Feature Article

Joe Bast and his libertarian think tank are a major force among climate sceptics — but they just can't win the battle over science.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110727/full/475440a.html

The Heartland Institute's climate conference reveals the motives of global-warming sceptics. (Editorial)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7357/full/475423b.html

Regulators must look past visceral disgust about human–animal hybrids. Strict but sensible rules are needed for research on hybrid embryos and chimaeric animals that could produce therapies. (Editorial)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7357/full/475423a.html

As the incidence of respiratory and allergic symptoms has been reported to be increased in children attending schools in close proximity to busy roads, it was hypothesised that PM from roadside schools would display enhanced oxidative potential (OP). Two consecutive one-week air quality monitoring campaigns were conducted at seven school sampling sites, reflecting roadside and urban background in London.

S Ganesan on behalf of Excel Crop Care, the biggest endosulfan manufacturer in the country, has sent a legal notice to the Government Medical college, Calicut for their report on endosulfan. The report indicted endosulfan for the health problems of those living in the cashew plantations in Kasaragod district of Kerala.

LIVING a legally non-existent life for more than six decades, the Taungya forest-dwellers in Gorakhpur and Maharajganj districts of Uttar Pradesh finally got their share of rights on forestland. On July 25, state forest minister Fateh Bahadur Singh distributed land titles to 651 Taungya families in six villages of the two districts under Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.

The Supreme Court has stayed an order of the Madras High Court evicting all the resorts near Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris Mountains for two months. The high court, in its April 2011 order, had given resort owners three months to vacate the area. The court had also said that the resort owners were not eligible for compensation.

test

Remote lakes are usually unaffected by direct human infl uence, yet they receive inputs of atmospheric pollutants, dust, and other aerosols, both inorganic and organic. In remote, alpine lakes, these atmospheric inputs may infl uence the pool of dissolved organic matter, a critical constituent for the biogeochemical functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Here, to assess this infl uence, we evaluate factors related to aerosol deposition, climate, catchment properties, and microbial constituents in a global dataset of 86 alpine and polar lakes.

Kerala is yet to figure in the mining industry map of the country. But two villages in the state are showing characteristics of mining areas in other parts of the country—environmental degradation and conflict.


Sea sand mining by two public sector companies has caused continuous sea surge in Ponaman and Vellanamthurutu villages in Kollam district. Youngsters find it hard to believe that these two villages had extensive paddy fields till 1962. The elders still carry the memory of 1962 sea surge which completely washed away the paddy land.