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The aftermath
THE United States Environment Protection Agency has a four-day testing period to evaluate a pesticide’s safety. A team studied the effect of the pesticide endosulfan. They concluded the four-day period is inadequate. It is the pesticide’s impact after the four days that one should be worried about. Endosulfan disrupts hormone functions and is banned in 60 countries.
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- 29/09/2009
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Smoking trees
WHILE we are yet to ascertain whether aerosols are warming or cooling our planet, a scientific team has traced a new source: deciduous trees. These are plants that shed their leaves seasonally. So far aerosols were described as particles of pollutants like sulphur dioxide, black carbon (soot) and sea salt that remain suspended in the air.
- Date:
- 29/09/2009
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Science
PLANT SCIENCES Never too late Flowers are more resilient than they appear. They shoot up against all odds. The credit goes to genetic matter called microRNA that inhibit protein formation crucial to flowering in young plants. External cues like sunlight make them flower. But in the absence of cues, too, flowers do blossom; the activity of
- Date:
- 29/09/2009
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Nagpur ragpickers out, machines in
TWO months ago, a fleet of hydraulic trucks of a private company started collecting garbage from homes in many areas of Nagpur. The trucks transport the garbage directly to the landfill site managed by another private company. This privatization of garbage collection has alarmed some 5,000 ragpickers who earn their living by rummaging through the city’s bins and dump yards. They
- Date:
- 29/09/2009
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Greenpeace’s word play
News>> Climate Change• UK Climate sceptics are cock-a-hoop over an omission in a Greenpeace story. A sentence in the story posted on the environmental pressure group’s site notes, “we are looking at ice-free summers in the Arctic as early as 2030.” Greenpeace actually meant “sea ice-free summers”.
- Date:
- 29/09/2009
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How cheap?
WILDLIFE conservationists use the crite - rion of species diversity to identify areas that must be protected. Ecologists and zoologists from the Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil, proposed a new model that included the economic cost of acquiring land as an important criterion. This matters as limited funds are available for conservation projects. The model identified 41
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- 29/09/2009
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Dial 100
AT ANY time, maize plants are in danger of being dismembered by the vicious western corn rootworm larvae. When under attack, the plants call the emergency service for help. This service is provided by beneficial nematode worms that are specialized in killing the enemy. The plant secretes a volatile compound to call for their help.
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- 29/09/2009
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It does not start with belly fat
FAT in the liver is the new marker for obesity-related complications such as diabetes, heart diseases and strokes. People trying to reduce belly fat to avoid these diseases will have to rethink their lifestyle. The finding is good news for metabolic scientists who have hypothesized for long that liver fat is the most important metabolic disruptor of the body but there were
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- 29/09/2009
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Drought unleashes starvation
Officials admit to 10 deaths in Jharkhand’s backward district, actual number might be 20
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- 29/09/2009
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Different strokes
Website>> Racial Issues • Poland Microsoft has apologized for editing a photo to change a black man’s head to that of a white man. The picture, showing employees sitting around a desk, appeared unaltered on the software giant’s US website.
- Date:
- 29/09/2009
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