Feature Article

SCIENTIFIC scepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge.

A report of Australia’s premier statistical agency has indicated an interesting link between drug and alcohol abuse among aboriginal people and the loss of traditional languages.

Staff at a bank in Uttar Pradesh has been blamed for allowing termites to eat their way through banknotes.

BBC will broadcast the death of 84-year-old cancer victim, Gerald, in the second episode of its new series Inside the Human Body, on May 12.

In 1998, Kathryn Bolkovac, a US police officer on deputation with the UN’s International Police Task Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was put in charge of a project aimed at fighting violence against women.

Google has agreed to amend its map of the Brazillian city of Rio de Janeiro after the country’s media and city officials slammed it for giving prominence to favelas or shantytowns.

The newly launched renewable energy certificate (REC) market has been witnessing a flurry of activity. Governments, regulators and project developers are upbeat, and the first trading day in March 2011 hit the ceiling price. Though the subsequent session was subdued, stakeholders are optimistic that the new market can quicken the harnessing of renewable energy potential of the country, which has been sluggish so far. But REC is not a magic wand to achieve clean energy goals and it could have problems.

Bhubaneswar Bindhani has not heard of a UNDP Human Development Report Paper, ‘Migration and Human Development’. It is quite likely the authors of the 2009 report did not take note of the fortunes of this resident of Nuagaon village in Odisha’s Nuapada district when they wrote, “migration fosters development of the migrant people.” They also perhaps did not take note of many other people from Odisha’s western districts who migrate every year to work in sub-human conditions at brick kilns and construction sites in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

TILL swine flu panic gripped the world, washing hands was considered the best way to maintain personal hygiene and protect oneself from diseases. But as fear of the disease spread, so did hand sanitisers. They became a prefered choice because of their mobility and convenience. All you need to do is squirt a drop of it onto your palms, rub it, and you are done. But now the integrity of that handbag-sized bottle designed to kill any germ is in doubt. It might be offering a false sense of security.

IT WAS in 2001 that scientists in the US first identified the capability of brake fern, or Pteris vittata, to absorb large quantities of arsenic present in the soil or water. Since then biologists across the world have been trying to explore more about the role plant plays in absorbing heavy metals.