The corporate playing field

Here's the changing face of multinational companies: Headquartered in Europe, R&D in the US, produced in Asia and marketed around the world. One …

Paying for environmental abuse

Warer-cess assessment and collection have proved to be inadequate in getting local bodies and highly industrialised states like Maharashtra to …

In the past lies the future

From being a romantic quest for treasures and lost civilisations, archaeology has now come down to earth, increasingly associated with …

Models in mutilation

Modern industrial design, pandering to essentially Western consumer-led markets, has spelt doom for the environment. The author, therefore, …

Coral cause

The world's seas and oceans harbour about 600 species of corals, most of which are hard put to escape human marauders. A people's initiative in …

Order out of chaos

New Zealand's far-reaching reforms in conservation and forest management has "changed the face of forestry" in the country

The climate for a change

Are the nations of the world serious in their much-touted efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions? VINAYAK RAO examines the motives, moods …

Playing with life

An ayurvedic researcher's forays against the dreaded AIDS virus unmasks a tale of greed and un-Hippocratian behaviour

Evolution with full stops and commas

Darwinian sapience takes a beating as the notion of 'punctuated equilibrium' - which postulates that evolution occurred in sudden fits and starts -…

Its cold on Mars

Although freezing temperatures have led to a loss of contact with the Mars Pathfinder, data collected by the mission is invaluable in improving …

A perfect world

A majority of the earth's ecosystems today are in a state of 'accelerated death', one that can be traced to activities structurally linked with …

UTTARKASHI

Houses that hold on

Singapore: Breathing Easy

It's all about taming traffic: keeping a tab on the number of vehicles on the road, and promoting public transport. Singapore, one of the …

Rulers of the waves

A call for leadership

It can only come from the South

Spectrum wars

Mobile service providers battle over additional bandwidth

Shutting down the particle powerhouse

Even though funds for the Superconducting Super Collider have dried up, particle physicists are determined to prove their theory of, well, everything

Heading for a burnout

Increased incomes, innovative financing schemes, short-sighted policies and wasteful attitudes have led to an enormous amount of energy being …

Cracking the cancer code

In recent years, scientists have closed in on cancer, pinning down precisely how its hellish manifestations are caused and spread. Their findings …

Maps of the world

Geographical Information Systems is revolutionising the present and portend a happier future. Or so we hope in the maps of our minds.

A scientist, a Marxist and a dreamer

Thirty-five years ago, a renowned British biologist branded England "a criminal state" and migrated to India. Today, in the year of his birth …

Schrodinger's kittens dead or alive

Can a cat be both dead and alive at the same time? If you believe the classic interpretation of quantum physics, it can. But several scientists …

Wheel harrows

While advances in the transport sector have mitigated humankind's problems, the ensuing costs in terms of environmental, economic and social …

Executing a killer

Should the remaining two stocks of the smallpox virus be wiped out permanently from the face of the earth? The question, which brings to fore …

Kyoto's ghost will return

If predictions of global warming turn out to be true, the ludicrous decisions taken at the Kyoto conference will prove very costly to the world