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. …
NEARLY 37 million people in the United States have no health insurance at all. Meanwhile, the money spent on health care has been rising steadily till last year, it touched $800 billion -- more than 14 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But all that will be a …
GERMAN industries and town councils agreed in the first week of September, to loan $345 million to the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) to rescue the country's ambitious recycling programme from the brink of bankruptcy. Trash collection companies had threatened to stop collection unless they were paid the $121.2 million owed …
IN 1988, Seattle city's officials announced a plan to recycle 60 per cent of its garbage in 10 years. Five years later, however, this ambitious programme is running out of steam. The programme has become a big-city benchmark. About 42 per cent of all the city's trash goes into recycling …
CANCERS occur when some cells break free from the body's control and multiply prolifically. That's the classical view. But now there is a new way of looking at cancer -- it may be because cells are not dying fast enough. Advocates of this novel view are confident that if death-defying …
AS THE global warming debate heats up, scientists are looking towards the most unlikely source for clues -- penguins. They suspect the availability of fish on which penguins feed is increasing in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, which are warming slightly. Therefore, fatter penguins would indirectly confirm the greenhouse …
A TEAM of US scientists has developed a technique to enable hand-held computers that work with a pen to recognise handwriting quickly and more accurately than their present level of literacy allows them (Science Vol 260, No 5115). The new system, which has been developed by Rohini Srihari, Stayvis Ng, …
US jet engine and automobile-part manufacturer, United Technologies Corp, has been fined $5.3 million for its carelessness in handling and discharging hazardous wastes in recent years. The wastes contained solvents, paint thinners and sludge, among other toxic chemicals. Seven plants of the firm's Pratt & Whitney jet engine unit and …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has proposed a package of measures that would afford additional protection to Alaska's wetlands, but also ease some of the present restrictions on wetlands use. Environmentalists term the measures a tepid series of steps that will just open up opportunities for the abuse of a fragile …
IN BUT one example of the heady new world opening up to civilian scientists after the end of the Cold War, biologists used the US navy's formerly top secret underwater listening devices to track a blue whale for 43 days. Marine biologist Adam S Frankel said the surveillance system has …
THE GROWING fear of losing jobs has fuelled the debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Among the major opponents to the pact between the US, Canada and Mexico, are Ross Perot, a contender for the US President's post in 1992, the American Federation of Labour-Confederation of Industrial …
THE EIGHTH session of the negotiating committee for a convention on climate change, held in August in Geneva, failed to agree on "joint implementation" by industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Joint implementation essentially means that industrialised countries can sponsor cheap efforts in the Third World to reduce greenhouse …
UNDER pressure from women's groups, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is under orders to ensure that women and minorities are adequately represented in federally-funded clinical research projects. The requirement, imposed by the US Congress on June 10, 1993, would not apply if the NIH director determines such an …
The US government's paranoia over nuclear proliferation has led it to ban the transfer of its fertiliser plant technology to India, according to reports published in the beginning of September. The US government spokesperson says the technology may be diverted to manufacture of heavy water or deuterium oxide (D2O) -- …
SCIENTISTS have discovered a gene that could make a person more prone to developing Alzheimer's disease -- a brain disorder that induces premature senility -- after the age of 65. The suspected gene codes for a protein that transports cholesterol through the bloodstream and researchers have found abnormally high levels …
FISHERFOLK in Alaska set up a floating picket line of about 100 fishing boats and other vessels, blocking tankers heading for Prince William Sound, for three days in August. They were protesting Exxon's failure to deal with the after effects of the March 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, …
SEVEN minutes. That's how much every cigarette reduces a person's life, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US. A study conducted by the institute's researchers found that every minute spent in smoking robbed the smoker of one minute of life and it took, on an …
HEAVY metal music buffs who are compulsive hand-bangers need beware because jerking the head to the beat could cause severe injury to their necks (New Scientist, Vol 139, No 1887). Marilyn Kassirer, a neurologist at the Boston University School of Medicine, studied 11 girls and six boys who admitted to …
THOUGH chemical manufacturer DuPont withdrew its Benlate DF fungicide from the market in 1991 and subsequently paid about $500 million to settle nearly 2,000 claims filed by growers, its troubles are not yet over. In the first of more than 400 Benlate damage suits, a jury in Arkansas found the …
CALCULATED in monetary terms, the benefits of plants used against cancer is estimated to be $1,100 billion. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development puts the value of a human life at $12.4 million and plant-based cancer drugs save 90,000 lives a year in rich countries. A US Environmental Protection …
WITH PREDICTIONS by World Health Organisation officials that 40 million people will be infected by HIV by 2000 and six million of them will go on to contract AIDS and die, a cure for the disease holds out promise for vast profits -- and the Australians, at least, are determined …
