-IANS Kolkata: Climate change is causing toxic metals trapped in the sediment beds of the Hooghly estuary in the Indian Sunderbans to leach out into the water system due to changes in ocean chemistry, say scientists, warning of potential human health hazards. They predict that after about 30 years, increasing ocean acidification - another dark side of spiked atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide - could in fact unlock the entire stock of...

-The Business Standard   International organisations recognise the impending shortage of potable water but their approach is entirely wrong During this year's gathering in Davos, the World Economic Forum released its ninth annual Global Risks report, which relies on a survey of more than 700 business leaders, government officials and non-profit actors to identify the world's most serious risks in the next decade. Perhaps most remarkably, four of the 10 threats listed this...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Be it the urinal which saves 1,51,000 litres of water every year and draws out of the excrement phosphorus - a mineral which India imports - or the Rs 120 cholesterol test which otherwise costs Rs 5,800, or even the low-cost cellphone-size hemoglobin meter that must surely be a boon to a country in which an overwhelming proportion of maternal deaths result from malnutrition-triggered anemia,...

-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: A grey smog cover descended on Delhi, with residents of the Capital complaining of breathing problems on Tuesday. Experts said this was the season’s first severe smog spell, which may recur with the onset of winter. While a section of scientists blamed the gloom on pollution triggered by Diwali crackers, Delhi Pollution Control Committee chief Sandeep Mishra took a different stand. “Diwali pollution got cleared by Monday noon. We...

-The Guardian Farms processing insects for animal feed might soon become global reality as demand grows for sustainable feed sources   The best way to feed the 9 billion people expected to be alive by 2050 could be to rear billions of common houseflies on a diet of human faeces and abattoir blood and grind them up to use as animal feed, a UN report published on Monday suggests. Doing so would...