The Punjab Energy Development Agency has released a draft green hydrogen policy aiming to achieve a green hydrogen and ammonia production capacity of 100 kilo tonnes per annum by 2030. The policy proposes extending incentives under the existing “Punjab Industrial and Business Development Policy 2022” to new green hydrogen and …
OIL-EATING bacteria, useful in cleaning up slicks, will soon have water wings, helping to keep them afloat in water. Using gene-splicing techniques, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, USA, have isolated 13 genes responsible for producing air-filled sacs in a floating bacterium called Halobacterium halobium. This comes in the wake …
SCIENTISTS have recently discovered it took only 5 to 10 million years to create the immense diversity of life in the earth's oceans. Earlier, they had thought this biological explosion lasted some 20 to 40 million years, during the Cambrian period. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have dug …
Scientists at the Jammu laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have found a Himalayan herb, which can considerably increase the absorption of tuberculosis (TB) drugs in the human bloodstream. Scientists Usha Zutshi and K L Bedi explain that because the human body can absorb less than …
DON'T KEEP guns at home for the temptation to use them may be too strong to control. According to a recent US study, firearms kept at home increase by three times the risk of murder by a family member or intimate acquaintance (The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol 329, …
DINOSAURS went extinct because the lumbering, gormandising behemoths were unable to adapt to a changing world. The contemporary car -- a fuming, fuel guzzling, latter-day dinosaur -- probably awaits the same fate. With oil getting scarcer and air fouler, it won't be long before today's cars are veered out of …
Sugar mills need to invest only an additional Rs 2.3 crore to generate 1 MW of power, whereas conventional power generation from coal costs Rs 3 crore per MW, reports a task force constituted by the ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES). The study has found that India's 400 sugar …
Officers' associations of major public sector power undertakings have warned of a crisis in the energy sector if the government's liberalisation policy in power generation and distribution is pushed through. The officers' association of the National Thermal Power Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and Central Electricity Authority have submitted a …
Virtual reality has done it again. It is now possible to watch a filmed "tour" of the Abbey of Cluny in France in all its splendour. The abbey, which was built in the 10th century, was among the largest of its time and destroyed after the French Revolution. It has …
In a significant breakthrough, the Hyderabad-based Directorate of Rice Research has developed five commercially viable, hybrid rice varieties from indigenous species. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director-general V L Chopra claims this will make India "the second country, after China, to exploit hybrid vigour in order to give a …
I understand you have an alternative to the Sardar Sarovar irrigation project, for using Narmada water. Can you give us an outline? The alternative is to use exogenous water judiciously to supplement local water. There are two reasons why we cannot rely only on local resources. In a drought-prone area, …
ASHOK Gadgil, Arthur Rosenfeld and others at the University of California at Berkeley have proposed "low-E (emissivity)" windows with coatings to reduce heat transfers, can be a viable option for developing countries because they will save energy and reduce peak-hour demands. But the windows proposed by Gadgil and company are …
THE ASIAN muskox was believed to be one of the species that became extinct about 10,000 years along with mammoths and other large mammals, when the Ice age or Pleistocene came to an end. But now, the discovery of a few skulls of the muskox and plaques depicting the animal …
The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Bombay is to undertake a pilot study to evolve an environmentally sound strategy for the development of Maharashtra's energy sector. The study will be carried out in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme Collaborating Centre on Energy and Environment (UNEP-CCEE) in …
AS THE global warming debate heats up, scientists are looking towards the most unlikely source for clues -- penguins. They suspect the availability of fish on which penguins feed is increasing in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, which are warming slightly. Therefore, fatter penguins would indirectly confirm the greenhouse …
MARGINAL farmers in drought-prone upland areas, whom the Green Revolution virtually bypassed, can now look forward to new varieties of rice that mature in just 60-70 days and can increase the yield to at least three times the present production. Dubbed jaldi dhan in Hindi, these rice varieties, developed by …
Paralysing geneUS SCIENTISTS have homed in on a gene defect linked to a debilitating nerve disorder known as Lou Gehrig's disease (Cambridge University Alumni Magazine). The disease, a celebrated victim of which is physicist Stephen Hawking, the author of A Brief History of Time, gradually paralyses its victims by killing …
THE PASSAGE of genes from one generation to another is a matter of chance. A given gene from a parent has a 50 per cent chance of turning up in the offspring, said Gregor John Mendel, often called the father of genetics. But now a Russian team, headed by Sergei …
AN OFFER by Latin American banana growers for a dialogue has been eagerly accepted by their Caribbean rivals and discussions scheduled in St Lucia hopefully will dampen the dispute between them, triggered by banana import quotas fixed recently by the European Community (EC). The cause of acrimony between the two …
THE JUNGLES of Vietnam hide a hitherto undescribed mammal. Basing their claim on remains such as skins, skulls and teeth recovered from local hunters, zoologists reckon an adult specimen of the mysterious mammal -- named Pseudoryx nghetnhensis -- weighs about 100 kg, is 80-90 cm high at the shoulder and …
US-BASED pharmaceutical companies provide incomplete -- and even misleading -- information on the labels of products they market in developing countries, an official study by the office of technology assessment (OTA) states. The study, based on the labelling of 241 products sold in 1988-90 in Kenya, Panama, Brazil and Thailand …
