WHO, UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF have partnered to create a new compendium of 500 actions aimed at reducing death and diseases driven by environmental risk factors, the first such resource to unite this expertise from across the UN system. Environmental pollution and other environmental risks cause 24 per cent of …
Ionising radiation can be used to destroy pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyles (PCBs) and heavy metals from water. The radiation treatment is being developed at the US government's National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and the University of Maryland in College Park. In the case of a PCB …
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 …
OUT of all known sources that pose a cancer threat to humans, mobile phone is the latest. Nearly five million people in the UK could be at risk from developing cancer or asthma by using mobile phones. This has been concluded by scientists who carried out research in the US, …
X-ray astronomers have reported a bizarre X-ray emitter in the direction of our galactic centre. C Kouveliotou and colleagues have seen this object in the intensity records of the large area detectors of the Burst and Transient Source Experiment on the orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The odd thing about …
IN AN apparent move at safeguarding its citizens, the French government began handing out iodine pills to some 400,000 people living near nuclear plants in the last week of April. The act was more significant in the wake of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26. …
A CONTRACT between Russian, American and Japanese organisations, to hasten a long-awaited radiation clean-up, was signed in Moscow last month. This incident may mark the first concrete step taken by the concerned parties towards solving the staggering problem of radiation pollution off the Pacific coast of Russia in the Far …
HUMAN beings have always tried to probe the profound mysteries of the universe. Continuing the search, a powerful electromagnet is being used to detect subatomic particles known as Iaxions' at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the us. It is hoped that ultimately the answer to the dark matter may be …
THE detection of accidental radiation leaks from nuclear power plants may just become easier, thanks to orchids. Researchers from Mangalore University (Karnataka) have zeroed in on an epiphytic orchid called Cyrnbidium aloifo which can be used for monitoring radiation levels in the vicinity of atomic power plants. The orchid was …
DOES "Ghivali" sound familiar any longer? Hardly? The tragic truth is that people are already starting to forget that this semi-pucca village, sitting rather uneasily just 1.23 km from the barely-year-old-but-already cranky nuclear waste immobilisation plant at Tarapur, had only recently seen 30 cattleheads die due to a nuclear leak. …
More accurate measurement of ultraviolet rays may now be possible with the development in Britain of a new photodiode detector. UV radiation is the most energetic form of optical radiation and exposure to it is potentially hazardous. Accurate measurement of the LTV radiations from the sun has been made difficult …
A RECENT study has revealed that after a period of heavy nuclear testing, a large number of babies with Down's syndrome were born in FyIde area of Lancashire in the UK. it also showed that a fire at the nearby Windscale (now Sellafield) nuclear power station in 1957 preceded a …
What are the most serious environmental problems facing Russia at present? More than 15 per cent of Russia's territory is ecologically unsafe. The poor quality of drinking water and radiation are the main problems, along with air and chemical pollution. Some 75 per cent of Russia's waterbodies are highly contaminated …
SINCE time immemorial, people have believed that the moon influences Earth's climate. Although many such beliefs remain unsubstantiated, very recent research by a group of American climatologists shows a significant emperical relation between lunar phases and daily temperatures on Earth over the past 15 years (Science, vol 1267 no 5203). …
The raising of the Iron Curtain has forced into the open some of the darkest and most damning secrets of the Cold War. Both the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union used nuclear energy as a pointer, and a warning, to military muscle. And both embraced a radical, violent technology …
A team of German physicists has discovered a new chemical element, atomic number 111, which is reported to have survived for less than 2,000th of a second. The research team, led by Siguard Hofman of Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung at Darmstadt, Germany, created the new element by bombarding the metal bismuth …
GLOBAL levels ofozone, which shields the from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiations, have fallen to a record over the past 2 years. But the worst R to come, according to the report of an international scientific panel. However, a redeeming feature of the 1994 Assessment Panel report, mandated under the …
The ozone layer, which shields life on earth from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation, is slowly disappearing from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, especially over the South Pole. Hence the need to monitor this loss. However, there are problems with the ozone-measuring devices. Satellites and ground-based instruments, for instance, …
Cold start A 10-YEAR old controversy about whether a nuclear reprocessing plant in northwest England was responsible for a high occurrence of leukaemia reported in the area has been finally laid to rest. The English High Court recently ruled that there was not enough evidence to implicate the company -- …
Operators of X-ray machines and patients in India may be vulnerable to unnecessary radiation overexposure. This was revealed by A Gopalakrishnan, chairperson of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), at the 47th Congress of the Indian Radiological and Imaging Association in Kochi recently. According to an AERB study of 750 …
BRITAIN is having a hard time reconciling its business interests and its self-professed environmental concerns. Although the British firm GEC-Alsthom has supplied turbine generators for China's Daya Bay nuclear power station near Hong Kong, the British establishment has vociferously protested against the setting up of the plant. There are fears …
