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. …
women in India are an unhealthy lot. According to a recent World Bank report, Improving Women's Health in India , the female population of India is left behind when it comes to health care even though the country has made significant progress in social and health monitors like life expectancy, …
Plagued by a financial crisis and mounting criticism about waste and mismanagement from the US, UN officials have launched a counter-attack by detailing concrete results achieved by the UN secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali. Recently, the US accused Ghali of hampering efforts to cut costs and streamline the organization's bureaucracy. …
at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (iwc) held in Aberdeen recently, the us was forced to eat humble pie. Its suggestion that the Makah tribe of Washington state be allowed to catch five grey whales in the coming year, met with a decisive veto. Under iwc rules, …
"but for a pair of shorts, the whole of Pancha's body is uncovered. Before him lies a vast, undulating expanse of garbage. A giant bulldozer, with its ear-splitting roar, is levelling out those heaps
True, prevention is better than cure, but what about inherited diseases? To tackle the problem of a particular disease going on in families, the National Institute of Health and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, will set up a centre for inherited disease research. The project which will analyse the …
According to a report in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine , one out of five intensive care nurses in the US has intentionally hastened the death of a terminally ill patient without the knowledge of the patient's doctor. An overdose of painkilling opiates has been …
malaria is back again, and this time with a trans-generational implication. According to a recent report, first pregnancies undo the relative resistance against Plasmodium falciparum , the most serious form of malarial parasite. The resistance seems to improve with subsequent pregnancies. The distinct clinical entity is known as maternal malaria. …
Six years after COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) gave us the detailed spectrum of the cosmic microwave background, it has detected the faint infrared radiation emitted by the most ancient of the galaxies. The galaxies themselves are too far away and faint to be observed, but the dust surrounding them gives …
who needs a roof? Cover your house with solar cells instead. The idea may seem weird, but this is exactly what the architects of a us-based engineering and architectural firm have done while designing William and Deborah Lord's home in Kennebunkport, Maine, us. Now, when the morning sun breaks over …
anyone familiar with the radios of the previous generation will remember vacuum tubes: these glass tubes which functioned as amplifiers formed the heart of essentially all electronic gadgets from primitive computers to radios. The essential component of the vacuum tube was a cathode which was heated to give electrons. The …
shaken out of apathy by a recent study on the health hazards posed by industrial fibre, the government finally announced a ban on asbestos from next year. The ban, which is already in effect in most other industrialised nations, came after a new study revealed that asbestos
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the first home screening test for the HIV virus, submitted recently to it by Elliot J Millenson, founder of University Hospital Laboratory of Bethesda, US. A person using the kit would draw blood from a finger, put it on a special laboratory paper …
Despite reports of health benefits and the energising effects of oxygen bars, which have become the latest craze in China, David Valacer, pulmonary specialist at New York Hospital contends that there is much hype associated with the use of these bars and prolonged inhalation could be toxic to certain cells …
CANCER remains a mystery in its aetiology even today. Death tolls from cancer are gaining staggering proportions; the us recorded 538)000 deaths from cancer in 1994, which amounts to one-fifth of the nation's population. The basic problem in cancer research is the unavailability of conclusive causative agents The disease finds …
Men lose brain tissue as they age at almost three times the rate women do; this could reduce their memory, concentration and reasoning power, says Ruben C Gur, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, US. His findings are based on a study of the brain functions -measurement …
OF LATE, Bacillus thuriengiensis, a soil bacterium, has become a microbiologist's hot property, owing to its ability to make a protein toxin (13t) which selectively kills an insect consuming this protein. The sensitivity of these insects which include mosquitoes, beetles, butterfly- larvae and aphids, depends upon the genotypes of the …
The European table and wine grape Vitis vinifera contains high levels of tannins and phenols, which interfere with cell culture. These compounds oxidise quickly and promote the decay of grape cells. A group of scientists in Israel have shown that the addition of anti-oxidants like polyvinylpolypyrolidone and dithiothrietol, helps overcome …
Conservation and sustainable use of plants is the prime issue on the agenda of the participants in the ongoing Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conference in Leipzig. Germany. According to the FAO. around three-quarters of the world's plant species have been lost this century. The spread of modern. commercial agriculture …
WHERE dams are concerned, the most ridiculous arguments are put forward by their proponents. The most expensive dam in the US history is proposed to be built on the American river in California. The Auburn dam is awaiting nod from the Congress. The dam is supposedly being built to protect …
