UN climate talks held in Bonn, Germany over the weekend produced only modest progress in the negotiations toward a global deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. The sluggish pace of the weekend discussions suggests that 2010 may turn out to be a painfully slow year for the multilateral climate talks.
Defusing a long-running trade dispute over American cotton subsidies, the United States and Brazil agreed to begin negotiating a compromise deal that could prevent the implementation of Brazilian trade sanctions on a wide range of US goods and intellectual property.
This study has used proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) for direct air analyses of volatile products resulting from the reactions of ozone with human skin lipids. An initial series of small-scale in vitro and in vivo experiments were followed by experiments conducted with human subjects in a simulated office.
In the polar tropospheric boundary layer, reactive halogen species (RHS) are responsible for ozone depletion as well as the oxidation of elemental mercury and dimethyl sulphide. After polar sunrise, air masses enriched in reactive bromine cover areas of several million square kilometers. Still, the source and release mechanisms of halogens are not completely understood.
Despite many policy measures taken by the central and state governments, the indebtedness of farmers, especially marginal and small cultivators, keeps increasing. Some recent studies on agrarian distress show the significant role of healthcare expenditure in increasing indebtedness. This article presents the result of a study conducted in selected villages of Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts of Punjab in 2008-09 to estimate the level of credit taken for healthcare purposes by marginal and small farmers. It also analyses the present scenario of public health services in rural Punjab.
Recent epidemiological studies suggest that diabetes mellitus is a strong risk factor for Alzheimer disease. However, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study, to investigate the pathophysiological interaction between these diseases, we generated animal models that reflect the pathologic conditions of both diseases.
In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) implemented a moratorium on commercial whaling. Many people believed that this would save the whales and end forever the industrial slaughter that had decimated entire species. Not so. A proposal before the IWC could lead to the resumption of commercial whaling as early as next year.
India has continued to report cases of wild poliovirus and acute flaccid paralysis throughout the 2000s. Indeed, in 2009 the numbers of both exceeded the totals for 2008, by 26% and 9.5%, respectively. Confirmed wild poliovirus cases are increasingly concentrated amongst Muslim children and localised in western Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
This article contains the Book review on "Energy efficiency and climate change: conserving power for a sustainable future".
The book contains innovatively developed 10 chapters tracking every aspect of linkages between energy & its efficient production and utilization, climate change and economic development.
