Are vaccines already helping contain COVID-19? Early signs say yes, but mutations will be challenging
Infection rates have declined in countries that have inoculated a large share of the population
‘Futures trading can bring efficiency to California’s water sector’
Michael Kiparsky from the University of California tells Down To Earth that fears about futures trading in water commoditising it are …
Russia-Ukraine war to have ‘ripple effects’ on India’s fuel prices: Experts
India should take this as a market signal and channel investments into electric vehicles and green hydrogen, which are substitutes for oil and gas,…
Cover, quality of severe depression treatment low globally: Study
Nearly 75 per cent of those diagnosed with MDD across the globe live in low and lower-middle income countries
Just what is the hoopla around 5G and aviation troubles in the US about
Major US airlines were forced to write a letter to federal authorities recently after disruption to flight schedules due to 5G technology
Some good news for beleaguered Vaquita and Sumatran Rhino
While the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a preliminary ban on Mexican seafood imports to save the Vaquita, the first wild …
Trophy hunters take aim at Yellowstone’s Grizzly Bears
Last summer, the Trump administration removed the bears off the Endangered Species Act list of threatened species, paving the way for states to …
India’s very own Dust Bowl
Rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, depleting groundwater, unsustainable agriculture and deforestation are turning large parts of …
Remote Sensing: Smart policing of emissions on-road
India needs smarter and effective policing of emissions on road to reduce public health risk
World is at risk if anti-abortion laws are made stronger in the US
The Alabama Human Life Protection Act was supported by more than 20 male senators in a state, where women make up 51.5 per cent of the population
What is ‘heat dome’, the phenomenon causing record temperatures across US?
‘Heat domes’ have also been associated with unusually warm periods in India, Bangladesh, China and some other Asian countries
86 European, US children down with severe hepatitis; experts perplexed
Some have cited COVID-19 as a reason; some two years of it, while the rest have blamed the adenovirus
What is an inverted yield curve? Why is it panicking markets, and why is there talk of recession?
The yield curve is a graph showing the relationship between interest rates earned on lending money for different durations
Revenge of the rich
Trump's election reflects the anger of the rich who did not get richer. This inequity is also at the core of the climate change challenge
Pharma’s dirty deals to stall generics
As generic companies, including Indian firms, collude with innovator pharma giants in pay-for-delay pacts, consumers pay a high price
India has 2nd-highest number of diabetes diagnostic centres globally, new study finds
Currently, 537 million adults globally are living with diabetes, with three in four of them living in low- and middle-income countries
Like ‘the tolling of a distant temple bell’, Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain remembers the horrors of Hiroshima
Black Rain records the scorching memories of the hibakusha — atomic bomb survivors — of the bombing and its aftermath
Planetary summer: Why Europe may have reached a point of no return on prolonged droughts, heatwaves
Droughts are becoming a new reality for Europe, latest scientific projections suggest
Inflation Reduction Act: Experts cautious as US Senate passes landmark climate investment bill
Bill still does not go far enough to meet the scale of climate emergency; the nature of investment is not known at the moment, they say
Kenya takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council, but must work hard to influence the agenda
The presidency of the Council affords Kenya some, albeit limited, scope to shape the Council’s agenda
Human activity is slowly killing the world’s rivers, study illustrates
The chemical composition of major rivers such as Yangtze, Amazon, Mississippi and Congo have been altered
US activists, politicians demand FDA reclassify ‘Toxic 3 Os’ used in sunscreen
Oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene pose a threat to public health, marine life and coral reefs, according to latest research
‘The expectation that burden of US inaction will be borne by developing countries is unfair’
Given its economic capacity and carbon debt it owes the world, US should not emit any carbon in the future at all.
Decarbonisation in a fraught geopolitical landscape
The production of the technologies necessary to decarbonise and digitalise the global economy has unfortunately been drawn into the battlefield …
Environment Impact Assessment: India needs to revamp its public consultation framework
The draft Environment Impact Assessment notification 2020 minimises public engagement. How do other countries go about it?