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. …
IN A desperate bid to combat Vhe spread of a fatal disease that has already claimed 14 lives 91thce April, Malaysia has sought help on the Internet. The health ministry has posted a notice on the Internet asking for help on the out-break of a disease suspected to be caused …
Australian chemists have developed a simple test kit, which could help prevent millions of Africans from being poisoned by the cyanide that occurs naturally in cassava, their staple food. The test involves mixing 100 mg of cassava with 0.5 ml of water. The mixture is then placed on paper containing …
THE lakes in the Kashmir Valley are soon to get a facelift as a team of Austrian experts are visiting the valley to develop a plan for their conservation. A master plan will be framed by the state government for the capital city and ensure lake-mapping so that their con …
The arsenic affected areas of West Bengal are lying on a sediment of Younger Deltaic Deposition (YDD). The same sediment extends eastwards towards Bangladesh, covering the approximate area of 34 districts out of a total of 64 districts in Bangladesh. We suspect that the groundwater of these 34 districts of …
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 …
OIL exploration by foreign companies in the Orinoco river's delta has invited criticism from environmentalists and native Indians. The natives are concerned that these activities will ' damage their fishing and hunting grounds. Foreign oil companies, including Enron, British Petroleum (BP) and Conoco, have tied up with the state-owned Petroleos …
THOUGH Sweden has been named by the UN as the world leader in gender equality, women scientists of the country have to be several times more productive than their male counterparts in order to get equal scores while applying for research grants. Christine Wenneras, a microbiologist, and Agnes Wold, an …
FOR those women who are still not convinced of the usefulness of physical activity, here is another reason to put on the track suit. A recently published report of a study conducted on more than 25r,000 women in Norway suggests that, compared to sedentary women, those who exercised regularly had …
The government of Bangladesh is soon likely to approve its national policy on combating HIV/AIDS. A core group led by the director general of health services reviewed the draft national AIDS policy while a select committee formed by the national AIDS committee scrutinised the draft before placing it to the …
NANOSCALE materials are not only one of the most interesting areas of research but also have potentially far-reaching applications in areas like electronics. The ultimate goal of miniaturisation is to fabricate devices that are made of a single molecule of the material. Unbelievable as it may sound, recent work by …
OVERFISHING and environmental degradation have pushed the endangered blind dolphin in the Indus river to the brink of extinction. Water pollution and construction of dams has shrunk the habitat of the dolphins, which once stretched over 2,800 km of the river, into a 170 km section of the river between …
WHILE inaugurating the Sixth Tribal Literary Conference in Nashik recently, Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma called for the implementation of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution through-out tribal areas in the country. The Sixth Schedule, which at present is applicable only to the north- eastern states, talks of granting …
The Gujarat unit of People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) recently filed a petition in the High Court of Gujarat against the state government, the commissioner of industries and chief factory inspector of Gujarat alleging the failure of chemical and pharmaceutical industries in Ankleshwar to disclose information about the dangers …
RESEARCHERS from the Albany Medical Centre (AMC) in New York, have devised a new technique which will lead to a blood type that would be compatible with all blood types. They have developed a process to coat red blood cells with a polymer called polyethylene glycol, or PEG, that would …
THE long-standing enmity between Cuba and the us has taken a bizarre turn with Cuba accusing the us government at the UN of waging a "biological attack" against it by introducing a plague of tiny, juice-sucking bugs that are now reportedly wreaking havoc on crops in three of its provinces. …
With a rapidly expanding fleet of vehicles, Kathmandu faces a serious environmental problem, thanks to the growing air pollution. According to a recent report by the Urban Air Quality Management Strategy, a World Bank and UN under- taking, if the pollution remains unchecked, the economic cost of pro- ductivity lost …
ALZHEIMER disease (AD) is now recognised as a serious public health problem. in a large number of people, AD develops at a rather late age of about 65 years. Alzheimer was hitherto considered to be a Western problem because of longer life span - the us for example has over …
IF PASSED, a new bill in Japan that defines brain death as legal death, will enable doctors to remove organs from people who are brainclead but are still on life support machines. In Japan, a person is pronounced officially dead only if his heart stops beating. It is impossible to …
A MAJORITY of panchayats and municipalities throughout Kerala are soon expected to approve draft projects drawn up by the people's plan campaign. The plan, which had commenced in August 1996, has reached its final stage in the state. Authorities said in Thiruvananthapurarn recently that the campaign had an overwhelming response: …
the Chemical Weapons Convention came into effect on April 22 with China and the us ratifying it at the last minute. The treaty bans the development, production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. It also requires member states to destroy their chemical weapons' stockpiles and production facilities within the year …
