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. …
PERHAPS one of the worst fears a woman harbours is that of getting breast cancer, a justifiable fear for, in USA alone, 46,000 women die every year of breast cancer -- and, this rate is increasing by 1 per cent annually. Despite the vast amounts of time and money pumped …
IT WAS absurd of Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), to have billed last year's conference, popularly known as the Earth Summit, as "the last chance to save the world". Part of his motivation was to hype up the event so that the world's …
USE OF additives, irradiation and the threat of pesticide residues and food-borne infections have led to the quality of diet being questioned these days as never before. Factory Farming comes as a comprehensive review of modern livestock farming and its implications, mainly in the context of Europe and North America. …
ALL THROUGH the second half of the 20th century, whenever Western governments have seen their industries lagging behind globally, they have resorted to updating their technology policies. The result has been that technology strategies became the key to economic growth not only in the US and in several European nations, …
IN APRIL this year, some US communities found themselves seeking cover from helicopters spraying the pesticide malathion. This is the starting point for an investigation in the BBC series, Nature. The episode, called Medfly Madness, shows the manner in which saving a $18 billion fruit and vegetable industry takes precedence …
• You take my genes; I'll take your technology -- the acceptance of this argument was seen as a victory for the South. Article 16 of the Biodiversity Convention states: "Access to and transfer of technology...to developing countries shall be provided and/or facilitated under fair and most favourable terms..." The …
THE EFFICACY of azidothymidine (AZT) in delaying the onset of AIDS symptoms is in serious doubt following a three-year study in Europe, which indicates it makes little difference whether AZT treatment starts early or late. The Anglo-French study, called Concorde, found 29 per cent of the volunteers who took AZT …
The Indian government and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) are trapped in a cleft stick because of five million defective copper-T contraceptives given by UNFPA to Hindustan Latex Ltd, a government of India undertaking. The copper-T contraceptives were part of batches manufactured by US-based Finishing Enterprises that …
PICTURE this: One species invades another to sponge off it and then alters the victim's basic characteristics so it cannot reproduce itself. Finally, the victim adds insult to injury by exploiting the victim's altered biology to perpetuate itself. Bizarre, yes. But this is precisely what happens when Puccinia monoica -- …
A FOUR-tonne stela -- an upright slab usually used as a gravestone -- discovered accidentally by fisherfolk at the small fishing settlement of La Mojarra near Vera Cruz, Mexico, has enabled archaeologists to crack a complex pictorial script widely used in Central America 2,000 years ago. Part of the engravings …
SCIENTISTS have found in the foothills of the Andes mountains the remains of what they contend is the earliest dinosaur. Unlike its giant descendants, the discovery by a US-Argentinian team measured just over a metre from nose to tail-tip and weighed only 11 kg. The newly-found dinosaur has been named …
US TREASURY secretary Lloyd Benen said his country favoured World Bank funding of programmes to help people affected by war, civil strife and economic mismanagement, and demanded specific targets be set for the purpose. The Bank president, Lewis Preston, said poverty eradication "must be at the centre of our overall …
AMERICAN physicists are taking increasingly to a computer-based electronic bulletin board developed by physicist Paul Ginsparg that enables them to exchange research information. Physicists can use the system to submit unpublished papers or scan papers submitted by other scientists and they can access the system from anywhere (Science, Vol 259, …
A NEW variety of potato has its own armour against pests and does not need a helping hand from insecticides. Its armour of hair traps and kills insects trying to feed on it (Ceres, Vol 25, No 2). The hairy potato marks the first success for plant breeders trying to …
ALASKAN Eskimos and American Indians were fed radioactive iodine at the height of the Cold War, but the project leader denies it was to learn how well American soldiers could survive in the Arctic. US Senator Frank H Murkowski has called for a federal investigation, stating, "There was no evidence …
"EMPTY boxes, empty promises", read a sign put up by the Washington Apple Commission, to protest against Japan's "unfair" ban on American apples, at a recent food exhibition in Osaka. The organisation that represents growers producing 60 per cent of the US apple crop said Japan has been rejecting import …
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton had good news and bad news to announce on Earth Day, April 22, 1993. The good news is that he will sign the Biodiversity Convention -- something his predecessor George Bush refused to do. The bad news is that he intends to issue an "interpretative statement" …
AN INDICATOR of a society's level of development is the quantity and quality of the energy it consumes. This is made clear by the wide disparity in per capita energy consumption in industrialised and developing countries. USA consumes more energy annually than Africa, Latin America, India and China put together. …
HEAT ALWAYS flows from a hotter body to a cooler one, according to the second law of thermodynamics. But then why is the Sun's atmosphere hotter, by several million degrees, than its surface where all the energy is generated? Astrophysicist Jack Scudder has furnished an ingenious mechanism to explain how …
Even as Union finance minister Manmohan Singh proclaimed the success of liberalisation and globalisation of the country's economy before World Bank officials in April this year, the Clinton administration targeted India for discriminatory sanctions under the Special 301 provisions of the US Trade Act. This is the third time since …
