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. …
SUCCOUR came from Rome. For the "pro-lifers" in the US -- as the members of the anti-abortion camp style themselves -- the 11th encyclical of Pope John Paul II, a 189-page pronunciation of papal wrath against abortion and euthanasia -- came at a moment when the battle for the fate …
CANADIAN and US newsprint producers are increasingly evading their governments' environmental regulations which require a recycled content of 4060 per cent in newsprint. "But when there is a shortage of newsprint, nobody worries about how much recycled content you have in it," said a senior executive in a Canadian firm. …
The raising of the Iron Curtain has forced into the open some of the darkest and most damning secrets of the Cold War. Both the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union used nuclear energy as a pointer, and a warning, to military muscle. And both embraced a radical, violent technology …
The new buzzword around the us House of Representatives now appears to be "research-spending". The recently announced budget indicates that heads of all the major science agencies who were apprehending severe financial cuts, may escape with minor bruises. The House is due to pass 2 rounds of budget recessions -- …
NESS Ltd, the Israel-based electronic goods manufacturer, has ushered in glad tidings for the handicapped, especially those unable to function with their hands. It has designed the Handmaster, a noninvasive neuromuscular stimulation device, which will help them drink from a glass, shave with an electric razor and perform other daily …
What do you hope to achieve by patenting the protein gene extracted from Amaranthus or Ramdana? Cereals like rice and wheat are an important protein source. However, they are not nutritionally very efficient as they have very low concentrations of several essential amino acids, like tryptophan and lysine. Legumes like …
WANT to get vaccinated against malaria? Just chew a few tobacco leaves instead. Researcher Thomas H Turpen of the California-based Biosource Technologies Inc and his colleagues at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, the US, have worked out a way to produce an experimental vaccine against malaria by genetically …
American biomedical researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, have devised a simple instrument to accurately measure carbon monoxide (co) in a person's lungs (Environment Science Technology, Vol 29, No 1). The device, invented by the Harvard scientists Kiyoung Lee and Yukio Yanagisawa, consists of a mouthpiece, an …
How do sperms find the ova? Solomon Snyder and his colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, say that the male sex cells virtually sniff out their female counterpart (New Scientist, Vol 145, No 1961). The scientists found that rat sperms possess odour receptors, which are also present …
The ongoing US-Russia joint space programme negotiations are progressing, quite literally, at lightspeed. The 2 countries are now shipping hardware to each other. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) space shuttle and Mir, the decade-old Russian space station in orbit, have a dance ahead of them. The purpose of …
The General Accounting Office GAO in Washington, USA, has set the alarm bells ringing furiously. In a study conducted early this January it has said that the 25,000 tonnes of chemical weapons stockpiled by the US army may explode any time if not disposed off immediately. But the disposal incinerators …
CYRIL Ponnamperuma, a luminary in the field of science and technology, spent most of his life delving into the mysteries of Earth's past. When he died in Washington on December 20, 1994, at the age of 71, the world lost a rare scientist: one who believed in the ability of …
A recent study conducted by ocean scientists from Florida State University, USA, provides evidence of the greater role of atmospheric nitrogen, rather than of ground sources, in controlling the nitrogen levels of rivers (Environmental Science & Technology, Vol 28, No 2). It was widely believed that ground sources such as …
LEADERS of 34 countries attending the Summit of the Americas left Miami after the 3 day-long meeting, which concluded on December 12, 1994, seemingly in an upbeat mood. Host us President Bill Clinton said that the meeting would create a free trade area stretching from "Alaska to Argentina". Heads of …
GLOBAL trade and agriculture now embarks on a new phase on January 1, 1995, with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation. However, the prickly question of control over crop seeds of the world seems likely to bedevil international negotiators. The latest uncomfortable reminder was exemplified by 2 separate challenges …
For the victims of Alzheimer's disease, Japan's Eisai Co brings good tidings. It has teamed up with the American Pfizer Inc to develop a drug to treat the disease. The medicine, to be manufactured from Eisai's compound E2020, is currently in phase II trials in Japan. It functions by increasing …
There is more to pigs than pork. Researchers at Purdue University in the US have cannibalised discarded swine to reconstruct damaged human arteries, veins, ligaments and tendons. Stephen F Badylak and his colleagues first sterilise the middle layer of a pig's small intestine, and then mould it into sheets and …
The US Department of Energy and a Maryland-based company, Fusion Lighting, have jointly developed sulphur light bulbs, which experts claim could be the light sources of the future (New Scientist, Vol 144, No 1951). These bulbs are small glass spheres filled with a mixture of sulphur and argon which when …
Now in the US if a passenger lights up during a flight, the purser may sue the manufacturer for "health problems" caused by passive smoking. The ruling, passed by a Miami judge, has triggered off a fracas between the anti-smoking lobby and tobacco firms. The Miami suit tests whether tobacco …
This comprehensive manual presents a package of proven field techniques in wildlife management and research. Arising from a workshop in which wildlife ecologists, managers, and other scientists from South Asia interacted with selected specialists from the USA, the volume reviews developments in technical approaches towards wildlife research and management, and …
