Epidemiological studies carried out using culture or microscopy in most of the amoebiasis endemic developing countries, yielded confusing results since none of these could differentiate the pathogenic Entamoeba histolytica from the non-pathogenic Entamoeba dispar and Entamoeba moshkovskii. The Northeastern part of India is a hot spot of infection since the climatic conditions are most conducive for the infection and so far no systemic study has been carried out in this region.

North East India (NEI) has 17.2 M ha under forest cover, which is ~25% of India’s total forest area. Of the total forest cover, 1.5 M ha is currently managed by shifting cultivation in NEI. Shifting cultivation, an integral part of culture and tradition of tribes of NEI, is presently unsustainable because of the populationdriven reduction in the duration of the fallow cycle (3–5 years).

Original Source

In this study, researchers explored the relationships between the satellite-retrievedfire counts(FC), fire radiative power(FRP) and aerosol indices using multi-satellite datasets at a daily time-step covering ten different biomass burning regions in Asia.Wefirst assessed the variations inMODIS-retrieved aerosol optical depths (AOD’s)in agriculture,forests, plantation and peat land burning regions and then usedMODIS FC and FRP (hereafter FC/FRP)to explain the variations in AOD characteristics.

Elevated blood pressure (BP) in the young predicts serious cardiovascular events in the adults. High prevalence of adult hypertension reported from Assam, North east (NE) India may be linked with elevated blood pressure in the childhood. The present study was an attempt to describe the distribution of BP and correlates of hypertension in children aged 5-14 yr.

Original Source

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is formed when water and air come in contact with pyrite (FeS2) present in coal and exposed rocks, to form sulphuric acid. The process of pyrite oxidation further leads to the formation of Fe3+ and some or all of this Fe3+ precipitates to cause red, orange or yellowish colour of the water. The coal deposits in Meghalaya, India along the southern fringe of Shillong plateau are distributed in Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills .