Fifteen years ago the hillside of Karsog Tehsil in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh was covered with pine mono cultures. The officials of the forest department preferred pine as it is not eaten by cattle, grows quickly after a fire, is hardy, requires minimum effort and had a good survival rate.
New method takes into account turbulence in flow of water ABOUT a hundred thousand farmers in Malda and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal lose land and homes to erosion caused by the Ganga every year. With little knowhow on when the river will wash away their farmland, they are compelled to keep a watchful eye on the river during monsoon. Predicting soil erosion is not easy. Wind
Pulses in India contribute less to global warming greenhouse gas emission during pulse cultivation in India is much less than in developed countries because of minimal use of nitrogenous fertilizers. India has just got a proof of it. Pulse crops are known to release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, but no one had measured it. Now researchers from the Bhubaneswar-based Institute of
commonly used medicines like Becosule, Dexorange and Corex figure in the list of medicines that the government wanted removed from the market last year. But these medicines, classified under fixed dose combinations, or fdcs, continue to be sold. The pharma industry is reviewing the list currently. Health activists fear that companies may use this opportunity to their advantage. The Drug
Studies indicate an urgent need to map areas that have selenium-rich soil because the element has been linked to aridity there. A study published in the September issue of Journal of Environmental Management revealed that food grains from some arid regions in Northern India had high selenium. For the study, researchers from the National University of Singapore and Maharshi Dayanand
Rainfall decreased over two-thirds of India, says study Conventional thinking has it that India with global warming will receive more rainfall. But that need not necessarily be so. Annual rainfall, especially during winter and monsoon, has decreased in over 68 per cent of the country, claims a recent study by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (iitm), Pune. Scientists attribute the
Courtesy earthworms, hair, weed easily converted to manure in 2003, the government ordered the closure of several hair processing units, which made wigs, in Karnataka because of pollution. Burning of hair resulted in toxic elements, which caused allergies. The problem with human hair is it takes hundreds of years to decompose (see
Specific aphid identified as predominant virus vector the papaya ring spot virus causes extensive damages to papaya, watermelon, squash, cucumber and pumpkin. Scientists suggest that the best way to reduce the loss is to cultivate these plants at a distance from each other and avoid their monoculture. A study, published in the May issue of Phytopathology, has identified a kind of
launching websites may become cheaper with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (icann) deciding to expand domain names from .com and .org to anything after the dot.
Indian scientists seek clarity on nitrogen emissions if emissions of reactive nitrogen gases (oxides of nitrogen and ammonia, but especially nitrous oxide) ever get hitched to the international debate on global warming, in the form of a
