Two video films portray the extremes to which humans go in dealing with other life forms to satisfy their needs.

Which schoolchild looks forward to a class in geography where the exciting topic of stars and constellations is reduced to dull discussions, books and a plastic globe? It was perhaps with this in

The killing of tigers and of forest guards in Ranthambore is the result of a conservation strategy that took away the rights of the local people and made them willing allies of poachers.

Kishorilal not his real name , is 39 and has been a forest guard at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve for 17 years. He spoke to Down To Earth on his experiences:

The third tiger census in three years in Ranthambore may pronounce a verdict on the country's conservation strategy that could send a few heads rolling.

Tiger skins and tiger bones are extremely profitable for everyone involved in poaching, whether through killing or selling.

In a ruling that may have far-reaching implications, a Delhi sessions court has banned slaughter of buffalo calves, export of live animals for meat and slaughter of livestock for export as meat.

The surroundings are horribly unnerving even for a species dismissively called 'lesser flamingo': a five-acre mudflat surrounded by a crumbling old port, a ship breaking yard, two oil refineries, a fertilizer plant, and a sprawling slum. But this is where the glorious birds take their six-month

U.S. regulators have announced plans to reduce the number of animals used to test the safety of everyday chemicals. Instead of using animals such as rats and mice, scientists will screen suspected toxic chemicals in everything from pesticides to household cleaners using cell cultures and computer models. Safety of chemicals More than 3.1 million experiments in the U.K. were carried out on animals in 2006. Of these more than 420,000 were done to test the safety of chemicals. According to the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), more than 100 million animals are used annually in experiments in the U.S., of which 15 million are used in toxicity tests. The plans to replace animals in the U.S., announced recently in Boston, will see researchers from the national institute of health and the environmental protection agency develop robotic machines to screen the chemicals. Implications They said if successful the robots could test a greater number of chemicals more quickly. This could have implications for the EU's Reach legislation, which requires retesting all synthetic chemicals used in member countries. Critics are worried that the new rules will increase the number of animals used. The screening machines will be inspired by those developed for medical research, which can quickly test thousands of different molecules in a few days to see if any have potential as useful drugs. Chemical genomics "We now are seeing tools newly available to us for chemical genomics research deployed for greater refinement, speed and capacity in chemical toxicity screening,' said Francis Collins, director of the national human genome research institute and author of a paper published recently in Science. Describing the proposed techniques, Catherine Willett, science policy adviser at Peta, said: "This is a significant change in the perspective of U.S. agencies, which have historically relied heavily on animal testing out of habit and have been resistant to change.'

Bird flu in Bangladesh Nearly 2,000 chickens have been culled in a village in northern Bangladesh after the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected at a poultry farm in the last week of December. This

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