Month: December 2025

Gurugram - Residents in several sectors of Gurugram have been urged to conserve water as the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has announced a 48 hour suspension of water supply starting Wednesday, December 3. The disruption, which commenced at 11 AM on December 3 and will conclude at 11AM on December 5, is necessary to facilitate essential maintenance work. This includes the connection of a new 1,600 mm water pipeline at the Sector 51 pumping station and various preventive maintenance activities at the Chandu Budhera water treatment plant (WTP). The following areas will be impacted by the closure: • Sector 37 • All sectors from 42 to 74 • Villages of Badshahpur and Khandsa The GMDA has requested all residents in the affected areas to minimize inconvenien...

    Rome — The global food system is approaching a critical breaking point as agriculture will need to produce approximately 50 percent more food, animal feed and fiber by 2050 than it did in 2012 to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population. This warning comes from the latest edition of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s report, The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2025 (SOLAW 2025). The study highlights severe pressure on natural resources and warns that current farming practices are undermining agriculture’s future ability to sustain food supplies. Released on December 1, the report describes a worsening cycle where land, soil and water are being depleted faster than they can regenerate. As these natural foundations er...

Batangtoru, Indonesia - The death toll from last week's catastrophic floods and landslides in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand has tragically surged past 1,300 with rescue efforts hampered by damaged infrastructure and ongoing severe weather. Authorities confirmed that more than 800 people remain missing across the three nations following days of heavy monsoon rains and cyclones. The confirmed death toll breakdown highlights the immense scale of the disaster: • Indonesia: At least 712 people confirmed dead, with 507 still missing, predominantly on Sumatra island. • Sri Lanka: 410 people confirmed dead, with 336 missing in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah. • Thailand:181 people confirmed dead, after massive floods affected over 1.5 million households. In Sri Lanka, President...

TÜBINGEN, Germany – Scientists are transforming our understanding of prehistory by extracting and sequencing ancient DNA aDNA directly from cave sediments, turning the dirt beneath our feet into a vast "biological time capsule." This advancement, known as palaeogenetics, offers a new way to reconstruct Ice Age ecosystems and human presence without relying on bones or artifacts. The revolution in aDNA analysis, fueled by massive technological leaps in sequencing and robotics, is enabling researchers to ask questions previously impossible, such as whether Neanderthals and modern humans overlapped in the same caves. The Power of Sediment DNA For decades, palaeogenetics depended on the physical remains of humans and animals to sequence genomes, which led to discoveries like the interb...

New Delhi - The Delhi Development Authority DDA is set to initiate a crucial pilot project to channel treated wastewater from the Vasant Kunj Sewage Treatment Plant STP to a dry waterbody in Rangpuri village. This initiative is a core component of the recently released Delhi Drainage Master Plan, which aims to address the city's chronic waterlogging and severely depleted groundwater levels by leveraging natural catchments. The project entails laying ductile iron DI pipelines from the STP in Vasant Kunj's E2 block to the waterbody located at Khasra number 660 in Rangpuri, which remains dry for most of the year. Boosting Groundwater and Easing Flood Pressure The move is a strategic shift from the current practice, where the treated water from the STP is discharged into drainage line...

The fate of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, one of the most vulnerable glacial systems on Earth, has become a central scientific and policy question as global sea levels continue to rise. Researchers agree that the collapse of parts of this ice sheet is now likely, but major uncertainty remains over how quickly it will happen and what that means for communities across the world. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by five metres. If that volume were released into the ocean, it would redraw coastlines and threaten major cities including New York, Miami, Houston and New Orleans. An estimated one billion people worldwide live less than ten metres above sea level. The first major warning came in 2014, when NASA announced evidence that severa...

Vehicular emissions are now the biggest contributors to Delhi’s worsening winter air quality, according to a new analysis released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The national capital-based think tank found that traffic-related pollution is rising sharply while the level of fine particulate matter has shown no improvement since 2022, raising serious concerns over the effectiveness of current pollution control measures. The report shows a consistent pattern of PM2.5 levels rising and falling in tandem with nitrogen dioxide during morning and evening rush hours. This synchronised movement, the CSE says, underscores the dominant role of daily traffic in driving air pollution. Nitrogen dioxide, a gas produced immediately from tailpipe emissions, peaks sharply at busy times,...

A remarkable fossil discovery in Northumberland, United Kingdom, has astonished scientists by confirming that a millipede species once grew to the size of a small car. Unearthed along the northeastern coast, the find reveals a colossal creature that lived 326 million years ago during the Carboniferous period, long before the age of dinosaurs. The species, known as Arthropleura is an extinct genus of millipedes believed to be the largest invertebrate ever to walk on land. While the fossil segment found in 2018 measured just under 30 inches, researchers estimate that the animal it belonged to likely stretched nearly 9 feet in length and weighed around 110 pounds. The fossil was preserved in sandstone, and scientists say it is one of the most complete remains ever found of this ancient gia...

The Jal Shakti Ministry has stated that untreated sewage, inadequate treatment facilities, project delays and a significant shortfall in solid waste processing remain the main reasons the Yamuna continues to flow polluted through the national capital. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Choudhary reported that the Delhi Jal Board has spent nearly ₹5,536 crore over the last three financial years on efforts to clean the river, yet critical gaps continue to hold back progress. According to the ministry, Delhi has a sewage treatment gap of 414 million litres per day as of August 2025. Several approved industrial areas do not have common effluent treatment plants, and major sewage treatment projects are either delayed or in need of upgrades. Ch...

Iran is confronting one of the worst water emergencies in its modern history, with depleted reservoirs, shrinking groundwater and record heat raising the risk that the capital, Tehran, could soon run out of water. President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that environmental pressures have become so severe that relocating the capital may be necessary to save millions of people from a future without reliable water. The warning comes at a time when rainfall has sharply declined across large parts of the country. Autumn marks the beginning of the rainy season in Iran, but this year many regions have seen almost no precipitation. Reservoir levels are at historic lows, and experts fear that Tehran, a metropolitan area of fifteen million people, is approaching “Day Zero,” the point at which taps ...