One fine day, we woke up and found our city, country, whole wide world and everything else come to a standstill. Something absolutely unexpected, not even in the worst of our dreams, had happened. Then, suddenly, all the related challenges began hitting us. There came in the role of a teacher. I have been a person who is not so tech-savvy and struggles to overcome her anxiety about going online. In fact, just as me, there were many teachers, mostly at the verge of retirement, who were trying their best to connect with their students. We were aware that life shouldn’t stop because of the lockdown and that the show must go …

What is the truth behind India's honey? How pure is the honey made by your favourite brand? Are you eating nature's wonder food or are the companies selling you cheap and unhealthy sugar? To find these answers let us look at the latest report by the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment or CSE. CSE has earlier exposed pesticides in colas and packaged drinking water, antibiotics in honey, GMO's in packaged food, and excess salts and trans fat in junk foods...

Can a sanitiser kill 99.99 per cent of germs? Read to find out.

Carrying water by trains could be an emergency measure. Chennai has a strong tradition of water harvesting. But the problem is that most of these structures are either defunct or poorly maintained. Chennai which had 19 major lakes covering an area of 1130 hectares. But these waterbodies have been heavily encroached upon reducing their spread to just about 645 hectares. Its time that we understand the importance of water harvesting.

The little things in life are easy to misplace. What's even easier is to lose them. Here's a way to find all your little belongings at one place and make sure that you don't lose them.  Step 1: Take a rectangular cardboard box with a lid. You can use a discarded shoebox from the house. Step 2: Open the lid of the shoebox and measure its height with the help of a scale. Note the reading. Step 3: Take the leftover cylindrical cardboard from a finished roll/sheet of aluminum foil and cut it into smaller parts... Read more here.

The joy of listening to a good song multiplies when we listen to it on a good device. There are many products for the same in the market, but what better than building your own speaker using natural resources! The natural resonance of the bamboo amplifies sound and is, therefore, used in building instruments like the flute. Since it does not require electricity to amplify sound, a bamboo speaker is an eco-friendly product that you will have fun building and proud to show it off! But before you start, make sure you have an adult assisting and guiding you.

Genetic engineering is used to modify the food we eat. But do we know enough about its effect on us? For as long as we know, the food we eat is grown in farms and fields by farmers who sow seeds and harvest them every season. Adulterations in food products sold loose, such as pulses or sugar in the local kirana stores, is quite common. But we never worry about adulterations while buying packaged food from the shelves of our favourite shop. After all, they pass through several quality checks. But a study by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found that packaged food items have genetically …

Millions of years of evolution . . . replicated in an instant!

Down To Earth travels to the desert state of Rajasthan to find out about the traditional food habits of the people in one of the driest regions of the country. We discovered that so many things grow in the wild and traditional knowledge of these will ensure that you have plenty to eat in the harsh desert environment. But is this traditional knowledge losing its ground slowly?. Down to Earth is Science and Environment fortnightly published by the Society for Environmental Communication, New Delhi...