Ground reality

ANIMALS that live in the soil play an important role in the ecosystem but little is known about their correlation with organisms above the ground. A study of soils from 11 areas around the world shows that unlike most species above the ground, soil animals have restricted distributions.

City birds brainier, smarter

AN animal’s ability to acclimatise to urban surroundings is believed to depend on its brain size. Evolutionary biologists have for the first time provided evidence of it.

Science & Technology - Briefs

HORTICULTURE Apple genome cracked

Gains of Stockholm

Twenty eight per cent of all passages are by vehicles exempted from the congestion tax. Trips by alternative fuel vehicles up from 3 per cent to 13 per cent between 2005 and 2008. With their increased use traffic has increased. Exemption will cease in July 2012  Compared to 2005, car trips fell by half in 2008. Public transport trips increased by about 45,000. And more people cycle  Shortening of average journey times has saved US $85 million 

Science & Technology - Briefs

FORENSIC SCIENCES Whodunit The bacteria that feed on a murderer’s skin could now be as incriminating as blood and semen. Biologists in the US have developed a technology that helps isolate the DNA from bacteria left on surfaces such as computer key boards and compare it with the genetic material from bacteria on hands. These bacteria lingered on the keyboard surface for nearly two weeks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 15, 2010 (online)

The real magic beans

the drumstick tree grows in any kind of soil and requires very little care. People have many uses for the flowers, beans and twigs of the Moringa oleifera, or the horseradish tree as it is also referred to. The beans, in fact, are almost magical. They may not lead to a hen that lays golden eggs like the magical beans did for Jack in the fairy tale but they can be used to extract oil, provide nutrition when tossed into culinary preparations and prepare medicines.

New Snippets

>> In the second week of November, Sweden returned skulls taken from indigenous cemeteries in Hawaii in the 19th century. The remains were exhibited in Stockholms Antiquities Museum. Museum director Lars Amreus said most of the skulls were taken from burial sites in the Pacific islands by Swedish scientists in the 1880s. >> A UK government advert which claimed an engineering diploma would get teenagers into any university has been ruled misleading by the countrys advertising watchdog. It said Cambridge accepted the diploma only if it was taken alongside A-level physics.

Wishes grow on cellulose

now people can be greeted with lights and not just on Diwali.

The colonial reality show

Television>> Minority Rights Namibia

Her majesty's pirates

The Pirate Party -- which won a surprise seat in the European Parliament in Sweden in May -- now has a UK chapter. The party, which campaigns to legalize non-commercial internet file-sharing and has branches in 25 European countries plans to contest the next general election in the UK. It gained more than seven per cent of the vote in Sweden on the