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 much-publicised 'breakthrough' for tuberculosis (tb), hailed by the World Health Organization (who) as capable of bringing the global epidemic under control, has been criticised by top tb researchers. Experts are anxious that the who's statements will fuel a dangerous complacency that could increase the death toll of tb patients. …
Babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy have the same nicotine levels as adult smokers and almost certainly spend their first days of life going through withdrawal symptoms. This study done at the Mont-Godinne University Hospital, Namur, Belgium by Laurence M Galanti and his team reports that the child …
for the people of Karain, a small village in central Anatolia, Turkey, cancer is a way of life. Over the last several decades, cancer has led to the death of over half of its population. There are several explanations for the high rate of cancer cases. Many local homes are …
It has long been hypothesised that the composition of the atmosphere has been modified by processes in the interior of the planets. Now, some researchers have done simulations for the atmosphere of Neptune and reported that some of the gases in its atmosphere are originating from deep within the planet. …
a high-level committee formed by the Lok Ayukta of Madhya Pradesh, began probing the felling of Malik Makbooja trees in Bastar district in early May, said state government sources. The move came following a public interest litigation moved by S R Hiremath, coordinator of Samaj Parivartan Samudaya, a Karnataka-based social …
Cocoa farmers in Indonesia may soon hope to boost their crop production by up to 30 per cent, by introducing new harvesting and pruning techniques that limit pest damage. Tests in south Sulawesi showed success in considerably cutting down the population of the dreaded pod borer moth, said Halim Razak, …
LEVYING taxes for the protection of environment has done wonders for Sweden. Green taxes have led to a sharp decline in acid rain, encouraged power stations to burn less fossil fuels and cut diesel emissions. These results have been highlighted in a detailed evaluation of the country's environmental taxes, which …
MORE than 2,000 people belonging to the ethnic Karen community have been massacred in Burma since February by the Burmese army to clear their land for the Myinmoletkat Nature Reserve. Over 30,000 have been forced to work unpaid and unfed or to flee across the border to Thailand. Isolated by …
Francisco Gil and his colleagues at the University of Granada, Spain, have found that teeth from children and adults that contain high concentrations of lead have more caries, plaque and dental staining. The team also found that children with 10 or more sites of decay in their mouth had three …
THE sale of terfenadine, an antiallergic drug, may soon be banned following adverse reports about its impact, especially from the US. The use of the drug, as a single dose or in combination with pseudoephedrine as a nasal decongestant, has led to serious cardiac cases in the US. It has …
A RECENT piece of work by Fen-Biao Gao and colleagues at University College London shows that oligodendrocytes, cells that are responsible for the insulation that protects vertebrate nerve cells, do count time but not in terms of the number of cell divisions. Earlier studies had shown that when isolated from …
SWEDES are at risk from toxic chemicals leaking out of old concrete towers, according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in soil close to a block of flats in capital Stockholm have been found to be 20 times higher than the country's safety limit …
•The West Bengal government has introduced a water pricing policy for affluent users and industries. Accordingly, they will not only have to pay the operation and maintenance costs of running a water supply system, but also help the municipalities generate a surplus.• Urban Environmental Maps of Shimla, a report prepared …
millions of people in tropical regions of Asia, Africa and South America suffer from permanent disability due to leprosy, river blindness, Chagas disease and lymphatic filariasis. The World Health Organization (who) has predicted that these four diseases will be "eliminated as public health problems" within 10 years. These predictions are …
tuberculosis (tb), the giant killer, may be effectively contained with the help of a microbe Mycobacterium vaccae, which is closely related to the bacterium that causes the disease. Researchers from the London-based company Stanford Rook Holdings (srh), have claimed that an injection of killed M vaccae, which is usually found …
A recent NASA study indicates that a new multinational space station project in which the US, Russia, Japan and Europe are the major players will be the biggest technological project ever undertaken. However, researchers fear that the space station may not be adequately protected from micrometeoroids and other debris. The …
the first once-a-month injectable contraceptive for males - a shot in the arm for the first sex - is being developed by a Bangalore-based scientist. Raghuvir Moudgal of the Indian Institute of Science, recently said in a meeting held at the Indian National Science Academy (insa), "We have tested the …
Researchers at Northeastern University of Boston, Massachusetts, us , have developed cartridges made of graphite nanofibres, which, they claim, can store 10 times more compressed hydrogen at room temperature than conventional tanks. They claim that these cartridges will enable hydrogen-powered cars to travel upto 8,000 km. The nanofibres, which are …
the successful trial of an experimental vaccine developed by a British healthcare group has given a major boost to researchers looking for an effective remedy for malaria. The SmithKline Beecham group based in Brentford, uk, says that the vaccine was tried on volunteers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of …
bioindicators such as trees take note of many changes in the environment and will thus soon become valuable recorders of contamination, very convenient for environmental monitoring, reports D K Pandey et al of the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh. Tree bark remains in the environment for many years. …
