For effective flood control, state to focus on small dams
The state government has decided not to confine itself to monitoring important rivers and their basins but also major irrigaiton projects currently in operation. Narmada and major irrigation projects minister Jaynarayan Vyas, told reporters in Gandhinagar on Monday that, for the first time, instructions have been issued to the irrigation …
Water tapped in Rajasthan
A prolific groundwater source has been found in Bhilwara district of water scarce Rajasthan sufficient to support the drinking and domestic needs of a medium-sized town. The discovery was made in Tilsva village in Jaipur by the central ground water board during an exploration.
Study predicts eco damage in TN, Kerala
While opposition to the proposed Pandiar-Punnampuzha Hydroelectric Project in Gudaltur taluk in Tamil Nadu is building up in Kerala highlighting the adverse impacts it would have on human settlements on banks of the Chaliyar river, an environmental study has warned of negative impacts of the project on forests and especially, …
U.S. surgeons help in China
In a health center in Linzhou, American and Chinese physicians operated recently on Chinese peasants with state-of-the-art medical equipment to treat cancer of the esophagus. American doctors say the procedures being tried here-involving Chinese diagnostic techniques and a Japanese-developed experimental surgery-could help fight what is one of the fastest growing …
Engineering mice pits researchers against ethicists
Using new molecular technologies, scientists can genetically engineer mouse embryos from scratch to contain precisely the same biological defects that cause diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, arthritis and many other human ailments. The new breeds, which have never existed in nature, can be dissected and analyzed by the hundreds …
Taking weapons out of atom plants
Radkowsky Thorium Power Corp., headed by a physicist says it has substituted thorium for some of the uranium in fuel for power reactors. The company says its fuel could be used in reactors in place of the ordinary uranium fuel, and would produce very litte plutonium, a normal byproduct of …
Bioengineered yeasts carry enzymes to cell surfaces
Using the tools of genetic engineering, a Kyoto University research group has developed a way to design yeasts that carry various functional enzymes on cell surfaces. Using this technique, they have already created the first baker's yeast that sports starch-degrading enzymes.
Breast-milk sugars synthesized in quantity
A research group from Shizuoka University said it has developed an efficient way to synthesize large quantities of a trio of oligosaccharides normally present in human breast milk. These sugars are known to play a protective role in the body, fighting off bacterial infections, but until now it has only …
Drug testers head overseas as rules ease
Drug development in Japan has dropped off sharply as domestic pharmaceutical companies find that testing overseas can be quicker and easier than doing the clinical studies at home. A drive begun in the early 1990s by Japan, the US and the European Union to harmonize drug approval procedures has led …
Over 100 Reangs die of enteric fever, diseases
More than one hundred refugees, mostly women and children have succumbed to enteric fever and diseases during the past 15 days in refugee camps in North Tripura where over 30,000 Reangs from Mizoram wer sheltered since October last year.
Philip Morris settles with holders
Philip Morris Cos. agreed to pay $105 million to certain shareholders to settle a securities fraud lawsuit that claimed that the world's largest cigarette maker had misled consumers on the addictive properties of its product.
Hyperactivity drugs given to the very young
Some American children as young as a year old are being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and doctors are treating supposedly hyperactive toddlers with a variety of drugs, including Ritalin clonidine and Prozac, a researcher at Michigan State University Marsha Rappley has determined.
Women at higher risk from TB
For a tiny germ, the tuberculosis bacterium takes a hige financial and human toll. It is the leading single infectious cause of female deaths in the world. Nine hundred million are infected worldwide, killing over one million women every year and accounting for more than 2,700 women dying of TB …
Government 'failed to fund vital BSE study
The UK government turned down applications for "vital" research work on BSE in 1991 from a leading authority on the condition and related illnesses, the BSE inquiry was told at the weekend.
A wider role for a cholesterol drug
A drug used to treat people with coronary heart disease can also prevent illness in healthy people, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers gave daily doses of lovastatin or a placebo to more than 6,500 older men and women with a mean …
A simple prescription can add years to life
A study of University of Pennsylvania graduates, classes of 1939 and 1940, indicates that those who practice healthy habits stay free of disabilities longer. Class members were divided into low, moderate and high risk groups based on weight, exercise and use of tobacco.
Biotech brawl
In the Cambridgeshire campus of the Wellcome Trust, the world's richest medical charity, 300 scientists are plotting the map of life. They are part of the Human Genome Project, an international venture that is the biological equivalent of splitting the atom or landing a man on the moon. It's goal …
Foul air taking toll on children
At present nearly 40,000 children in Nepal succumb to pneumonia, respiratory diseases take the second spot as the children's killer disease in the country. In rural settings, the smoke generated at the kitchen affects the respiratory system of children while in the urban side, it is the foul air that …
Gujarat to launch malaria forecasting centre
The Gujarat Government proposed to launch a "Malaria forecasting and Training Centre" with financial aid from the British Council to take preventive measures against the disease, the Health Minister, Mr. Ashok Bhatt, announced here on Thursday.