DELHI's roads display a sign of what's to come -- traffic police wearing gas masks. Police officials decided to issue the masks to give traffic constables some respite from the extremely high

PROLONGED use of chlorinated drinking water can cause cancer, says a study by scientists at the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). When chlorine gas reacts with naturally occurring organic

THANKS to poor rainfall in the area, the fear of Manibeli being inundated by monsoon-fed waters of the Narmada has receded temporarily. According to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) activists,

SCIENTISTS at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in Lucknow and the Indian Institute of Tropical Botany in Pune have found growth rings of tropical trees such as teak (Tectona grandis) and

CALCUTTA is famed worldwide for its sewage fisheries -- wetlands that use industrial and domestic sewage for fish cultivation. But the Mudially Fishermen's Cooperative Society needed a helping hand

EUROPEAN spacecraft Giotto created history mid-July when it swept past the comet, Grigg-Skjellerup, some 240 million km away in space. Giotto flew within 200 km of the comet's nucleus at 14 km a

BOMBAY's residents are always ready for a deluge -- it is drought that they fear. And, the grim sceptre of waterless days has risen this year. Water levels in lakes Vaitarana, Tansa, Tulsi

SOUND waves can be used to measure factory emissions, say scientists at the Open University in UK. Pollution monitoring systems using light waves are often inadequate and direct sampling of air

Third World countries warned at Amsterdam recently that even if more effective vaccines and drugs become available, they may not be afford them.

SWEDISH pharmaceutical firm Astra has developed a drug -- Losec -- that inhibits acid secretions in the stomach wall and heals ulcers. It has been found that as many as 80 per cent of all ulcer