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. …
THE NEW US administration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore promises to be environment-friendly. Gore, derided as the "ozone man" by outgoing president George Bush has sound environmental credentials. His book, Earth in the Balance, has been called visionary by some. Others liken it to Hitler's Mein Kampf and they …
US manufacturers are marketing plastic containers that are labelled recyclable but have to be exported on the sly to developing countries for disposal. The environmental group Greenpeace pointed out the American plastics industry thus satisfies its environmentally conscious consumers by presenting a "green" image, while dumping potentially hazardous material in …
STAR MOSS, a primitive organism without roots or a vascular system that is common in the forests of North America, contains genes that could be used to engineer drought resistance in crops. Molecular biologist Mel Oliver of the US Department of Agriculture's Plant Stress and Water Conservation Lab in Texas …
Managers of five US companies face fines upto $ 3.75 million each and imprisonment upto 75 years for shipping toxic waste to Australia, Bangladesh and Pakistan in violation of US waste exports law. Three companies from southern USA -- Gaston Copper Recycling Corp, Stoller Chemical Co and Hy-Tex Marketing -- …
US President George Bush's refusal to sign the biodiversity treaty has failed to please those whom he claims to be protecting: the biotech community. Although Genentech chief executive officer G Kirk Raab wrote to Bush praising him for his "courageous stand (in) rejecting an unwise convention", his employees think otherwise. …
IN JUST two years, India's sesame seed exports have fallen dramatically -- by more than 75 per cent. While the government says this is due to higher prices in the domestic market, oilseed exporters contend it is because residues of banned pesticides have been detected in sesame seeds by importing …
Scientists at the US National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory have developed a portable laser scanner than can accurately measure soil roughness, a key determinant of erosion. The laser scans the microscopic ridges in the soil and transmits the data to a computer that produces a microtopographic map of the area. …
SCIENTIFIC research in America is under pressure to perform better -- economically. Despite the yield of Nobel prizes, "smart" weapons and electronic consumer goods after the government's $76-billion annual investment in scientific research, the US has been unable to stop countries like Japan from obtaining the commercial gains. Lasers and …
AFTER discovering that babies are not as passive and helpless as they appear to be, adults are trying to figure out whether infants can do sums. In 20 years of research, it has become known that babies can differentiate and even tell if someone's lip movements match the speech they …
SCIENTISTS D S J Choy and P Altman working at the Investigative Cardiology Laboratory attached to the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA, have turned their attention to dinosaur hearts (The Lancet, volume 340, number 8818). Intrigued by the sheer size of the Barosaurus, a long-necked dinosaur that …
A 35-YEAR-OLD man, the first person in the world to receive a baboon's liver, died after two months of the transplant. Though he was found to be HIV-infected, he had reportedly not developed AIDS. Surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre plan to continue experimental transplants as rejection of …
A GERALAN ship carrying a load of the dual-use chemical trimethyl phosphate (TMP) exported from India to Syria is now stuck in Cyprus after Germany refused to allow the cargo to be offloaded for onward shipment. The USA is said to have asked the German authorities to stop the shipment …
European Space Agency (ESA) officials are heaving a sigh of relief following a report from the US National Research Council that says probes landing on Mars need not be sterilised if they are not conducting extraterrestrial biological experiments (Nature, Vol 358 No 6389). ESA was worried that stringent planet protection …
THE US elections are still a few months away, but conservationists in the country have already cast their vote. The League of Conservation Voters, a non-political lobbying organisation, has ranked the Democrats environmental record over President George Bush's. While the Democrat presidential nominee Bill Clinton's main advantage is his vice-presidental …
SCIENTISTS at the University of Delaware have produced an accurate satellite image of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, enabling weather experts to track the deadly El Nino, the warm current in the Pacific which brings in its wake droughts to India, Africa and other parts of the world. …
INDIA had the last laugh when US President George Bush announced at an election campaign meeting US $1 billion in subsidies to boost US wheat exports. India, whose request for purchase of one million tonnes of American wheat was rejected in March can now import 1.5 million tonnes of American …
THE US National Institute of Health (NIH) has halted grant to a conference on 'Links between genetic disposition and criminal behaviour', following complaints that the conference might be a covert attack on African- Americans, who constitute 46 per cent of prisoners in USA. The conference on genetic factors in crime, …
UN SECRETARY general Boutros Boutros-Ghali's suggestion that the North and South should share equally the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD) leadership has failed to enthuse Europeans and Americans. Mustafa Tolba (?), enjoying the support of UNCSD secretary general Maurice Strong, is virtually …
THE UNITED States Agency for International Development (USAID) stopped assistance for irrigation development projects in India with effect from September 15. Sources attribute this measure to the gradual shifting of US attention to areas such as health and population control and agriculture -- specifically food processing. Some observers feel irrigation …
DESIGNER food may drive people crazy, but not quite in the way biotechnology firms would want. A few weeks ago, an unidentified group destroyed a test field of genetically engineered maize in Holland. And, there is growing concern in the USA about the effects of genetically modified food on human …
