Amy Bhasin: Toxic Whales

Amy Bhasin: Toxic Whales: "POLLUTION Sperm whales, feeding in places like the Arctic and Antarctic, are showing high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to a $..."

Toxic Whales

POLLUTION Sperm whales, feeding in places like the Arctic and Antarctic, are showing high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to a $5 million study by Ocean Alliance, an American research and conversation group. The whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away. High levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium were found in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. Mercury levels were as high as 16 parts per million. Fish high in mercury, like shark and swordfish, typically have levels of about 1 part per million. Chromium, an industrial pollutant that causes cancer in humans, was found in all but two of the 361 sperm whale samples.

Pedal Power

CYCLE DRIVE Here’s something Indian cities could learn from the United Kingdom. London has launched a Cycle Superhighway to make more people commute via bicycles. Highly visible bright blue cycle lanes, symbolizing freedom, now run from the southern suburb of Merton to the city center, as well as from Barking, in eastern London. The remaining ten routes are eventually planned to radiate out from the centre of London like spokes, and will be finished by the end of 2015. Cycling has become an effective form of alternate transportation is congested metropolises like New York City and Paris. Promoting a pedal culture improves traffic conditions while lowering the city’s carbon footprint.

Amy Bhasin: The Bold and the Beautiful

Amy Bhasin: The Bold and the Beautiful: "If there is one thing that Gita Gopinath’s success proves, it is that you don’t have to be ugly to succeed (‘India’s Next Gen Harvard Profes..."

The Bold and the Beautiful

If there is one thing that Gita Gopinath’s success proves, it is that you don’t have to be ugly to succeed (‘India’s Next Gen Harvard Professor’). For long, beautiful women have been denigrated as bimbettes, and all sort of innuendos are implied if they happen to make a mark for themselves. To all those people who love beautiful women, as long as they never rise to the top, go attack the dons at Harvard. Tell us all the sleaze that went on behind the scenes before she could take up that permanent job at the university. If you can't so that kindly let beautiful women be-in India as well.