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. …
ONTARIO Hydro's newly appointed chairman, Maurice Strong, has initiated steps to reduce the corporation's debt and review its operations, including its nuclear programme. Ontario Hydro, Canada's largest power corporation, owes US $29 billion. It raised its rates by 11.8 per cent in 1992 and in addition shelved expansion plans, retrenched …
MARIJUANA and heroin may be frowned on by parents and the police, but they do have a beneficial side for scientists. Recent breakthroughs in understanding how these two addictive drugs act on the brain could result in a non-addictive opiate that will help drug addicts cope better with withdrawal symptoms. …
PEOPLE confined to wheelchairs will be able to reach for anything stored on the topmost shelves because a wheelchair has been developed in USA that can be raised a couple of metres without loss of normal mobility (Design News, Vol 49, No 1). Named Full Access Wheelchair, the new design …
DID YOU know the total UN budget for 1992 was just US $5.2 billion? That's less than the cost of two Stealth bombers, but still enough to pay for all the UN programmes to care for children, feed the hungry, promote development and preserve the peace. A 11-member group convened …
VARIOUS studies indicate that the risk of contracting AIDS during receiving or providing dental treatment is negligible because in the past decade worldwide, only 5 patients -- and all from a single dental practice -- are known to have become infected by dentists and only 2 dental care staff out …
A HINT that Washington may soften its opposition to measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions was given at the recent session of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in New York. In an implicit dig at the Bush administration's attitude -- which was widely blamed for watering down the terms …
AN AMERICAN satellite has provided firm evidence that cosmic rays -- showers of energised particles from space that bombard the earth from all directions -- are produced within earth's own galaxy -- the Milky Way. Speculation was rife on whether these radiations emanated from within the Milky Way or outside …
SCIENTISTS at the Malaria Research Centre (MRC), New Delhi, say neem oil used in low concentrations effectively repels malaria-carrying mosquitoes that are resistant to pesticides. This is welcome news because malaria has re-emerged as a major public health threat because the malaria-causing microorganism, Plasmodium falciparum, is increasingly resistant to chloroquine …
INDIAN scientists are exploring the possibility that neem could provide a non-toxic AIDS therapy. In Ayurveda and Unani, neem is prescribed for diverse ailments ranging from skin diseases to diabetes. Scientists at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, postulate neem's efficacy is not so much because of its …
HIROSHI Nakajima, newly re-elected director general of the World Health Organisation, could face a demand for his resignation at WHO's annual assembly in May in Geneva, unless allegations of financial irregularities are resolved. Nakajima won a hard-fought campaign in January for a second five-year term. Eighteen of WHO's 31-member executive …
THE ARNOLD Schwarzenegger-starrer, Lost Actfon Hero, is to be advertised in space. Columbia Pictures is paying $500,000 to have the movie's logo and name painted in large red, yellow and orange letters on the payload of the unmanned commercial rocket, Conestoga 1620, due for launch in early May. The payment …
TEMPTED by projections that the number of air passengers will double in the next 10 years, but daunted by the US $10 billion price tag of a super jumbo jet with a carrying capacity of 800 passengers, Boeing of USA is negotiating collaboration with Europe's Airbus Industrie consortium. Boeing's latest …
US SOURCES contend Japan is violating a 1991 agreement, which requires the Japanese to buy 20 per cent of its computer chip needs from USA. A third-quarter assessment in 1992 shows the US share of the Japanese chip market is still only 15.9 per cent. Responding to US commerce secretary …
A TIENTS who do not respond to AZT -the primary AIDS therapeutic drug produced and patented almo worldwide by Burroughs Wellcome Co -now have hope. Studies at the US Nationi Institutes of Health at Bethesd Maryland, show two other drugs . le DDC produced by Hoffmann at Roche Inc and …
THE ABORTION pill RU486 developed by French drug company Roussel-Uclaf may be available soon in the US market, following meetings between Rous-sel-Uclaf president Edouard Sakiz and US food and drugs commissioner David Kessler. Women's groups are eagerly awaiting RU486, but anti-abortion groups in USA are threatening,a boycott of the US …
A US B-52 bomber has been given a new role -launching satellites Recently, a modified B-52 dropped rocket carrying a Brazilian satellite an altitude of about 12.8 km. Five seconds later, the rocket motors fir sending the 150-kg satellite into a 515-km orbit above the earth. Orbital Sciences of Fairfax …
INDIA'S miracle neem (Azadirachta indica) is moving from the laboratory to the market and many US and Australian firms are getting involved in manufacturing neem-based pesticides. Says Michael O'Shea, managing director of Neemoil Australia Pvt Ltd, "Indian suppliers have been swarming about us like flies around honey." In USA, a …
BY THE end of the 1980s, 37 per cent of the paper and board consumed by the world was being collected and recycled to make more paper and board. While in the North it was environmental consciousness that brought about this recycling, in the South, poverty was the determining factor. …
EXPERIMENTAL observations have amply confirmed the Big Bang theory, but some of its shortcomings have led scientists to develop the so-called inflationary theory, to pursue their bid to trace the early history of the universe. Proposed originally by Alan Guth of MIT in 1980, the inflationary theory predicts the density …
THE US government says the energy tax under consideration could reduce the US budget deficit, cut oil imports and meet environmental goals. Nevertheless, the controversy it has sparked is heating up and US oil companies are challenging the levy. The tax is to be based on the heat content measured …
