SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

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High concern
Levels of greenhouse gases at a 650,OOO-year peak
SIGNATURES of the past, embedded deep

accessed. About 10 per cent of an ice

in side po lar ice, reveal that the current
core 's volume cons ists of air b ubble s
levels of greenhouse gases, such as car
that contain clues abou t the planet's cli
bon d ioxid e (co,) and methane, are the
matic history.
highest over the last 650,000 years.
The findings also confirmed that
co, levels hav e ri sen 200 tim es faster
An intern at io n al team of scientists
ov~r the last 50 years th an at any other
studied air bubbles trapped in cylindri
time in 650,000 years, says Thomas
cal pieces drilled from a depth of up to
Stocker, a Uni ve rsity of Bern physicist
3,200 m etres in the Antarctic ice sheet,
as part of th e ongoing European
Climate clues: air trapped in polar ice
Project for Ice Co rin g in Antarctic.
(EPICA). Th ey say cO 2 concen tr a tion
has never exceeded 290 parts per
millio n (ppm ) ove r th e past 650,000
years, which h as h ad eight ice ages
with fairl y long warm p eriods in
between. Toda y, co, co nce ntra ti ons
hover around 375 ppm. T he findin g
punctures th e claim of climate
chan ge scep ti cs that increasing
gree nhouse gas levels have more to
do with natur al climatic variations
than with human-m ade changes.
EPICA is located in east Antarctica
where low snowfall rate s all o w
extremely old sections of ice t o be

HEALTH

& MEDICINE

Healing bones
How an Indian remedy works
AN INDIA N plant, Cissus quadrangularis,

is used in trad iti o nal medicine to trea t

bone fractures. Recentl y, a team of
resea rchers at the Na tional Chemical
Labora to ry (NeL) , Pune, tried to exp lai n
h ow the plant, which can be used both
internally and externally, works.
Co mmonly called hadJod, th e plant
Traditional touch: remedy for fractures

I 28 I Down To Earth

December 31, 2005

belongs to the grape family. Earlier trials

have shown it reduces healin g time for
fractures by 55-33 per cent. To und er
sta nd how it works, the NCL tea m , led by
Mura li Sastry, boiled the plant stem in
wa te r for fiv e minutes to prepare an
extract. O n studying its composition,
th e scienti sts found the extract was rich
in two elements - calcium and phos
pho ru s, wh ich are present in the bones
as calcium hydroxyapatite.
\"'h en th e resea rchers passed carbon
dioxide through the ext ract, they found
calcium carbonate crystals were formed.
This d em o n strat es th e availability of the
calcium in th e plant to make other com
pounds, m ayb e even calcium hydroxya
patite. "This research could help explain
how the bone grows," says Sastry. The
findings appeared in the November 25,
2005 , iss ue of Current Science (Vol 89,
No 10). Ea rli er studi es have show n the
pla nt h as an ti- os teopo ro tic properties
a nd co uld be use ful fo r menopausa l
wome n , too.

and the lead au th or of the,

a ppeared in Science (Vo l 3 1t1. ~
Nove mber 25,2005) . The s t ud~' ~
the time period for whi ch dar.:: i:, ~
ab le b y 210,000 yea rs. T h e ".arlI~
cores drilled from Russia n- .:. -' . ~,
Vostok station in Antarct ica g,l\
mation abou t the last 440 ,000 ~ e..,, ~.
The situatio n is similar for m _it:
its levels hovered around 600 !'J:
billion (ppb) in the past. E u :
a tmospheric methane concemr." --
well over 1,700 ppb.
Stocker attributes the high I. .
gr een house gases to the large ~ . ".
of fossil fuels . "Only through the ,..
o f humans have greenh o u"", 0
b ee n ra ised above natura! .- _
says Hubertus Fisc her o f th:> Wegener Institute in Germ a!1'
Another stud y, whic h ar :
in Na ture (Vo l 438, 1\0
Nove mb er 17, 2005 ) , p re"," .
seve re water sca rcity due to ~
warm ing. Globally, glaciers al1L
age packs of snow will shri nk. ~
ing wa ter shortages and othe r ;-
lems th at will impact million s 0:-'::
pi e, say r esearchers from Sc
In stituti o n of Oceanograp h\ ", ' I
University of California, San [' !
and fro m University of Wash in c I
both in the us .

HEAL TH

& ME:.:Do."l"'
C"'
IN
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DIA B ETES IN 1TIATOP

The genetic material responsi b;('
diabetes identified
I

Researchers in (hennai have 'c _

specific part of the gene that is r ~;
causing Type 2 diabetes, which r 'i
the young. Wherea s Type 1 dia lT~ !
by insufficient production of if' S
2 diabetes, ce lls involved in mete :,
rec og ni se insulin.
It is known that mutations :~
HNFl A is responsib le fo r six categ:
2 diabetes in young people. Ea ch ~
up of two a lleles . In HNF1A, t he
are designated as Val and Ala .
w hich is w hich, scie nti sts look 3
ph isms - patterns (or repeat 53
the four bases or nucleotides tha:
t o recognise alleles.