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GM crops
set for role in Britain’s food revolution Prof Yash
Pal THIS UNIVERSE
Psychopaths have faulty brain connections
Scientists find nerve cells
responsible for itch
“Big Bang” collider to restart
with less energy
Telescope can find “oodles” of
Earths: NASA
South Africa reaching to space to
boost economy
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GM
crops set for role in Britain’s food revolution The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the UK would “play a full part” in hitting a UN target of raising food production by 70 per cent by 2050 to feed a projected global population of nine billion. Friends of the Earth and other green groups suspect the Government may see food security as an opportunity to introduce GM crops, which have so far proved unpopular with the public. None are currently grown commercially here despite large-scale farm trials between 1999 and 2003. In 2004, ministers denied permission for GM beet and oilseed rape because they lessened food for farmland birds, while a herbicide-resistant maize they approved was later abandoned by its manufacturer. Proponents of GM crops say they have the potential to raise yields dramatically by making crops resistant to drought, herbicides and pesticides. However, they have been fiercely opposed by environmentalists who say higher yields have not been proven and fear they could cause uncontrollable damage to animals and other plants. Asked whether GM crops were part of the solution to what he called “a new green revolution,” Mr Benn said that farmers would decide what to grow but stressed the importance of new techniques. “If GM can make a contribution, then we have a choice as a society and as a world about whether to make use of that technology n and an increasing number of countries are growing GM products,” he told the BBC Today programme. “And the truth is we will need to think about the way in which we produce our food... because one thing is certain: with a growing population, the world is going to need a lot of farmers and a lot of agricultural production in the years ahead.” As a result of public opposition, no major British supermarket stocks own-brand products with GM ingredients, although non-GM ingredients are becoming increasingly expensive because the US produces so many GM crops. The Government will publish its plans for increasing production this autumn. In a draft document, Food Matters: One Year On, Defra said the Food Standards Agency would “take forward a programme of consumer engagements on genetic modification over the next 12 months.” The section was omitted from the published version. “Every time the UK gets the opportunity to vote on GM at European level, it votes in favour. We have no doubt that the Government is fully behind GM growing,” said Clare Oxborrow, senior food campaigner at Friends of the Earth. Pete Riley, of GM Freeze, said: “The Government has always been very pro-GM. They would like to see GM crops grown here. I suspect they will say we need GM crops on a case by case basis and will base it around science,” he said, adding that there were political and economic arguments against GM.
— By arrangement with\ The Independent |
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THIS UNIVERSE Why do we wrap up hot food in aluminium foil? Is it that aluminium, being a metal and a good conductor of heat, is used for insulating heat? One of the reasons for using aluminium foil might be the following. You know that there are three processes through which heat can be transferred. These are conduction, convection and radiation. You can reduce conduction by wrapping the hot food in cloth and also by using an acrylic or plastic box. Convection is also reduced or eliminated when a box is used. What remains is radiation. You must have realised that we effectively eliminate conduction and convection when use warm clothes in winter and close the zipper or buttons near the throat of our jacket. (Woollen clothes remove conduction because of tiny air bubbles trapped in the fabric). But let us think of a thermos bottle that can keep things warm or cold for a long time. Conduction is easily taken care of by the glass body. Convection is eliminated by making the bottle double walled with the space in between evacuated of air. For creating a radiation barrier we silver or aluminize the outer surface of the glass bottle. This mirrored surface reflects the infrared (heat) radiation. Now we come back to your question about the usefulness of aluminium foil for wrapping the school lunch. Its effectiveness, besides providing a convenient wrapper, probably lies in the fact the foil is highly reflective on one side. This can act as a radiation barrier. You might be interested in the fact that for making super Dewars (the name used for efficient thermos flasks), one uses many layers of aluminised Mylar to keep cold liquefied gases like helium for a long time without their being lost through evaporation. If we send a powerful laser beam on moon and it gets reflected from moon back to earth, can we see its path of coming back to the earth? One of the science instruments that the Americans left on the moon was a retro reflector, which was nothing but a tray of corner cubes. If you shine a laser beam on it, it would be reflected back in the direction from which it came. A telescope on earth was used to send the beam of laser and one measured the time it took to come back to the telescope This experiment was done for a number of years to find the distance to the moon. This experiment also managed to show that the moon is receding from the earth by a few centimetres per year. You do not see light beam in space, but you might see it scattered in the atmosphere. The returning beam is a bit week but sensitive photo detectors can detect it even if unaided eye might not see the scattered light. Readers wanting to ask Prof Yash Pal a question can e-mail him at palyash.pal@gmail.com
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Trends LONDON: Psychopaths who kill and rape have faulty connections between the part of the brain dealing with emotions and that which handles impulses and decision-making, scientists have found. In a study of psychopaths who had committed murder, manslaughter, multiple rape, strangulation and false imprisonment, the British scientists found that roads linking the two crucial brain areas had “potholes,” while those of non-psychopaths were in good shape.
Scientists find nerve cells responsible for itch WASHINGTON:
Researchers have found specific nerve cells responsible for itchiness, a discovery that could lead to better treatments for skin conditions. Experiments on mice show they have nerve cells that convey only an itch sensation—contradicting common wisdom that itch and pain are closely related.
GENEVA: The giant particle collider built to probe the origins of the universe will restart in November at a lower energy level following its shutdown days after its inauguration last year, CERN said on Thursday. The announcement by the European Organization for Nuclear Research represented the latest in a series of delays to restart the Large Hadron Collider—the biggest and most complex machine ever made. CERN had previously set an autumn date.
Telescope can find “oodles” of Earths: NASA WASHINGTON: The orbiting Kepler telescope has spotted a Jupiter-sized planet around another star—a sighting that demonstrates it can see Earth-like planets if they are out there, scientists reported on Thursday. The planet, called HAT-P-7b, was already among the 300 or so known so-called extrasolar planets, the team led by the U.S. space agency NASA reported. But measurements of its orbit by Kepler show the telescope will be able to see smaller planets, they reported in the journal Science.
South Africa reaching to space to boost economy CAPE TOWN: South Africa aims to become a regional center for space technology, investing in satellite and telescope projects to support its ailing economy, the science and technology minister said on Thursday. “When a country engages in a program as significant globally as space science there are many areas in which the economy is boosted,” Minister Naledi Pandor said.
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MINISTERS left open the door for the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops yesterday as part of a new green revolution to transform food Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, declined to rule out commercial GM planting in Britain as he stressed that new scientific techniques were needed to raise crop yields and ensure future generations could eat. His department published a food security assessment yesterday, warning that climate change, water and energy scarcity and low fish stocks were likely to place strains on the global food system that Britain could not ignore.