The Himalayas are witnessing an increasing threat of glacial lake outburst flooding (GLOF). Over the years, several GLOFs hit the Himalayas, causing massive destruction to the infrastructure, while also claiming…
Beneath the vast, fertile northern plains of India, groundwater has been vanishing at a rampant rate. According to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the groundwater in north…
Plastics today are blighted, as their impact on the environment has now been exposed. But it was not always so. In 1869, the first synthetic polymer named celluloid - marked…
Plastics are the Anthropocene era’s ultimate convenience. The more mundane uses of plastics in our lives range from kitchenware, storage containers, and packaging materials to toys and small tools that…
Over the last decade, the waste industry has been quietly growing. Given the growing rates of trash generation, this is hardly a surprise. In 2012, the world generated 1.3 billion…
On Monday, the Indian government referred the Biological Diversity Act Amendment Bill (2021) to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The Bill was developed to amend certain provisions of the Biological…
The largest division on the geological time scale (GTS), which depicts distinct time periods in geological history, is called eons. Eons are further divided into eras, which are divided further…
Mid-October saw extreme weather events, specifically unusually heavy rains in some parts of India. In Kerala, heavy downpours — an excess of 135% for the first 19 days of the…
Plastic is a boon to many industries as a versatile material that can be moulded into myriad products from simple packaging bags to life-saving medical devices. When a plastic product…
The wait for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is almost over, with the report scheduled to be released on August 9. The…
Humans are testing the limits of most species’ survival, with their planet-wide changes. As urbanisation, deforestation, loss of wildlife, and human-wildlife conflicts continue to spiral up, there is a need…
Thai Sacbrood, a viral disease affecting honey bee colonies, has resurfaced in southern India. The disease, which has been dormant in the southern states for some years, is back and…
Sand, a natural resource that seems abundant and often ignored is the second most extracted one, just after water. Sand extracted from rivers, lakes, coastlines, deltas is one of the…
What is entomophagy? Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects. Humans have harvested insects, as components of their food, for thousands of years. This practice was previously considered ‘ancient’ and…
How much menstrual waste does India generate? A 2018 report by WaterAid India and Menstrual Hygiene Alliance India (MHAI) states that there are 336 million menstruating women in India, out of which…
What are dung beetles? Dung beetles use the dung of warm-blooded herbivores for… everything. They are attracted to fresh dung via volatiles (meaning, the smell). Adults feed on the soup…
Since the past few weeks, avian influenza (bird flu) cases have been reported from several states of India. Several thousands of ducks and chickens have been culled to contain the…
Just as forests are called as the ‘lungs of the earth’, wetlands are the 'kidneys' that regulate water and filter waste from the landscape. The kidney comparison aside, wetlands are…
When we think of wildlife, we might picture tigers moving among tall sal trees, crocodiles swimming in rivers, elephants gathered around waterholes. We often only think of pristine forests; we…
What do you do with your e-waste? The answers would possibly range across a wide spectrum – from ‘what is e-waste’, ‘office IT vendor’ and ‘collection boxes’ to ‘we just…
