Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Some of the salient features of Indian agriculture include fragmented landholding; rain-fed cultivation (irrigated farming is about 40 per cent); low level of input usage (seeds, fertilisers, agro-chemicals); varied agro-climatic conditions; antiquated agronomic practices; poor pre- and post-harvest technology adoption; inadequate marketing infrastructure; low yields and, often, unrealistic prices; and tardy flow of price and
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
A few years ago, Jeffrey Dukes, a US biologist, was driving through the deserts of Utah on his way to a research station. As his car ate up the miles, he began thinking about the fuel in the tank, and the plants that it had come from. How many ancient plants, he wondered, had it
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
Seismic events often strike without warning, and that element of surprise makes them all the more deadly. Scientists have long looked for ways to predict them but have had little success, until recently. Read More
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
A team of consultants led by Drivers Jonas Deloitte and including Planit, Amion, Stockley and Urban Strategies will produce a ten-year city centre master-plan for Liverpool Vision. The council’s economic development agency wants to replicate the successful strategic framework published in 2000 that set many of the targets the city met in the regeneration boom. The 2000
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Irregular rainfall distribution over the past ten million years has influenced the shape of the Andes mountain range, according to a Swiss geology professor. The result is that the western side of the central Andes is a flat dry slope, while the eastern side is verdant and hilly – similar to central Switzerland’s Napf region. Fritz Schlunegger
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Scientists have assembled a remarkable record of water quality in the Thames that stretches back over 140 years. The archive is thought to be the longest for any river in the world. Putting it together involved hunting down old paper documents detailing monthly water tests. Some of them even had to be retrieved from the US. Read
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
VIP Tourism, a Turkish tourism firm, will start organizing space tours to the stratosphere by 2014, the company announced yesterday. The company will offer space tourists from Turkey and around the world a four-hour-long experience 36 kilometers above the Earth’s surface aboard a space balloon named “Bloon,” which has reportedly been developed with state-of-the-art technology by
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Europe’s highest court has backed an EU emissions trading scheme for the aviation industry, angering leaders and airlines abroad. Experts warn the ruling could spark a trade war. Despite the tensions, German commentators on Thursday encouraged EU officials to stand strong on climate protection. Read More
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
THE UK’s first urban wind farm is set to be built in Hull, the Mail can reveal. The £1 million project will see a 20 wind turbines installed on a site next to the Clive Sullivan Way in west Hull. Two of the micro-turbines are already operating next to design company Inter Tech’s headquarters in Saltmarsh Court,
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
Oceana, the largest international marine conservation organisation has recently published a report on biodiversity and marine habitats, proposing nine areas totalling 3,500 km2 for inclusion in the current network of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in the Baltic Sea. These areas, in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, identified during Oceana’s extensive two month research expedition in the spring of 2011, all have specifically important biodiversity that
