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 very first advice that a heart patient is most likely to receive from the doctors and well-wishers is to cut down on salt intake. Public health experts have always maintained that we eat about three to four times more salt than what our bodies need. Close to 80 per …
ever since the first patent for mechanical refrigeration was granted to Jacob Perkins in 1834, the quest for more efficient and faster refrigeration has been on. Lately, the emphasis has also been on making refrigeration less damaging to the environment as the chloroflourocarbon (cfc) gases are harmful to the ozone …
The Centre of Science for Villages (CSV), Wardha, Maharashtra, has developed a microbiogas plant with a battery of 300 litres clay jars, which is known as Ranjan biogas plant. The biogas plant is a large clay pot churned on the potter's wheel that is utilised for storing water during summers. …
Researchers have developed a hybrid pollution sensor in the form of a bioluminescent bacteria placed on a standard microchip. A common bacteria is genetically altered to glow in the presence of certain pollutants. This is placed in a porous polymer on the surface of a chip which contains a photo-detector. …
it was an experiment right out of science fiction: scientists taking different species, extracting their genetic sequences and then combining these to get a new sequence that promises some amazing powers. However, before telling you how they did it, some background information is essential. Evolution, through sexual reproduction, enables new …
Over 16 European nations and 12 international organisations recently joined hands and agreed to cooperate in an attempt to find ways of improving the welfare of laboratory animals, and primates in particular. Under the terms of a "declaration of intent' signed under the auspices of the Council of Europe, they …
DOES a magazine like Down To Earth (DTE) have the right to critique the research of a "prestigious national institution" like the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute? NEERI, which belongs to the massive, government-funded CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) family does not appear to think that way. With …
AWBI : The guidelines suggested by the Animal Welfare Board of India for stray dog population and management control has been approved by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, according to Lt. Gen. (Retd) A.K.Chatterjee, Chairman of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI).
A division bench of the Gujarat High Court admitted three writ petitions filed by the Lok Adhikar Sangh and the Centre for Social Justice challenging the decision of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to close all slaughter houses for nine days on account of "Paryusan" beginning from Wednesday.
it's a battle between small fry and the big fish. Fisherfolk from 32 countries have launched a global forum to fight the fishing industry, aquaculture and marine pollution, which have affected their livelihood. Launched at the end of a five-day meet at New Delhi on November 21, the World Forum …
THE relatively new field of ethnoveterinary medicine, which is establishing itself as a serious discipline, has far-reaching implications for the well-being of livestock in the developing world. Ethnoveterinary medicine is the knowledge possessed by non-literate cultures with regard to animal health and disease that is passed on in the form …
researchers in England are attempting to herd a flock of ducks with a robot. Researchers from the Silsoe Research Institute and Oxford University Computing Laboratory have chosen ducks in the test because they feel that ducks react quite like sheep, but move very slowly. This means that robots can keep …
dog owners in Taipei will now have to implant microchips in their dogs to help tackle the plague of strays in the city. The city administration has passed a new law that dog owners must put microchips in their dogs as soon as they are three months old. The microchips …
We determined the association between the use of the glycopeptide antibiotic avoparcin as a growth promoter and the occurrence of Enterococcus faecium (VREF) with high-level resistance to vancomycin (MIC ≥ 64 μg ml−1) on poultry and pig farms. The investigations were conducted as retrospective cohort studies, where groups of farms …
A human eye an animal inside a cage or one being chased by a predator appears to be suffering. But a new theory suggests that things may be different from what they appear. For a situation that brings suffering to one animal may not do so in another's case. An …
Water hyacinths, Eichhomia crassipes, are posing a mafor problem for the country. Nearly 80 per cent of the Ugandan shoreline is clogged with these plants, which are killipg animals and vegetation in the Lake Victoria and seriously upsetting local life. At some places the water hyacinth is so thick that …
Known as the country hardest-hit by AIDS, Uganda is slowly gaining all upper hand in its fight against the deadly disease. Recent studies have shown that the spread of AIDS has slowed clown among the country's young adults. The rite of infection among teenagers in the worst-hit parts of the …
