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. …
LIFE IMITATES art more than art imitates life, said Oscar Wilde. His statement was borne out recently when US scientists re-enacted in their laboratory the plot of Steven Spielberg's latest film, Jurassic Park, which shows dinosaurs being re-created from their DNA, procured from the blood sucked by mosquitoes and preserved …
A SERIOUS error acknowledged recently by AIDS researchers at USA's prestigious Harvard Medical School is being cited as an example of what can happen when scientists rush into clinical trials pleading that the urgency of their work excuses corner-cutting. In the Harvard incident, field trials were held nationally, based on …
FIVE YEARS ago, 52-year-old Don Nelson could barely walk because Parkinson"s disease had reduced him to a cripple. But today, thanks to the foetal-tissue therapy that he underwent in 1988, he is up and about, takes less medication and can once again indulge his passion for wood-carving. The new world …
ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs in the US are rushing ahead of their government in both their desire and actions to act as the world's green helmets. A statement issued by the Environment Defence Fund and other US environmental groups at the time of the G-7 Tokyo Summit against the World Bank loan …
THE US has extended its nine-month moratorium on testing of nuclear weapons that expired in July. It abandoned plans to conduct nine underground nuclear tests and says it will not resume testing unless another country first conducts tests. This marks a retreat by the Clinton administration in the face of …
US SCIENTISTS are making the most elaborate efforts yet to detect gravitational waves, which are the distortions in the fabric of space and time predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. These waves are produced during violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two neutron stars or …
POLITICAL support for expensive scientific projects, plagued as they are by cost overruns, is dwindling in the US because with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the defence applications of space research are now less urgent. Besides, US scientists have suggested -- for the first time in modern memory -- …
US-BASED pharmaceutical companies provide incomplete -- and even misleading -- information on the labels of products they market in developing countries, an official study by the office of technology assessment (OTA) states. The study, based on the labelling of 241 products sold in 1988-90 in Kenya, Panama, Brazil and Thailand …
MALAYSIAN exports of palm oil to the US are on the rebound. They shot up to 200,000 tonnes in 1992 -- double the 1989 level -- in the wake of a counter-offensive against propaganda that saturated fat from palm oil could induce heart failure. In 1987, the American Soyabean Association …
WHITE House sources indicate a department of labour (DOL) project to ease immigration rules for professionals in selected industries may be scrapped following objections that it would worsen the lot of unemployed Americans. A host of industry groups led by the American Federation of Labour-Confederation of Industrial Organisations -- the …
LED BY giants Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, the US tobacco industry has sued the environmental protection agency (EPA), claiming its report on passive smoking -- the inhalation of exhaled cigarette smoke -- was unscientific and arbitrary. The EPA report, published in January, classified exhaled tobacco smoke in the most-serious …
ANALYSIS of satellite imagery publicised in June has cheered environmentalists because it shows Brazil's Amazon forests are being cleared at a much slower rate than had been widely estimated. David Skole of the University of New Hampshire and Compton Tucker of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in the US …
THE US patent and trademark office last December issued patents for three transgenic animals, which are animals that have been implanted with genes at an early developmental stage. The only previous animal patent issued was four-and-a-half years ago for the Harvard onco-mouse, into which cancer-causing genes had been introduced. Animal …
THE PROPOSED North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico was dealt a stiff blow by a court judgement requiring the US government to file an environmental impact statement on the effects of the accord, before it comes into force on January 1, 1994. The suit …
AMERICAN doctors are waving their scalpels against Hillary Clinton, head of the presidential task force on health. The American Medical Association, which fears that investments made in specialised training and equipment by physicians would be devalued if Hillary's proposed health care reforms come into force, has contended that the practice …
TRANSPORT authorities in USA and Europe, where the motor car culture first spawned, are now developing sophisticated technology to monitor and direct traffic in order to reduce congestion on their roads. Several US firms are developing what are called intelligent vehicle highway systems (IVHS) to regulate traffic more efficiently than …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's efforts to tax energy in order to simultaneously reduce the budgetary deficit and reduce carbon dioxide emissions are running into heavy weather. The US senate is now struggling to devise a simple energy tax that will be universally acceptable after strident opposition from various quarters squashed …
NEXT TIME you liberally smear suntan lotion on your body and linger too long in the sun, beware: Sunscreens are not sunproof, say scientists. According to US epidemiologists Cedric and Frank Garland, though the lavish use of sun lotions blocks out the most damaging sun rays and prevents sunburn, it …
A US study refutes the notion that airline pilots nearing 60 are more likely to cause accidents than their younger colleagues. The two-year study, which analysed accident data between 1976 and 1988, was undertaken to test the validity of a US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule, which bars sexagenarian pilots …
THE ANGLO-US pharmaceuticals group, SmithKline Beecham, has linked up with Human Genome Services of the US to convert DNA coding data into commercial products, especially new drugs. Glaxo and Roche have also made similar forays in the race for a new range of drugs and diagnostic products, which are natural …
