Counter affidavit on behalf of Chief Municipal Engineer, Patna Nagar Nigam in the matter of Saurav Narayan Vs Bihar Pollution Control Board & Others dated May 20, 2025. The report said that the corporation has been diligently performing its statutory duties within the limitations of the available resources and infrastructure. …
Clean-air campaigners can't always pin down the source of a pollutant, by no means an easy task at best. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a way to solve the problem. They are studying micro-structures in soot that should, in theory, trace each particle's history and …
A recurring throat infection with the streptococci bacteria can cause rheumatic heart disease. Now, scientist Sumalee Prukksakorn at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and colleagues have identified a small portion of a protein, dubbed the M protein, from the bacteria, which could be used as a vaccine (The Lancet, …
Zooms may soon be out of the picture. At least 5 Japanese companies are close to developing a filrsmart enough to do a zoom's job (New SciennVol 143, No 1941). The Dew film, detaile cc which are a closely guardc secret, will be coated magnetic material that ca store information …
A catfish, Synodontis nigriventris, native to the rainforest streams of central Africa, swims with its belly upwards, but not because it is afraid that the heavens will crash on its head. The strange behaviour, say researcher Lauren Chapman and her colleagues at the University of Florida, is to help the …
A new solar cell design could slash the cost of producing solar electricity by at least 80 per cent, claim researchers at the University of South Wales in Australia (Environmental Science & Technology, Vol 28, No 8). Conventional cells use expensive high quality silicon 400 microns thick but the metal …
A gaily coloured dress might be a visual treat, but the dyes used in them might hide a dark secret. Studies at the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in the US have revealed that treating azo dyes -- noxious effluents released by textile mills -- with hydroxyl ions …
Connoisseurs who have savoured the renowned French wine, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, for the past 40 years may be surprised to learn that its vintages from the 1950s contained high levels of lead (Nature, Vol 370, No 6484). Belgian and French researchers analysed 19 vintages of the wine and found they contained toxic …
HOSPITAL bathrooms need no longer be breeding grounds for harmful bacteria. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed bathroom tiles and sanitary ware that can convert water into hydrogen peroxide, which has anti-bacterial properties. The researchers coated the tiles and sanitary ware with a thin film of titanium oxide, …
Sulabh International, which has designed and installed over 2,000 public lavatories in slums and resettlement colonies, has just developed a lavatory design that recycles compost to generate biogas for cooking fuel. "We plan to set up 61 such complexes throughout the country," says N D Mazumdar, director (technical research) of …
DELEGATES to the recent international ministerial conference on drinking water and environmental sanitation, held in Noordwijk, Netherlands, on March 22-23, adroitly sidestepped any commitment to deadlines, funding or even a well thought out action plan. Most of the target dates, set in brackets in earlier drafts, did not even come …
Living conditions remain abysmally poor in India, with a big difference between urban and rural areas. Nearly three-quarters of urban households lived in pucca houses, compared to only about a quarter in rural areas. The difference between urban and rural households with an electricity connection is about the same. Again, …
ANYBODY reading the national media would have thought that environmental issues had precious little to do with the current round of elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. But the stories that our reporters have brought back show that nothing could be farther …
Metropolitan municipalities can now heave a collective sigh of relief. The Centrally-sponsored scheme for infrastructural development of megacities has brought them a welcome respite, burdened as they were by huge fiscal deficits. Infrastructural development in Calcutta, Bangalore, Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad is to take place through innovative institutional and financial …
IN A LANDMARK judgement in 1980, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam municipality to clean a locality, holding that budgetary constraints didn't justify a municipality neglecting its statutory obligation to provide sanitation facilities. It also made it mandatory for a magistrate to remove a public nuisance wherever one …
SHAKESPEARE was wrong when he described Julius Caesar as "constant as the northern star", because the brightness of the North Star is variable, changing by a few per cent every four days. But the Bard will be right next year when the star's brightness will become constant, predict astronomers (New …
LIFE IMITATES art more than art imitates life, said Oscar Wilde. His statement was borne out recently when US scientists re-enacted in their laboratory the plot of Steven Spielberg's latest film, Jurassic Park, which shows dinosaurs being re-created from their DNA, procured from the blood sucked by mosquitoes and preserved …
Western scientists set the trends RAGHAVENDRA GADAGKAR TO BEGIN with, we must realise there is a lot that is right with it. Even without considering those Indian scientists working outside the country, a significant number of Indian scientists have individually excelled in their fields of research and are easily comparable …
Two British consultants have developed an underwater pump that can irrigate riverside fields without using fuel or causing pollution. The prize-winning turbine is easy to construct and can work continuously (Ceres 141, Vol 26, No 3). Originally designed to harness the energy of the Nile to irrigate the desert areas …
ISRAELI potato growers have dug in for a fight to the finish against McDonald's of Big Mac hamburger fame, which is due to open its first outlet in Israel outside Tel Aviv in autumn. McDonald's says it wants to import frozen fries because irrigation has made the wholesale prices of …
We are united by a common premise: that human activities are needlessly causing grave and perhaps irreparable damage to the global environment. The dangers are clear to all of us. -- Al Gore, vice president of the United States, speaking at the Commission on Sustainable Development, June 14, 1993. "What …
