Month: August 2026

  The Supreme Court has called for a major shift in how India approaches solid waste management, stressing that garbage cannot be treated as the responsibility of sanitary workers alone. A Bench headed by Justice S.V.N. Bhatti said every individual, household, institution and establishment that generates waste must share responsibility for its segregation, storage and disposal. The Court warned that India’s growing volume of biodegradable, non biodegradable, hazardous, electronic and construction waste has outpaced existing collection and processing infrastructure. The Court also directed the Department of School and Higher Education to immediately introduce both theoretical and practical lessons on solid waste management for students. The aim is for children, particularly fr...

A National Dam Safety expert committee has praised the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection Agency (HYDRAA) for its approach to restoring and protecting the city’s lakes, saying the model could be replicated in other parts of India. The committee, headed by chairman Dr. Shailesh Kumar Srivastava, visited Fox Sagar Lake in Hyderabad and inspected its main bund, overall condition and safety concerns. Officials briefed the panel on HYDRAA’s plans for Fox Sagar, which has a Full Tank Level area of 482.6 acres. The restoration plan focuses on protecting the lake’s boundaries, safeguarding public assets, preserving the surrounding environment and maintaining its water storage capacity. Under HYDRAA’s Phase-3 lake restoration programme, authorities are also wo...

  Sloth bears play an important but often overlooked role in maintaining India’s dry deciduous forests by dispersing viable seeds and influencing the regeneration of vegetation, according to a study conducted in Rajasthan’s Aravalli range. Researchers surveyed the south central Aravallis between November 2021 and July 2022 and analyzed 180 sloth bear droppings. They found that the animals significantly changed their diet according to seasonal food availability. During winter, plant based foods were more prominent, while the bears shifted toward animal based foods in summer. Ants appeared in more than 80% of the winter samples, while termites dominated the summer samples. Among fruits, donkey berry (Grewia flavescens) was an important food source in both seasons, while Ziziphu...

  A developing El Niño in the tropical Pacific is showing signs of becoming an unusually powerful climate event. Scientists expect the phenomenon to strengthen during the second half of 2026, potentially reaching its peak around November–December. El Niño occurs when unusually warm sea-surface waters develop across the central and eastern tropical Pacific. This disrupts atmospheric circulation and can influence weather patterns far beyond the Pacific. Current sea surface temperatures have already reached levels described as “Super El Niño”, while scientists are also monitoring a large reservoir of heat stored beneath the Pacific Ocean. If that subsurface heat rises toward the surface, it could further intensify the event. A stronger El Nino could have major global conseque...

Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, with some weather stations recording virtually no measurable rainfall for decades. Yet along parts of its Pacific coast, life survives because of a dense marine fog called the camanchaca. The fog forms over the cold Humboldt Current and moves inland toward the coastal cliffs. Although it does not produce conventional rainfall, tiny droplets condense on rocks, plants and specially designed mesh collectors, providing a crucial source of moisture. The fog supports unique lichens, cacti and other organisms that can absorb moisture directly from the humid air. Some lichens can rapidly become active when humidity rises and then dry out again when the fog disappears. The phenomenon has also helped human communities. In the fish...

  Scientists have discovered a potential new approach to tackling uranium contamination, using bacteria to transform dissolved uranium into stable solid compounds. In a 130-day laboratory experiment involving water from a former uranium mine in Germany’s Ore Mountains, microbes stimulated with glycerol removed around 90–95% of dissolved uranium from the water. The research is significant because uranium can become highly mobile in groundwater when it is present in its oxidised U(VI) form. This allows the metal to move through contaminated water and potentially reach surrounding ecosystems and water supplies. Traditional uranium bioremediation research has largely focused on converting U(VI) into U(IV), a less soluble form that can precipitate as uraninite. However, the new re...

  Scientists are using dragonfly larvae as natural indicators to identify areas where toxic mercury is accumulating in freshwater ecosystems. The approach, which traces back to a research project launched in 2012, combines years of mercury measurements from dragonfly larvae with information on water quality, soil and surrounding land cover. Mercury can travel long distances from its original source before entering rivers, lakes and other freshwater environments. Once present in an ecosystem, it can move through the food chain and accumulate in wildlife, including fish that may later be consumed by people. Dragonfly larvae are particularly useful for monitoring because they spend a long part of their lives in freshwater and generally remain close to the places where they devel...

  New Delhi: Residents of Sunder Nagri in northeast Delhi are documenting their daily experiences of surviving increasingly severe heatwaves, offering a ground level picture of how extreme temperatures affect people living in densely populated and low income neighbourhoods. Around 40 households are participating in a community project in which residents maintain “garmi khatas”, or heat diaries. The diaries record their daily routines, working conditions, health, mood, household expenses and the strategies they use to cope with extreme heat. The initiative aims to fill a gap in conventional heat planning, which largely relies on meteorological data such as air temperatures and heatwave thresholds. Researchers say such information does not fully capture how heat affects people ...

Gujarat: A carbon removal project in Gujarat Banni grasslands is turning the invasive Prosopis juliflora tree into biochar, a charcoal like material that can store carbon in soil for long periods. The initiative is linked to the growing voluntary carbon market with major companies including Google, Microsoft, Lufthansa, Swiss Re and Capgemini involved in purchasing carbon removal credits from Varaha ClimateAg, a Gurugram based climate tech company. Prosopis juliflora was introduced in Kachchh in the 1960s to combat desertification. Over time, however, the invasive tree spread extensively across the Banni grasslands, replacing native vegetation and reducing fodder availability. Researchers and local communities say the species now dominates a significant portion of the grassland. The ...

  Scientists have discovered that animals may have been consuming and breaking down nature’s own biodegradable plastics for hundreds of millions of years. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology found that numerous animals possess enzymes capable of breaking down polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), natural bioplastics produced by bacteria and other microorganisms as carbon and energy reserves. The discovery began with an unusual marine worm, Olavius algarvensis. The worm has no mouth or digestive system and relies on bacteria living beneath its skin. Some of these bacteria store large amounts of PHA. Researchers found that the worm produces an enzyme capable of breaking down this material, allowing it to access the carbon stored inside its bacterial partne...