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Grassland, the future of agriculture

What's the buzz
Last Updated 17 May 2009, 15:50 IST

The book, ‘Grassland: Quietness and Strength for a New American Agriculture’, was written to increase awareness of the vital role grass and grassland plants have in ensuring a sustainable future for American agriculture. The book’s content is geared toward agriculturists, students, the public, and policy makers.

The book stresses the importance of developing sustainable agriculture in order to maintain the capacity of our planet to sustain life, and to explain that humans are capable of diminishing this capacity.

Aiming to inspire and educate, the book’s three main sections highlight the voices of grassland advocates through history, examine the many functions of grassland today, and look at the benefits grass-based agriculture can provide when grass is treated as an essential resource.

Humans ate Neanderthals to extinction, says expert

Modern humans were responsible for butchering Neanderthals in the Stone Age, says a leading fossil expert.

The bone was covered in cut marks similar to those found when humans stripped the flesh from animals.

The study’s leader, now, believes that humans had eaten the flesh, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

Fernando Rozzi, of Paris’ Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said: “Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them”.
Neanderthals evolved in Europe around 3,00,000 years ago. It is believed that they survived several ice ages and interglacial periods before dying out around 30,000 years ago, at almost the same time as human beings arrived on the continent from Africa.

Non-drug method of labour pain management

Researchers suggest that women in labour should be allowed to use transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), a non-drug method of pain management.

The TENS unit is a small device that emits low-voltage electrical pulses through electrodes attached to the body. Although it is unclear how TENS works, researchers believe that it block pain transmission by stimulating nerve pathways in the spinal cord.
“There is only limited evidence that TENS reduces pain in labour and it does not seem to have any negative or positive impact on other outcomes for mothers and babies,” said Tina Lavender, University of Manchester.

“However the majority of women in the reported studies have indicated that they would be willing to use TENS for a subsequent pregnancy,” she added.
During labour, clinicians usually place the electrodes on the lower back, however experts suggest that they can also attach them at acupuncture points or to the head.

Endangered birds lay eggs on exclusive beach

An endangered bird found only on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, has been provided an exclusive stretch of sand as a protected nesting area, where it can lay eggs.
The bird in question is the maleo, a chicken-sized bird that lays its eggs in sand heated by either the sun or volcanism that occurs in its habitat on the island of Sulawesi.
Located on the Binerean Cape in northern Sulawesi, the 14-hectare beach is now owned by PALS (Pelestari Alam Liar dan Satwa, or Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation), a local NGO that works with WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) to conserve wildlife in Sulawesi.
The beach is now a protected habitat for the maleo, which relies on the sun-baked sands of beaches and in some instances, volcanically heated soil, to incubate its eggs, which it buries in the ground.

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(Published 17 May 2009, 15:50 IST)

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