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. …
To combat drug trafficking across Pakistan and Iran, a new communications network across their common border will be set under the aegis of the United Nations Drug Control Programme. The network, which involves building more than 60 towers along the frontier on both sides. will become operational in March this …
Researcher Melvin Dyer and his colleagues from the University of Georgia, US, have discovered a peculiar relationship or synergy. while a bug cats a plant, it also secretes a growth-promoting protein, which it supplies to the part of the plant it does not consume. Dyer has found this protein in …
Butterfly and moth wings do seem to reflect the motto inspiring beauty pageants: 'beauty with a purpose'. The attractively coloured and designed wings make these cold blooded creatures not just beautiful but warm too. Chitin, the material constituting butterfly scales acts as a thermoregulatory mechanism. The air gaps present in …
Scientists from the British Natural Resources Institute and the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute working at Kenya's Rift valley suggest that volcanic carbon dioxide, instead of methyl bromide, could be used to exterminate granary pests (New Scientist, Vol 148, No 2004). Experiments have been conducted on more than 2,000 tonnes of …
THEY have finally caught the nasty genes - which have been plaguing women with breast cancer -- red-handed. Breast cancer research took three significant strides this year with the isolation of the BRCA-2 gene, with scientists zeroing in on the relationship between cancer gene mutation and the type of cancer …
Teenagers in Hong Kong are eating their way to sickness. They are more prone to allergic diseases than their counterparts in other Asian countries. A study says that Hong Kong has the highest number of young allergic patients among Asian countries. Higher consumption of fastfood is being seen as one …
The whole nation is caught in a spider's web. Japan is leaving no stone unturned in its offensive against the poisonous redback spider. Armed with vacuums and fumigators, tweezers and chopsticks, nets and jars and pesticides, health officials have hunted the spider down wells and manholes, under gravestones and in …
Thousands of people fled their homes in panic as a fire at a chemical plant spewed out poisonous gas which spread over the Makassar community area near Cape Town. At least 100 people were hospitalised after inhaling corrosive sulphur dioxide, causing irritation in the eyes, nose and lungs. On the …
The World Health Organization (WHO) has given a clean chit to West Africans regarding the deadly Ebola virus. All tests on suspected carriers of the virus have proved negative. The WHO had ordered tests on all those who were in contact with a Liberian refugee, who had tested positive early …
THE speed with which new techniques are being introduced in many areas of science, has increased tremendously; whether it is faster techniques for gene sequencing or more efficient image processing algorithms, new methods have made possible many innovations which were hitherto inconceivable. Combinatorial chemistry, introduced a few years ago, was …
Ice sheets in western Greenland have become thicker by about two m in the last 10 years. Kenneth jezek and his colleagues from the Ohio State University, contend that each year adds about 15 cm. They feel that continued monitering of the ice sheet would provide insight into the phenomenon …
What are the highlights of the Desertification Convention? The pillars of the Convention, as I call them, are firstly, the bottom-up approach, the fact that local participation is essential and that governments and NGOs together undertake to create an enabling environment for local participation. The second pillar is the establishment …
AMONG the wide variety of contemporary critical theorists, environmentalists have, in various ways, questioned the continued viability of the human-nature relationship over the last 400 years. We are concerned that the exploitative practices, characteristic of modernity, have led us to a crisis of such global proportions, that the earth can …
THE transition of an embryo into an adult - for instance that of an egg into a chicken - is accompanied by a bewildering variety of changes. Due to these complexities, progress in embryology is likely to be staggered with problems never having single, all-encompassing solutions. As a result, certain …
Researchers from Calcutta have managed to develop a new ceramic that boasts of properties which could ultimately mean the replacement of conventional metallic parts used in refractories and engines. The material which is called 'sialon' ceramic', has been developed by a team of scientists led by Siddartha Bandopadhyay from the …
RECENTLY, the tribals at Chidia in the West Singhbhum district in Bihar took up cudgels in protest against the proposed modernisation of Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO) unit. The pent up anger in tribals at being exploited for centuries is now slowly breaking out. The tribal leaders have alleged …
Golfers and green activists have struck upon the novel idea of turning rubbish dumps into golf courses. In land-starved Hong Kong, concerned authorities are eager to redevelop four of its 13 old landfills. About us $219.8 million is to be spent in the restoration of all the landfills, and the …
The scientists at the Nicherei and Tokita Shubyo corporations, Japan, have crossed tomatoes of two colours and have jointly developed a mini-tomato variety of yellow colour (Vatis update, Food processing, Vo13,No 13). The product, called "Cherry Gold", has a higher sugar content. Estimated to be around 8.5 to 9 per …
RECENTLY, AIDS drug researchers found two reasons to celebrate. Firstly, a new anti-viral drug that could help solve the drug resistance problem posed by HIV was developed. And secondly, the efficacy of a drug that protects monkeys from infection from a related virus called SIV was confirmed (New Scientist, Vol …
How large is the problem of urban sanitation in the world today? Sanitation in urban areas of the world has reached a crisis point. Current predictions indicate that in 20-30 years' time, a majority of the world's population would reside in urban squatter colonies. These people are often not acknowledged …
