Action taken report by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board on the operation of 9 cold storages in tehsil Sadabad, Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh. During the visit, one of the cold storage units was not in operational condition and found closed. The other 8 cold storage facilities were found …
Farmers' traditional methods for managing the potato late blight in the Meghalaya hills are successful examples of ecological disease management and an established outcome of traditional experimentations. Such farmers' wisdom ought to be given attention in formal research systems. Dec 2007
Second deluge: Less than a month after monsoon rains battered the country, a second wave of flooding that began on September 10, is further affecting parts of Bangladesh. According to government officials, the overall death toll from flooding since July had risen to 840, forcing over half a million from …
eating potatoes can increase the risk for developing type 2 diabetes, according to a recent study. Researchers led by Thomas L Halton of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, usa, analysed data recorded over 20 years on 84,555 women, aged 34 to 59 years with no …
a team of biotechnologists in Canada has chanced upon a new use for the skin secretions of a rainforest frog: protecting potatoes against pathogens. Endemic to Brazilian and Peruvian forests, the Giant Waxy Monkey Tree Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolour) secretes chemicals called dermaseptins (most potent being the one called b1) from …
What is the solution to India's malnutrition problem? Just a one per cent increase in the protein content of potatoes. Or so believes a group of scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. With the help of a gene extracted from amaranth, these scientists have developed a variety …
Scientists have come up with a home-grown genetically modified (gm) potato. This ubiquitous vegetable has now been fortified with proteins derived from an amaranth (Amaranthus) species through genetic modification. Amaranth is also an edible plant. While gm cotton and mustard did not quite get a warm welcome in India, the …
Canada seems to have settled scores with the us by restricting imports of mop top virus-infected American potatoes. In 2000-2001, the us had imposed a ban on potatoes from Canada's Prince Edward Island after some were found to have potato warts. The Canadian officials are taking a series of measures …
transgenic potatoes may be used in the future to vaccinate women against cancer of cervix caused by the human papilloma virus (hpv). It is the most common form of cancer afflicting Indian women. The vaccine was developed by a team of scientists from us-based University of Rochester, Cornell University and …
Many new pest varieties are sneaking into India. To prevent this, a quarantine bill draft is under consideration of the Union ministry for agriculture. Even though the quarantine stations have checked the entry of some diseases, many pests are believed to have made their way into the country due to …
Caution is good but it should not take the place of good policy making. By refusing environmental clearance to genetically modified cotton from Monsanto, the government of India has treaded the path of caution but not necessarily the path of good science and good policy. This should also not be …
An edible vaccine for hepatitis B is in the final stages of development. Once ready, it will work just as the existing vaccine that is injected and used widely around the world does. The current hepatitis B vaccine is based on an antigen (a protein) that stimulates the body to …
Seedlings of genetically modified ( gm ) potatoes are currently being housed at two greenhouses in Nairobi, Kenya. The potatoes have been genetically modified by scientists from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute with the help of us -based Monsanto Life Sciences Company, private institutions and the us government. These potatoes …
Diabetic? Then avoid potatoes. That is an advice all diabetics receive. But now, scientists have taken a step towards 'making' potatoes that could, one day, help prevent diabetes. Transgenic - genetically modified - potatoes that produce large amounts of auto-antigens have been suggested as potential vaccines for suppressing the development …
Researchers may soon develop pota- toes that could prevent diabetes. Transgenic potatoes produce large amounts of substances that in turn produce a foreign protein. Such potatoes have been suggested as potential vaccines for suppressing diabetes. The vaccines would work by downregulating immune cells in a diabetic's body that attack spe- …
A SINGLE vaccine can save more lives and money than any other form of medication currently available. This is a universal truth. In the next century, some 15-odd months away, doctors and scientists will strive to develop vaccines far more powerful and effective. Vaccines that will finally put an end …
Genetically engineered potatoes and tobacco plants would now save themselves from four major fungal diseases. Matteo Lorito of the Federico II University of Naples and his colleagues have equipped these plants with a gene which helps make a powerful anti-fungal endochiti-nase. This enzyme digests fungal cell walls and other structures …
A new, aggressive strain of the dreaded potato disease late blight ( Phytophthora infestans ) is devastating potatoes and tomatoes throughout the US and eastern Canada, warn American scientists. The fungus was thought responsible for the disastrous Irish potato famine in the 1840s. William Fry at Cornell University in New …
LATE-BLIGHT, a fungus that destroys potatoes, which had been neutralised decades back, may play havoc with crops in Europe once again. Researchers in southwest Scotland are about to infect a crop of potato hybrids with late-blight to see whether they can resist the disease. (New Scientist, Vol 154, No 2079) …
HARITT is a small village, about 66 kin from Calcutta and dominated by potato-growers. The place was in news in May 1996, as potatoes worth Rs 15 million rotted inside the Polba Dadpur Cold Storage Cooperative Society Ltd (PDCSC- SL). Flies and insects are dominant in this 4,000-household village today …
