Articles tagged with: Developing world
Indian designer develops Morse-based texting for deaf phone users
An Indian graduate student has designed a mobile phone application that enables people with sight and hearing impairments to send and receive text messages.
The PocketSMS application was developed for Android smartphones, which are generally cheaper …
Designing a Smart-Phone Alphabet for the Illiterate
On the road to Chennakeshavapura, a helpful sign on a stone identifies the village as CK Pura for short, but that message is lost on many illiterate residents. For them, reading and writing matters less …
Signs of progress
WHERE the internet has yet to take firm root, people plump for the next-best thing. In many emerging markets this means text messaging. Customers have embraced the short message service (SMS) not just to communicate with each other, …
Phase-changing materials in trial to preserve vaccines
Insulating materials that could fit inside icepacks to transport and store vaccines more effectively are about to enter field trials in Vietnam.
The novel materials make use of the phase change — the point at which …
Monsanto to face biopiracy charges in India
An Indian government agency has agreed to sue the developers of genetically modified (GM) eggplant for violating India’s Biological Diversity Act of 2002. India’s National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is alleging that the developers of India’s …
Overwhelmed drug regulators seek cure in cooperation
I have the lead news story in Nature Medicine this month, on how medical regulators are joining forces to keep up with their duties [html] [pdf]:
Regulatory authorities such as the US Food and Drug …
Peruvian biologist’s defamation conviction overturned
A defamation case that hinges on a dispute over the presence of genetic modification in Peruvian maize crops, and that has attracted international attention, has moved back to square one — with a …
Brazil bans Bayer
A judge has prohibited Bayer Cropscience from marketing Liberty Link corn, a genetically modified crop resistant to Ignite and Liberty herbicides, in Brazil. If the Leverkusen, Germany–based company fails to suspend marketing, …
Virus-resistant cassava could be available by 2015
Cassava breeds that are resistant to two major viruses could soon be available to farmers in Africa.
Cassava mosaic disease and brown streak disease stunt the growth and rot the roots of crops, respectively.
Mosaic disease alone …
African GM safety drill
The African Union has set up a school to educate and train future regulators in genetically modified (GM) crop biosafety. The African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) was officially launched in April in Ouagadougou, Burkina …
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