Climate warming is expected to induce treelines to advance to higher elevations. Empirical studies in diverse mountain ranges, however, give evidence of both advancing alpine treelines and rather insignificant responses. The inconsistency of findings suggests distinct differences in the sensitivity of global treelines to recent climate change. It is still unclear where Himalayan treeline ecotones are located along the response gradient from rapid dynamics to apparently complete inertia.

In 2012, an Indian parliamentary committee reported that manufacturing licenses for large numbers of fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs had been issued by state authorities without prior approval of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) in violation of rules, and considered that some ambiguity until 1 May 2002 about states’ powers might have contributed. To our knowledge, no systematic enquiry has been undertaken to determine if evidence existed to support these findings.

We examined the past 23 years of ground-level O3 data and selected meteorological parameters in Houston, Texas, which historically has been one of the most polluted cities in the United States. Both 1-h and 8-h O3 exceedances have been reduced significantly down to single digit yearly occurrences. We also found that the frequency of southerly flow has increased by a factor of ~2.5 over the period 1990–2013, likely suppressing O3 photochemistry and leading to a “cleaner” Houston environment.

Nighttime light data record the artificial light on the Earth’s surface and can be used to estimate the degree of pollution associated with particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) in the ground-level atmosphere. This study proposes a simple method for monitoring PM2.5 concentrations at night by using nighttime light imagery from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS).

Original Source

Arctic permafrost soils store large amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC) that could be released into the atmosphere as methane (CH4) in a future warmer climate. How warming affects the complex microbial network decomposing SOC is not understood. The researchers studied CH4 production of Arctic peat soil microbiota in anoxic microcosms over a temperature gradient from 1 to 30 °C, combining metatranscriptomic, metagenomic, and targeted metabolic profiling.

Original Source

Poor waste management has been a major problem to human existence and it affects both rural and urban areas. Various methods of waste disposal exist and this study assessed the waste management practices among residents of Owerri Municipal, Imo state, Nigeria. It was a descriptive cross sectional study in which a total of 282 residents of Owerri Municipal were selected by multistage sampling technique and studied using self and interviewer administered questionnaires. The results showed that 90% of respondents were aware of waste management while 97.5% had positive attitude towards it.

Northeast Microbial Database (NEMiD) is a first of its kind digital database on microbial diversity from North East (NE) India, which provides information on culturable microbes (bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes) isolated from soils of the region (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and parts of North Bengal) distributed across landscape elements (LSE) spread in various ecosystems. The database is based on the primary data through survey, isolation and
characterization of the microbes during 2008–2012.

The northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, i.e. the Bay of Bengal (BoB) is located near some of the most complicated tectonic zones on the Earth. An earthquake of magnitude ~6.0 occurred on 21 May 2014 near the coast of Odisha. Occasional moderate to large earthquakes in BoB highlight the need to study precise hypocentre locations, and focal mechanisms to understand the cause of intraplate seismicity in BoB.

Original Source

A remote sensing and GIS based landslide susceptibility zonation (LSZ) of the Tehri reservoir rim region has been presented here. Landslide causal factors such
as land use/land cover, photo-lineaments, landslide incidences, drainage, slope, aspect, relative relief, topographic wetness index and stream power index were
derived from remote sensing data. Ancillary data included published geological map, soil map and topographic map. Correlation between factor classes and

Conventional energy resources are fast depleting and therefore alternative resources are required to sustain the fast progress and development of any nation. This
situation is more pertinent to India where fast growing population and developmental activities are posing major challenges to the government as the country has
limited resources of energy. Therefore, focused research should be intensified to explore the potential of geothermal energy resources in India. Realizing its