Environment

SOME POTENTIAL PLANTS FOR BIO-ENERGY. ASHWANI KUMAR AND AMIT KOTIYA Bio-Technology Lab,Department of Botany University of Rajasthan, Jaipur - 302 004 Engery Plantation Demonstration project and Biotechnology Center. Email. msku31@yahoo.com ABSTRACT : India has land area of approximately 329 mha, out of which 150 mha of land area in India is uncultivable and around 90 mha. is characterized as wasteland. The arid region of India lies between 24° and 29° N latitude and 70° and 76° E longitude and covers 3,17,090 km2 area spread over seven states (Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra,…

Citing steps by India and China, Obama hopes for climate change accord Buzz Up Share Washington, Dec 5 (IANS) Citing steps by India and China and an emerging plan to help developing countries mitigate impacts with $10 billion a year, President Barack Obama has delayed his appearance in Copenhagen in the hope of hammering out an accord on global climate change. Obama will now be at the climate change summit on its last day Dec 18, typically the time when last minute accords are worked out, as opposed to his original plan to be in Denmark next Wednesday on his way to Oslo to receive…

Indian target may help negotiations The Indian target to curb emissions growth is a positive step that will help the climate negotiations, says Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. The move increases pressure on developed countries, says climate expert. Marianne Bom 04/12/2009 15:50 The Indian offer to reduce its carbon intensity “will certainly help the negotiations process and is something India should be doing for external and, more importantly, for internal reasons,” says Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the scientific Intergovernmental Panel of…

Tomorrow morning Venice will sink under a maximum tide predicted to reach 1.30 meters above average sea level. The event will occur at 8.35AM, a time when Venetian residents are in the streets trying to bring children to school or to reach their workplace. You can see the predicted evolution of the tide in the graph below, where the red curve shows the time variation of the season's average, and the blue one the actual prediction for tomorrow. The peak of 130 cm above average sea level is predicted to occur at 8.35AM -which is 2.35AM in New York, or 5.35PM in Tokyo. The vast majority of the…

PRODUCTIVTY OF CALOTROPIS PROCERA IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS OF RAJASTHAN AND ITS USE AS RENEWABLE SOURCE OF ENERGY Ashwani Kumar, V.R. Kumar Energy Plantation Demonstration project and Biotechnology Center. Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur – 302004, India. E-mail: msku31@yahoo.com ABSTRACT India has over 180 million of wasteland out of which 90 million ha is uncultivable. The degraded and denuded lands arise due to soil erosions as well as secondary salinizations. However Calotropis procera is a potential plant for bioenergy and biofuel production in semi arid regions of the…

BIODIVERSITY OF INDIAN DESERT Amit Kotia and Ashwani Kumar Biotechnology Lab, Department of Botany University of Rajasthan, Jaipur – 302004 INDIA ABSTRACT The state of Rajasthan is situated between 23º3’ and 30º12’ N latitude and 69º30’ and 78º17’ E longitude . The total land area of the state is about 3,24,239 km² , out of which about 1,98,100 km² is arid and rest is semi arid. The physical features are characterized mainly by the Aravallis and to the some extent by the vindhyan formation, and the Deccan trap. A major portion of western Rajasthan has desert soils and sandy plain. Sand…

An environmental factor that limits crop productivity or destroys biomass is referred to as stress or disturbance. Salinity in soil or water is one of the major stresses and especailly in arid and semi-arid regions, can severely limit crop production. Salt stress comprises two components - ionic stress and osmotic stress (Zörb et al. 2005). Total sugars, free amino acids and osmotic potential in the leaves of maize at the three-leaf stage were not significantly different in transgenic and control plants (Quan et al. 2004).  In salt-resistant species such as celery and ice plant stress…

An environmental factor that limits crop productivity or destroys biomass is referred to as stress or disturbance. Salinity in soil or water is one of the major stresses and especailly in arid and semi-arid regions, can severely limit crop production. Sugars play a critical role in regulating overall cellular metabolism and owing to their general compatibility with various cellular events plants invariably showenhanced levels of sugars for maintaining desired osmoticum under osmotic stress. Sugars (sucrose and trehalose) and sugar-alcohols (glycerol, mannitol, inositol, and sorbitol) with…

University of Minnesota researchers have developed a new computer model called the Virtual StreamLab, designed to help restore real streams to a healthier state. The Virtual StreamLab demonstrates the physics of natural water flows at an unprecedented level of detail and realism and was unveiled for the first time this week at the 2009 American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Minneapolis.  The team has also completed their first simulation of the StreamLab, a scaled natural stream along the Mississippi River. More than 90 million data points were mapped into the…