Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
PROTEIN engineers at the Institute of Food Research, Reading, in the UK have found the means to produce rugged and more efficient versions of a key enzyme -- phospholipase A2 or PLA2 -- used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. PLA2 activates the breakdown of phospholipids, which are fat molecules …
There is more to pigs than pork. Researchers at Purdue University in the US have cannibalised discarded swine to reconstruct damaged human arteries, veins, ligaments and tendons. Stephen F Badylak and his colleagues first sterilise the middle layer of a pig's small intestine, and then mould it into sheets and …
Donald Black, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, and Susan McElroy, psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati, claim to have found a drug to cure compulsive shoppers of their incessant need to splurge (New Scientist, Vol No ). Compulsive shopping is probably closest in nature to …
STRONG medicines have severe side-effects because the influence of toxic drugs often goes beyond the infection to include the body's healthy tissue. Now, biological chemists hope that better targeting of the drugs can be done through liposomes -- little artificial fat globules that can enclose drugs or other chemicals inside …
There has been a new twist to global efforts for combating aids. Brazil, Thailand and Uganda plan to begin large-scale trials of 2 hiv vaccines although the us had called a halt to its experimental vaccine trials earlier this year. The present controversial decision was taken at a World Health …
Romantic behaviour has more to do with environmental influences than heredity, according to a study by behavioural geneticists at the University of California, Davis, US. The finding comes as a surprise to psychologists who often cite the heritability of sexual promiscuity (Science Vol 266, No 5183). Niels G Waller and …
"PREVENTION is better than cure" sums up the deliberations of scientists and doctors at the XVIth International Cancer Congress held in New Delhi(WHEN?) recently. This message is even more significant as scientists unveil the molecular mystery behind cancer. The XVI International Cancer Congress -- organised by Union Internationale Centre le …
If one lacks an important protein, and this is manifest as a disease, Elizabeth Fenjves and her colleagues at the State University of New York, in Stony Brook, suggest a cure -- inserting the gene-coding for the missing protein into a culture of the patient's skin cells and grafting the …
Feeding non-infective bacteria to infants may protect them from diarrhoea, a recent study concludes (The Lancet, Vol 344, No 8929). Jose Saavedra and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA, performed a clinical trial on 55 infants aged 5 to 24 months, who were admitted to …
What is your main area of research ? I have been working in the US since 1967. My main scientific interest lies in oncogenes -- genes that cause certain cells in the body to become cancerous -- and in gene therapy. Gene therapy is an exciting new area of research …
All is not over for haernophiliacs (patients suffering from a rare disease of the blood) and those suffering from night blindness can still hope to see better in the dark. Research on human embryos, which have important bearings on these diseases, has received a shot in the arm. The us …
THE human body has an impressive battery of security guards. Everybody knows about the infection-fighting capabilities of white blood corpuscles. But there are other little known body defenders, such as the heat-shock proteins, that are equally valiant and useful. The heat-shock proteins (HSP) are produced by cells in response to …
AFTER 4 years of hot pursuit, a us biotech company has won the race to isolate the much sought-after breast cancer gene called BRCA I. Close on the heels of this discovery, an international group has reported mapping of another breast cancer gene called BRCA2. Together, the pair probably accounts …
STRFSS is an inescapable consequence of our times. The body has its own mechanism of dealing with it - physical or psychological - to a certain degree, beyond which an individual has to depend on medication to keep it in check. Scientists looking for substances to relieve stress have now …
RESEARCH at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Alims) has borne oud the belief that moderate alcohol cosumption can protect people from cornary heart diseases (CHD). The studw reveals that moderate doses of alcow increase the level of proteins called higb density lipoproteins (Hf)LS) that we good for the …
Despite their growing popularity, electric shocks may not be good for epileptics. Electric shocks are known to impose order among the neurons, or nerve cells, but scientists at the George Washington University, Washington Dc, and the Georgia Institute of Technology at Athens, Georgia, suggest that an abnormal degree of order …
If you want to pass your exams or learn a new skill quick indulge in sleep. in 2 experiments on animals and human scientists have found the first direct evidence that memoceft are consolidated during sleep. In the rat studies conducted at the University of Arizom at Tucson, researchers found …
Picture a scenario where a physician examines the genes of a foetus and tells the expectant mother that her child may turn out to be a psychopath/addict/schizophrenic/mentally retarded. The woman has 2 options: get the foetus aborted, or approach the gene boffs to cut and splice the DNA and give …
THE idea that the quality of the human race can be improved by tinkering with genes dates back to the time of Plato. In his famous work Republic, the Greek philosopher envisioned a society constantly editing its evolution towards a more polished, superior copy of itself. About 2,500 years later, …
A piece of good news for those who cannot give up smoking -- take a lot of vitamin C and you could avert heart and lung diseases caused by cigarette smoke (Nature, Vol 370, No 6489). A team of German and US scientists successfully tested the hypothesis on hamsters exposed …
