Why are there different types of calendars?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteBY SCIENCE BRIDGE ACADEMY There are many different kind of calendars being actively used around the world and are basically of three types – solar, lunar and lunisolar/solilunar calendars. As the name suggests, a solar calendar is concerned with the Sun, or, more precisely, it is based on the Earth’s rotation around the Sun. Lunar […]
How does addiction work?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe word “addiction” is derived from a Latin term for “enslaved by” or “bound to.” Anyone who has struggled to overcome an addiction understands why. Addiction exerts a long and powerful influence on the brain that manifests in three distinct ways: craving for the object of addiction, loss of control over its use, and continuing […]
Non-browning apples set to hit the market
Reading Time: 2 minutesOkanagan Specialty Fruits, the company behind the non-browning Arctic Apple sets to commercial launch with US retailers this fall, following the completion of successful market testing. Arctic Golden apples, whose polyphenol oxidase (PPO) genes have been silenced through genetic modification was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) […]
Philippines tops in Southeast Asia for GM corn production
Reading Time: < 1 minuteMedia practitioners, farmers, and government agency officers were briefed during a media conference on ISAAA’s latest report, Global Status of Commercialised Biotech/GM Crops: 2016 at the Acacia Hotel, Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Philippines on May 19. The 2016 report states that Philippine biotech corn adoption increased to 812,000 hectares in 2016, a remarkable 16% increase (110,000 […]
Who came up with the practice of vaccination?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAn English doctor and ‘The father of immunology’, Edward Jenner presented the gift of vaccination to the world. In 1796, he performed his famous experiment on eight year old James Phipps. Jenner extracted pus from a cowpox postulate and inserted it into an incision on the boy’s arm. He was experimenting his theory, speculated from […]
Cancer-killing power of plants
Reading Time: 2 minutesFour species of Phyllanthus, herbs commonly found throughout the tropics and subtropics, pose great potential as nontoxic breast cancer treatments. While their therapeutic properties have been reported, a team from the University of Malaya recently investigated specifically how the plants’ extracts combat breast cancer. Phyllanthus is a large family of flowering plants with hundreds of […]
Making biological drug with spider silk protein
Reading Time: 2 minutesSCIENTISTS at Karolinska Insti-tutet in Sweden have managed to produce synthetic lung surfactant using DNA sequence derived from spider silk proteins. Surfactant is a drug used to strengthen the lungs of premature babies by reducing the surface tension in their pulmo-nary alveoli (the structures in the lung that allow for respiration) and allowing them to […]
Impact of global warming on mosquito-borne diseases
Reading Time: 2 minutesAS TEMPERATURES rise with climate change, mosquito season extends past the summer months in many parts of the world. The question has been how this lengthened season influences the risk of being infected with mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika. Now, in a paper published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Stanford researchers modelled […]
Brazil approves world’s first commercial GM sugarcane
Reading Time: 2 minutesBRAZIL has approved the commercialization of a genetically modified sugarcane, developed by the Brazilian sugarcane breeding and technology company, Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira (CTC). This is the first time such permission has been granted any-where in the world. The approval came from the National Technical Biosafety Com-mission (CTNBio). The GM sugarcane contains the gene Bt […]
Textile Town set to become herbal hub in North Johor
Reading Time: 2 minutesTANGKAK — well known as the Textile Town of Malaysia – owing to the scores of textile merchants and retailers selling fabrics and other cloth products will soon another moniker, perhaps as the country’s Kacip Fatimah Hub. Kacip Fatimah (Labisia pumila), a herb said to be the ideal tonic for women’s health and wellness is […]