IS IT POSSIBLE for the environmental impact of two hydroelectric schemes
over 100 kilometres apart to be precisely the same? Could two dams blocking two
different rivers have identical effects on wildlife?
Apparently so, if we believe the international consultants Ernst & Young.
According to press reports in India, the company produced a report on the impact
of a dam in the southern Indian state of Karnataka that was almost a verbatim
copy of an earlier report by another consultant on the impact of a different
hydro scheme in Tattihalla. Little more than the names of the dams was
changed.
Kashi Nath Memani, director of Ernst & Young in New Delhi, said that a
new report would be prepared and submitted. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a major embarrassment for us,鈥�
he told Associated Press. Perhaps understandably, the author of the original
report, Anand Rao from the Institute for Catchment Studies and Environmental
Management in Bangalore, is upset. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 even correct our spelling
mistakes,鈥� he said.
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HOW many passwords for computers and websites do you have to remember?
When an online magazine claims 30 million readers, up to 30 of those are
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forget the password that protects your past three years鈥� research data, you鈥檙e
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Losing your password can be expensive, too. An article from The New York
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鈥攊f, that is, you can remember your password for the site.
OUR HEARTS go out to the research subjects investigated in a study due to
appear in the November issue of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
According to the magazine鈥檚 pre-publicity, the paper by Allison Taylor and
Daniel Weary is entitled 鈥淰ocal responses of piglets to castration: identifying
procedural sources of pain鈥�.
We鈥檙e not quite sure what the second bit means, but it certainly sounds like
it hurts.
ARE YOU bothered that Ronald Reagan鈥檚 Star Wars is back, bigger, better and
more belligerent than ever?
Critics have been saying the new National Missile Defense system breaks all
the international arms limitation treaties that the US has signed. But perhaps
we needn鈥檛 worry. Ted Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology went
through the records and discovered that the Star Wars test results were largely
fictional. You can read the details at
www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/news00/postol_051100.html
So can you break a treaty with a weapons system that doesn鈥檛 work? Postol鈥檚
comments point to an interesting line of defence in an international court. 鈥淲e
were just playing a game,鈥� the Department of Defense should say.
鈥淚n truth,鈥� says Postol, 鈥渢he procedures followed by the BMDO [the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization] were like rolling a pair of dice and throwing away
all outcomes that did not give snake eyes, and then fraudulently making a claim
that they have scientific evidence to show that they could reliably predict when
a roll of the dice will be a snake eyes.鈥�
But does the weapon-doesn鈥檛-work defence work? Feedback鈥檚 colleague points
out that Hitler鈥檚 Wehrmacht trained with dummy weapons in the 1930s to evade the
restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. Back to worrying . . .
PARENTS of small children know the importance of feeding them at the proper
time, but how many people know that cattle prefer dinner to breakfast, and that
knowing this can save farmers a lot of money? Julie Morrow-Tesch, an animal
behaviourist who works for the US Department of Agriculture, carried out 24-hour
surveillance of thousands of cattle at one of the huge feedlots which dot the
Texas Panhandle.
She found that feeding steers just before sunset, instead of the morning
meals the feedlots had served for years, cut pushing and shoving incidents later
in the day by half. 鈥淓vening melees鈥� by steers fed in the morning, she says,
鈥渃ost feedlots $70 a head, on average, in injuries.鈥� And the fighting
stirs up dust, which can result in fines from the US Environmental Protection
Agency, to boot.
Morrow-Tesch says that the shoving matches that break out in the evening are
caused by the cattle鈥檚 frustration at being denied 鈥渋nstinctive twilight
驳谤补锄颈苍驳鈥�.
HATS OFF to the primary school in Yorkshire which received a letter from the
Department of Education congratulating it on its examination results. According
to the letter, the results were 鈥�0.0 per cent above the national average鈥�. Wel