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. …
CANTON will soon wear a different look as its commuters abandon the traditional bicycle for other modes of transport. In a dramatic step to ease traffic congestion, Cantonese officials intend to restrict and eventually ban the environment-friendly carrier, the China News Service (CNS) reports. CNS says the plan to crack …
RESEARCHERS in New York have given a fillip to the fight against malaria by breaking into the genes of the parasite. The scientists report they have made test-tube clones of the 14 chromosomes, which contain the genes of the microbe that mosquitoes transmit to humans. They have also shown the …
ASTRONOMERS are excited about the recent observations made by the satellite ROSATwhich provide the strongest evidence yet that as much as 90 per cent of the matter in the universe is invisiblewhose presence is indicated by its gravitational pull on matter in space. Astronomers have been searching for this invisible …
A SRI LANKAN research team has dismissed as "biased" and "rushed" a UN study that claims the country is among the world's top five dolphin- catchers. The release of the team's report this month is keenly awaited by Colombo, which fears that if Sri Lanka continu6s to be identified with …
THOUGH reports linking brain, cancer to the use of mobile phones pushed down shares of US Cellular telephone companies, Japanese firms remain mostly unaffected. Tokyo stock market analysts explain this is because the Japanese have been inoculated by earlier reports of radioactive cellular phones. Says Edward Staiano of Motorola, the …
EVEN AS Kenya announced the World Bank would contribute US $29 million of the $85 million needed for the country's drought recovery programme, more than 60 people died when flash floods in the river Ngai Ndethya ("God save me" in Swahili) d-estroyed a bridge, which caused a train to tumble …
A US $700 million "nuclear safety account" to reduce the risk of accidents in east Europe - agreed in principle last July - has finally been approved by specialists from the Group of Seven industrialised nations. At least 32 reactors are deemed sufficiently safe for upgrading; 26 are excluded as …
SOCIAL insects such as ants, bees, wasps and termites fascinate us. Few, however, believe we have direct lessons to learn from social insects. Much like our fascination for a tribal society, it's more a question of wanitng to know how they do things. Our curiosity about social insects relates to …
THE CLINTON administration jumped into a contentious issue even before assuming office by announcing it would block a final-stage, testing permit for a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Vice-president Al Gore, casting his lot with a Greenpeace campaign to stop the US incinerator industry, said there are "serious …
PARTICLE physicists at Fermilab near Chicago may have sighted the elusive "top" quark, one of the smallest constituents of matter (Science, Vol 258, No 5086; New Scientist, Vol 136, No 1851). An experiment at the Tevatron collider -a large particle smasher -yielded a pattern of particle debris that was anticipated …
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton wants American research to adopt the Japanese stress on industrial applications. But his call may have come too late as Japanese scientists are switching their thrust to basic research, in which the Americans have hitherto been pre-eminent. Clinton plans to add at least $7 billion to the …
NEARLY half the world's population depends on rice for food. Yet, it was only i.n the early :980~ thaHhe crop was Included in biotechnology research to enhance yield and quality. Since then, however, while the research has thrown up break-throughs, problems have cropped up that could hinder the development of …
A REVOLUTION is taking place in medical immunology with the discovery of a method to produce monoclonal antibodies, which offer a powerful and less toxic treatment for diverse diseases, from cancer to rheumatoid arthritis, than most available drugs (British Medical Journal, Vol 340, Nos 6864-6). In the mid-1970s, a group …
BUCKYBALLS or fullerenes, a newly discovered form of carbon, have opened up a new field in carbon chemistry and new applications are coming to light in electronics and electrochemistry. Japanese scientists have recently made thin films of fullerene crystals that show the electrical behaviour of semi-conductors such as silicon. Other …
DISPOSING low-level radioactive waste from hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and electric utilities will become more difficult and expensive in the US, with the collapse of a waste-disposal system functioning under a 12-year-old law. Now, the three states that have been operating radioactive waste dumps can refuse to accept waste generated outside …
HOW IMPORTANT is a chief executive's personality in the way a corporation works? Very, says Matthew Lynn in this book. In a game with billions at stake, it is a rare breed of people who have the vision and the nerve to stay the course and win. Roy Vagelos of …
WHEN HARVARD researchers Bruce Yankner and Neil Kowall discovered in 1991 that amyloids -- small proteins -- injected into the brain of rats could destroy nerve cells in the same manner as observed in Alzheimer's patients, there was much excitement. Alzheimer's disease is the fourth largest killer in the developed …
IN THE US, private eco-label schemes, whose environmental monitoring and approval is based on an analysis of the product through its life-cycle, have taken front-seat, because the state-owned US Environmental Protection Agency has remained wary of endorsing a product as ecologically superior. Two such groups are Green Seal and Green …
US PRESIDENT-elect Bill Clinton's appointment of Carol Browner as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a clear signal that the new US administration will move aggressively on environmental issues. Browner, 36, has excellent credentials for this key job, whose main challenge will be to settle the thorny issue …