Phragmites karka Trin. ex Steud. ( Syn P. karka Retz. , P. roxburghii(Kunth) Steud.; P. maxima Blatter & McCann in part. Family Gramineae Used Part Root Distribution Area A tall reed…

Entada phaseoloides (Linn.) Merr. syn. E. scandens Benth. Family Fabaceae Used Part Fruits. Distribution Area The plant occurs throughout the sub-Himalayan tract, from Nepal eastwards ascending…

I know, I know, I won't shut up about squid fishing. But the Salinas Californian has a neat human-interest article about the closure of the market squid fishery, bringing the message home to Homo…

Avian influenza, bird flu, causes the unnecessary deaths of millions of chickens each year, preventing them from instead being killed for my dinner. Luckily, science is on the case, though irrational…

Every now and again, something happens that makes you want to shake someone's hand and then take a hatchet to their throat - and there's a good chance that a number of these occurrences will be in…

I'm not sure how many of you out there have Facebook - quite a few, I assume, given their huge participation numbers - but on a frequent basis they introduce changes designed to help us.  …

Terminalia arjuna (Roxb.) Wight & Arn.= T. cuneata Roth Combretaceae Bark. A large, evergreen tree, common in most parts of India. . It is rare in the Karnatic, but is fairly plentiful…

Saraca asoca (Roxb.) De Wilde syn. S. indica auct. non Linn. Caesalpiniaceae (Fabaceae) Bark. Distribution Area It occurs almost throughout India up to an altitude of 750 m. in the central and…

Sociologists love when people get shot; it gives them a chance to make correlation/causation arrows go in all kinds of crazy directions. So when people jumped on the gun rage by Jared Loughner…

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (here is Wikipedia's handy pronunciation file) last summer was widely covered in the media, generating some stunning images (and perhaps the most beautiful video of…

Wakefield and the vaccine wars suck up the air. So much attention on one man. On hammering away at each other over whether Wakefield's the saint or Deer. Or who's the greatest sinner. There can be…

Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub. syn. B. frondosa Koenig ex Roxb. Family Fabaceae (Papilionaceae ) Used Part Fruit pieces Distribution Area It is common throughout the greater part of India,…

This just in. The Tevatron collider, proud and glory of Fermilab, the leading high-energy lab in the US, will stop collider operations for good at the end of FY2011. This means that CDF and DZERO…

Vanda tessellata (Roxb.) Hook ex Don (=V.roxburghii R.BR.) Family Orchidaceaae Used Part Root. Distribution Area An epiphytic orchid, 30-60 cm. high, found from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal,…

That's too bad. Pope Benedict XVI just let go with a very unfortunate judgement, which betrays just how much the catholic church would like to force a control on our society. In a new-year speech he…

"The theory of the three humours is one of the fundamental principles of traditional medicine. As has been mentioned above, Ayurvedic theories draw an analogy with the universe, the physics of which…

Himalayan region medical system goes well beyond the notion of medicine in the narrow western sense. It forms a part of their culture and tradition, in which "Buddhism" is the prevailing influence.…

One of the key characteristics coming out of the anti-vaccine movement appears to be an inability to get the facts straight about much of anything relating to vaccines and vaccine-preventable…

I am sorry, this is not yet supposed to be published, but I also do not want to delete the content. This is work in progress, somehow the option to keep an "yet unpublished version" disappeared. You…

If you've ever splurged on more expensive grass seed in hopes of a better lawn, you may have been derailed by the frustratingly long time it takes to actually grow once planted. Up in New England, we…