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 …
What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don't? Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. "I think the safe practice,' said Dr Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center …
Owing to the increasing mobile towers atop residential buildings, schools, hostels and hospitals, the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has decided that they will not allow indiscriminate installation of mobile towers atop newly planned buildings as the electromagnetic radiation emitted by them are harmful for human body. A guideline …
Ionizing radiations are a grave threat around the high background regions of the globe. Selected pockets of Brazil, China and India are reportedly under the grip of high background radiation. Presence of monazite sand along the beaches of these regions, among other factors, has contributed to these dreaded radiations. Recent …
The police tried to stop anguished relatives from streaming into one of the worst affected areas of China's massive earthquake on Sunday, as another strong aftershock hit the area and the death toll rose to nearly 32,500. Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating 7.9 magnitude …
China is on precautionary alert against possible radiation leaks from the deadliest earthquake to hit the country in three decades, according to a government website. The disaster area is home to China's chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power …
Peering far: Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST can detect faint infrared radiation coming from very distant sources in the universe. The James Webb Telescope, the next step after the Hubble Space Telescope, is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013. It will find the first …
ALMOST without exception, scientists and policy makers agree that hybrid vehicles are good for the planet. To a small but insistent group of skeptics, however, there is another, more immediate question: Are hybrids healthy for drivers? There is a legitimate scientific reason for raising the issue. The flow of electrical …
Tropospheric ozone contributes significantly to human-induced greenhouse warming. Calculations from satellite measurements of spectral radiance suggest that ozone in the upper troposphere caused an average reduction in clear-sky outgoing long-wave radiation over the oceans of 0.480.14 W m- 2 for the year 2006 between 45
Among the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants, there is one that provokes public anxiety like no other: the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer. Though a link has long been suspected, it has never been proven. Now that seems likely to …
Astronauts may be at increased risk of premature aging due to exposure to radiation found in space, suggests a study that could have major implications for long-duration space travel. The findings from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Georgetown University Medical Centre in US shows that astronauts may be at …
sericin, a by-product of silk, may now find use in skin care products that protect from ultraviolet (uv) rays. A study revealed the protein protects the outermost layer of skin from uv rays. Sericin halts death of skin cells initiated by uv-b ray. Exposure to uv-b burns the outer layer …
In utero exposure - cancer link was unknown Study confirms that ionising radiation is a weak carcinogen The study of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to provide very useful information on the effects of radiation on man. Recently, Dr Dale Preston and co-workers examined the incidence of …
Puffing kills. But a new study, led by a researcher of Indian-origin, claims that mobiles phones are more dangerous than fags. "Though mobiles can save lives in emergencies, there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours (which can …
PARIS: As concern over global warming grows, the nuclear industry is stepping up efforts to portray itself as a viable source of clean energy. Governments are increasingly receptive, including the British government, which last year backed the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants. Antinuclear environmentalists say that …
DELHI Migrants might be causing uproar in some parts of the country but photo-journalist Harish Tyagi sees their lives in an entirely different light through his lense. In an exhibition titled Distress Migration and its Effect on Children, Tyagi's pictures tell an often-sor
Radioactive waste from three government-owned uranium mines has put about 50,000 people in Jharkhand's Jaduguda at risk. The people, mostly tribal communities, suffer from serious radiation-related health problems. But the mines in East Singhbhum district continue without adequate safety measures. On studying more than 9,000 people (over 2,000 houses) in …
If a link with cancer wasn't bad enough, radiation may be bad for your heart too. A review of 65,000 staff who worked in the UK's nuclear industry between 1946 and 2002 has discovered a link between circulatory disease and staff who worked in high-exposure jobs. The increased risk is …
Cockroaches survived much more than humans Fruit flies, flour beetles tougher than cockroaches Last year, the Myth Buster TV team from the Discovery Channel announced that they would find out experimentally whether cockroaches would be the only living form to survive a nuclear war (The Hindu, November, 1, 2007). On …
Earlier we have shown that the mobile phone radiation (radiofrequency modulated electromagnetic fields; RF-EMF) alters protein expression in human endothelial cell line. This does not mean that similar response will take place in human body exposed to this radiation. Therefore, in this pilot human volunteer study, using proteomics approach, we …
