor that can immediately detect 2 of the most common radioactive contaminents left over from nuclear power generation and weapons development. The BetaScintTM sensor relies on tiny fibreoptic strands to detect radioactive …
The hepatitis virus has already run through alphabets A to E. A recent study could well slot it up to J. Tests conducted on a frozen blood specimen 30 years old led to the discovelry of 3 previously unknown hepatitis viruses. Tentatively called GB-A,' GB-B and GB-C, the viruses belcwig …
NASA is sorely disappointed with its European partners. The European Space Agency (ESA) appears to be dragging its feet over its proposed contribution to the setting up of an international space station. A meeting of the ESA council, in late March in Paris, was expected to thrash out differences and …
A TEAM of physicists working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the us claims that it has gathered experimental evidence suggesting that fundamental particles called neutrinos are not, as believed, massless. Interestingly, the New York Times printed the story of the discovery, announced in February, even before the findings …
Sinclair Gallery in the United States of America is currently holding an exhibition on the Indus Valley civilisation. The purpose of this exhibition is to demonstrate the advanced status of this ancient civilisation and its importance in South Asia. According to the Smithsonian, the exhibition will be held in the …
THE mysteries surrounding the GaVf War Syndrome (Down To Earth, Vol 3, No 15) may finally be laid to rest. The Pentagon has confirmed that the symptoms associated with the syndrome, like birth defects, memory loss and joint pain, may have been caused by the precautionary medicines given to allied …
MUCH before the 3-week Review and Extension Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) began in New York on April 17, the battle lines had been drawn. Although the 5 nuclear nations -- with the exception of China, which prefers an extension of 25 years -- strongly favour the treaty's indefinite …
THE US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finally come up with a full-fledged plan to combat pollution at the Great Lakes on the US-Canadian border. The basin-of the 5 lakes, which Iretches across over 1,200 kilometres covering 8 states of the US and a Canadian province, provides drinking water to …
The First Lady of the US, Hillary Clinton, officially launched a 'Safe Home Delivey Kit' during her visit to a Kathmandu clinic in Nepal on March 31. Developed after 2 years of intensive research, the kit has been produced by Maternal and Child Health Products, a local company. Of 700,000 …
The US Food and Drug Agency recently approved Naltrexone -- a medicine to cure alcoholism. The effectiveness of the drug was studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University, USA. Naltrexone reduces alcohol-induced euphoria brought about by the body's endorphins and suppresses the craving to drink more. By mimicking …
THE US drug industry is in the grip of a "biotech fever". Drug giants are apparently scooping up shares in biotech companies. According to the latest reports, deals between pharmaceutical giants and biotech firms more than doubled in value over the past year. Affymax NV, the California-based biotech firm, for …
