Feature Article

Water is a critical resource in the lives of people who both benefit from its use and who are harmed by its misuse and unpredictability (flooding, droughts, salinity, acidity, and degraded quality). Water is a finite and vulnerable resource. Consequently, consumption of polluted water puts lives and livelihoods at risk because water has no substitute. There are many ways in which water intended for human consumption can get polluted.

Male mating signals, including ornaments and courtship displays, and other sexually selected traits, like male-male aggression, are largely controlled by sex hormones. Environmental pollutants, notably endocrine disrupting compounds, can interfere with the proper functioning of hormones, thereby impacting the expression of hormonally regulated traits. Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides, can alter sex hormone levels in exposed animals.

India's ambitious solar mission has faltered in its first step. LANCO Infratech subverted government rules to corner a major share of solar capacity in first phase of the mission. This is an investigative report on the scam by Centre for Science and Environment in Down To Earth.

After much debate, the Cabinet cleared the food security bill. Will it really ensure food for every Indian? The bill seeks to address widespread hunger in the country through food support programmes and provides eligible beneficiaries the legal right to receive foodgrains at subsidised prices.

Study predicts loss of Rs 10,800 crore in the city by 2050 because of a one-in-100-years flood coupled with climate change impacts. The eastern fringe of Kolkata, the fastest growing part of the city, is expected to be hit the hardest by climate change-induced impacts, and the poor will be affected the most, according to the findings of a World Bank study submitted recently to the West Bengal government.

Typhoid fever, caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), is a major health problem especially in developing countries. Vaccines against typhoid are commonly used by travelers but less so by residents of endemic areas. The researchers used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing to investigate the population structure of 372 S. Typhi isolated during a typhoid disease burden study and Vi vaccine trial in Kolkata, India.

Questions have been raised about the transparency and scientific quality of regulatory processes applied in the first open field releases of genetically modified (GM) insects, and there is concern that inappropriate precedents have been set, particularly through generic risk assessments covering multiple species and technologies.

After many years of open discussion and development, the first genetically modified (GM) insect strains are entering field trials. A key engineered trait renders the insects “genetically sterile”, such that some or all of their offspring die; the insects additionally carry a fluorescent marker gene for easy identification. Such “genetic sterility” transgenes (in genetic terms, conditional dominant lethal genes) are not able to establish or spread in the wild due to their high fitness cost; such self-limiting strategies are widely viewed as the lowest risk category.