Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item Titled "Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s Golconda Fort Cries for attention appearing in ‘The Siasat Daily’ dated 25 May 2025". The application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled “Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s …
The danger of tampered hydrants looms large in Karachi, reported The Dawn recently. Usually, the cover of a hydrant is removed for facilitating easy drawing of water. This results in water contamination. Besides, residents are seen bathing and washing, and donkey carts stopping at these spots to avail of
measures to save China's ravaged environment finally seem to be underway. Even though the scale of penalties likely to be levied is not known yet, in March this year, China will make environmental pollution a criminal offence. In another move, nearly 57,000 small polluting units
mining sites are important sources of pollution. Water released from mining sites is acidic and rich in metallic ions. The only forms of life that thrive in it are bacteria which grow by catalysing the oxidation reactions of the metals
The Gulf waters are turning murkier day by day with illegal waste being dumped by ships in sea, mak ing it unfit for marine life. Wastes from large vessels, which sail through the Gulf or anchor there, find their way into the sea in violation of local rules. The sea …
one of the principal discoveries of modern molecular biology has been that genes come in pieces. More precisely, in higher organisms, the sequence of dna that encodes a protein message corresponds to the protein called exons, interspersed with portions called introns. The introns are cut and removed between the production …
the smooth, white surface of your bathroom sink hides the fact that the process of making it is a notoriously dirty and polluting one. Aluminium oxide ceramics which find applications in a range of products (from sinks to lasers) are made by dissolving aluminium oxide powder in organic solvents and …
DESPITE their oxygen deficiency, which should cause them to die or should stunt their growth, turnours often continue to thrive. Why is this so? Recent work by T G Graeber and colleagues of the Stanford University School of Medicine in the us suggests that the absence of an all-purpose protein …
GENERALLY, the laws of physics are very rigid, but this one is found to be rather flexible. It is a well established theory that a material expands on heating. The reason for this thermal expansion is the violent increase registered in the vibrations of atoms or molecules of the material …
THE development of a multicellular organism begins with a fertilised egg and proceeds through a series of inter- mediate steps -growth, cell division, differentiation into specialised parts, and so on -before culminating in the adult. An important part of the process is what is called pattern formation, the orderly arrangement …
Arsenic has been found in groundwater in seven districts of West Bengal covering an area 37,493 km having about 34 million population. Our survey indicates that 560 villages are arsenic-affected and more than a million people are drinking arsenic contaminated water and more than 200,000 people are suffering from arsenic-related …
McNeil Consumer Products of Fort Washington, US, has come out with Nictrol NS, aDasal spray containing 100 mg of pure nicotine to 'wean off people &om; smoking. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the product on the condition that it will be sold by prescription to adults who want …
THE comet c/1995 01, more popularly known as Hale-Bopp, has continued to surprise astronomers since its discovery last summer. Discovered at a distance of seven astronomical units from the sun (an astronomical unit is equal to the mean distance between the sun and the earth), the comet is almost one …
IN A life span of 60-70 years, a turtle may travel thousands of kilometers from its birthplace, but it always finds its way back to the same spot or someplace close to it, whenever it lays eggs. This intriguing and unerring instinct is now being attributed to the fact that …
Johnson Wax, a US based company, has come up with a microbe-based insecticide that, it claims, will be able to put off the most persistent of cockroaches. Two varieties of the microbe, Bacillus thuringiensis, have been identified that can give cockroaches lethal cases of indigestion, Different strains of the microbe …
A BEETLE known as tpe coffee borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is the major insect pest bothering the coffee growers of the world today. Together with some other close relatives, the creature leads what -by normal standards -can be called a strange life. The cycle begins and ends with a single female …
SCIENTISTS from the Natural Environment Resource Council (NERC'S), Institute of Terrestrial Ecology at Banchory, and the department of zoology at the University of Aberdeen - both in Scotland - have embarked on a novel method to study population ecology. The programme called Molecular Genetics in Ecology (MGE) Initiative, Uses DNA …
METAL foundries pollute the atmosphere by throwing up dust and giving off bad ~dour. While the former is easy to remedy, the latter poses a challenge. The vat-shaped biofilters designed to solve the problem are filled with moistened wood chips inoculated with bacteria. The air from the exhaust flows via …
THE Standard Model of particle physics, which explains the behaviour of matter at the smallest levels, is 'by now a well- established theory. These levels of matter have been under scrutiny at the Illinois-based Fermi National Accelerator Laboratery (Fermilab) in us (Down To Earth, Vol 2, No 2). The crowing …
JOHN Van der Sande, professor of material science at the MIT and his team are using a new technique to compile information on all types of soot. This knowledge will be used to detect the exact sources of pollution. The library of sootprints will be based on the molecular structure …
