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 …
Three letters have questioned the validity of the conclusions drawn in our recent article on the short-term effects of GSM (global system for mobile communication) and UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) base station signals (Eltiti et al. 2007). Most of the concerns are founded in misunderstandings of the study, and …
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has ordered residents of Likasi town to stay away from the local river Mura following reports that a large consignment of radioactive material has been illegally dumped in it. Likasi is a large town in the mineral-rich Katanga province and home to …
Safety breaches caused radiation leak at a major nuclear reprocessing plant in the Ural mountains, the Russian government announced on October 29. The incident happened four days before the announcement. Officials of the local emergencies ministry said a faulty tap in the tank holding liquid radioactive waste caused the leak. …
there could be a link between disturbances in the ionosphere and the Earth's magnetic field, and earthquakes. Such disturbances preceded the quake that struck Gujarat on March 7, 2006. A study says the disturbance were caused by the changes in the electromagnetic radiations over the Earth before the tremors occur. …
Individuals with idiopathic environmental illness with attribution to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF) believe they suffer negative health effects when exposed to electromagnetic fields from everyday objects such as mobile phone base stations. This study used both open provocation and double-blind tests to determine if sensitive and control individuals experience more negative …
smart delivery: UV light radiation can now be used to control drug delivery in the body. A new method applies low UV light on the affected area after the drug intake. This helps trigger the release of the drug at the spot, ensuring delivery. The drug, coated with a light …
An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the richter scale hit Japan on July 16, causing widespread damage and a radioactive leak in one of the world's biggest nuclear plans. The first quake had its epicentre around 24 km from Kashiwazaki city in Niigata Prefecture and 240 km from Tokyo. A second, …
This report is the product of an international research and public policy initiative to give an overview of what is known of biological effects that occur at low-intensity EMFs exposures (for both radiofrequency radiation RF and power-frequency ELF, and various forms of combined exposures that are now known to be …
a signal booster mobile tower over a maternity hospital in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, has become the point of an imprecise issue. Sultania Zanana Hospital, a 250-bed government maternity hospital, recently allowed cellular network company Airtel to install a mobile tower over its ante-natal and delivery ward for better connectivity. This …
Amphibians are known for their resilience. They have bounced out of mass extinctions, survived vegetation changes, and outlived the dinosaur by evolving distinctive behaviours and morphologies and adapting their lifecycles. But a study from the us reveals these very attributes have placed the future of nature's sentinels in peril (BioScience, …
"i don't know what is uranium, I don't know if it's good or bad. I'm only happy that the public hearing went off peacefully,' says Tina Thongenirit from Wakhaji, a village 120 km from Meghalaya's capital Shillong. Wakhaji is 15 km from Nongbah Jynrin, the village where the public hearing …
Spility Langrin Lyngdoh took a firm decision in 1994 that she would not give her land for uranium mining. She had heard about the radiation horror stories of Jaduguda village in distant Chhattisgarh. The 80-year-old came to know about Jaduguda when mine workers of atomic minerals division of the Atomic …
Mobile alert Cellular companies in Pakistan have turned a deaf ear to the Sindh government's April 5 directive seeking them to shift base stations' antennas and mobile phone towers outside residential areas in Karachi in view of radiation threats. The companies say they are bound only by Pakistan Telecom-munication Authority's …
Radiofrequency (RF) waves have long been used for different types of information exchange via the airwaves—wireless Morse code, radio, television, and wireless telephony (i.e., construction and operation of telephones or telephonic systems). Increasingly larger numbers of people rely on mobile telephone technology, and health concerns about the associated RF exposure …
mobile friendly: Researchers have found no link between mobile phone use and cancer. They used mobile-phone companies' records to gauge phone usage. They tracked subjects for an average of 8.5 years, and some followed up to 21 years. Joachim Schuz of the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Copenhagen, looked at more …
the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (npci) on November 20, named a site in east Midnapore district, close to West Bengal's Sunderbans region as a possible location for eastern India's first nuclear power plant, triggering protests by villagers in the area. The proposed Rs 10,000 crore plant in Haripur would …
MAUP view • MECON consultants, who made the EIA, were influenced by DAE and UCIL • EIA hasn't considered alternatives • UCIL doesn't have technology for getting uranium from Kadapa's alkaline ore • EIA report on air quality does not reflect actual toxic content of emissions Expert view • Thermal …
Handheld mobile phones were introduced in Denmark and Sweden during the late 1980s. This makes the Danish and Swedish populations suitable for a study aimed at testing the hypothesis that long-term mobile phone use increases the risk of parotid gland tumors. In this population-based case-control study, the authors identified all …
prenatal exposure to ultrasound waves may not be safe, warn scientists who found it causes significant behavioural abnormalities in mice. The researchers from the Yale Medical School in the us, said that when pregnant mice were exposed to ultrasound waves, the pups showed behavioural deficits. They have now called for …
