Bioadhesives
Self Healing

A NEW ERA: Technology promises to reshape agriculture and the nature of jobs as we know it

Recall those clever adhesive adverts on TV? How about this one: a man in agonizing pain with forearm sliced open arrives at the emergency ward. The doctor on duty gives him a general painkiller to calm him down. He asks the nurse to get clamps, puts them across the horrible wound. Then he picks up a tube of adhesive, squeezes it along the wound. It stays like that for a minute and voila! it's sealed. This is a true story. A variety of cyanoacrylate adhesives have been around since 1959. These glues polymerized on contact with water or blood to form a strong bond--and stop bleeding. Scientists figure out that cyanoacrylates with longer molecular chains have lower toxicity and join flesh, bone, skin, muscle, nerves, et al.

Transgenic Seeds
Debugged Green

A NEW ERA: Technology promises to reshape agriculture and the nature of jobs as we know it

India is pushing to increase food production from the current 200 million tones a year to meet the estimated demand of over 2,000 million tones by 2020. The only way it will work is not just by increasing acreage but by ensuring that disease and insects don't destroy crops like they do now. Transgenic seeds are the answer. The race is on in India with research institutes working on developing hybrid mustard and
insect-resistant vegetables and pulses. If you're worried
about taste, don't fret. They are working on that as well.

Hybrid Vehicles
Pure Power

Hybrids are a hot subject today because they are beginning to show up in showrooms. The Honda Insight is available in the US now. So is the Toyota Prius (available in Japan since 1997). These cars operate about twice as efficiently as conventional cars. While the Insight travels 1,120 km on a single tank of petrol, the Prius does about 720. By the next decade, the vehicles would cost about the same as a mid-range car.

Compiled by TIFAC.