Mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium in waters of the Singrauli coal mining and power plants industrial zone, Central East India.

The present investigation is an attempt to assess the contamination of heavy metals in the ground and surface water of the Singrauli industrial belt area. Pollution indices like heavy metal index (HPI), contamination index (CD) and heavy metal evaluation index (HEI) are used for the evaluation of heavy metal pollution (arsenic As, mercury Hg, cadmium Cd, and lead Pb). Contour maps are constructed to interpret metal spatial distribution. Further, the land-use/land-cover (LULC) maps for the year 2000, 2010 and 2016 are prepared using Landsat satellite data. A total of 48 water samples (Groundwater (27), Surface water (21)) are analysed for heavy metal concentration. Eighty-eight percent of groundwater and 90% of surface water samples are contaminated with Hg. Similarly, high concentrations of Pb and Cd were found in the samples. Surprisingly, all the water samples have As concentration above the WHO permissible limit of 10 ppb. Further, 95% of the samples have an HPI value greater than 100 indicating high heavy metal contamination. CD value denotes contamination of 89% of the samples with heavy metals (As, Hg, Cd, Pb). Through spatial distribution, it can be interpreted that most of the contaminated samples lie near thermal power plants, ash ponds, and coal mines. LULC (land use/land cover) study shows a significant decrease in water bodies by (108 km2), agricultural land by (54 km2) and bare/fallow land by (51 km2) from 2000 to 2016. During these 16 years, there has been a fourfold increase in the overburden, a threefold increase in dumping yards, a 2.5 times increase in urban areas, and a twofold increase in mining areas. Both the environment and the water quality are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Such scientific investigations are relevant for risk management studies of potable water. The knowledge acquired from such assessment shall be considered with utmost priority by concerned authority considering degrading water quality in the study area. Hence, this study is applicable for designing action plans and control measures to reduce water resource pollution.

Assessment of land use/land cover dynamics of Tso Moriri Lake, a Ramsar site in India.

Wetlands accounts for 6% area of the Earth's land cover and nearly 17% of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. They are of utmost importance to climate dynamics and are critical links between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Despite the need of high attention towards conserving and managing wetland resources, mapping them is a least practiced activity. This study shows the temporal change in land use and land cover pattern of Tso Moriri Lake, the highest altitude lake in India and designated as Ramsar site in year 2002, using multi-sensor and multi-date imagery. Due to change in hydro-meteorological conditions of the region, this lake area has been reduced. Since the lake recharge is dependent on snowmelt, hence change in climatic conditions (less snowfall in winters), to a certain extent, is also responsible for the decrease in water level and water spread of the lake. The result shows that the lake area has reduced approximately 2 km2 in the last 15 years, and also, agriculture, grasslands, and vegetation cover have increased to a significant extent. Agricultural land and grasslands have doubled while the vegetation cover has increased more than six times, showing the coupled effect of climate change and anthropogenic activities. Trend of temperature and precipitation corroborates the effects of climate change in this region.

Rising surface ozone due to anthropogenic activities and its impact on COVID-19 related deaths in Delhi, India.

The rapidity and global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have left several vital questions in the research community requiring coordinated investigation and unique perspectives to explore the relationship between the spread of disease and air quality. Previous studies have focused mainly on the relation of particulate matter concentration with COVID-19-related mortalities. In contrast, surficial ozone has not been given much attention as surface ozone is a primary air pollutant and directly impacts the respiratory system of humans. Hence, we analyzed the relationship between surface ozone pollution and COVID-19-related mortalities. In this study, we have analyzed the variability of various atmospheric pollutants (particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Carbon monoxide (CO), and Ozone) in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India during 2020-2021 using station data and investigated the relationship of the air-quality parameters with the COVID-19 related deaths. In northern parts of India, the concentration of particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Carbon monoxide (CO), and Ozone remain high during the pre- and post-monsoon seasons due to dust loading and crop residue burning (after winter wheat in April & summer rice in November). The westerly wind brings the polluted airmass from western and northwestern parts to Delhi and National Capital Region during April-June and October-November, and meteorological conditions help raise the concentration of these pollutants. Due to long solar hours and high CO concentrations, the ozone concentration is higher from April to June and September. While comparing major air quality parameters with COVID-19-related deaths, we found a good relationship between surface ozone and COVID-19 mortality in Delhi. We also observed a time lag relationship between ozone concentration and mortality in Delhi, so the exposure to Ozone in a large population of Delhi may have augmented the rise of COVID-19-related deaths. The analysis suggested that ozone has a significant relationship with COVID-19 related mortality in Delhi in comparison to other parameters.

Integrated approach for effective debris mapping in glacierized regions of Chandra River Basin, Western Himalayas, India.

The mapping of debris in glacierized terrain is required for managing the water resources, glacier mass-balance studies and the monitoring of glacier health. Two types of debris i.e. Supraglacial debris (SGD) and periglacial debris (PGD) are derived from the same source i.e., surrounding valley rock and have similar reflectance which makes it difficult to differentiate between them. Hence, in this study a novel integrated approach is proposed where spectral information and thermal data from Landsat 8 Satellite image in conjunction with geomorphometric and topographic parameters extracted from SRTM DEM are utilized to classify SGD and PGD along with other classes in Chandra River Basin (CRB) covering the area of 2422.1 km2 in western Himalayas. Nearly one fourth of the study area is glacierized region while SGD and PGD cover nearly 7% of the study area. Accuracy of the classified data is assessed through comparison with manually digitized data set and minimal difference in area is observed. Results are validated with high resolution (10 m) Sentinel 2a image and data collected from field observations. The SGD is precisely demarcated with 93% accuracy with an overall 83.50% accuracy of classification. Thus, this work presents an efficient, better and prompt method for classifying glacierized areas more effectively than manual delineation at basin/sub-basin level.

A Scientific Validation of Antihyperglycemic and Antihyperlipidemic Attributes of Trichosanthes dioica.

The present study was undertaken to scientifically validate the antidiabetic activity of aqueous fruit extract of Trichosanthes dioica Roxb. (Family: Cucurbitaceae) which has been traditionally used for managing diabetes mellitus. This plant commonly known as "Sespadula" in English has not been explored scientifically so far for its glycemic potential except by our research group. The study was conducted with variable doses on normal, mild, and severe diabetics models, and several biochemical parameters including blood glucose level (BGL) were assessed. Maximum fall in BGL of 23.8% in normal rats and of 31.3% in mild diabetic rats was observed during their fasting blood glucose (FBG) and glucose tolerance test (GTT) with the dose of 1000 mg kg(-1). In severely diabetic animals after 4 weeks treatment with FBG, postprandial glucose, total cholesterol, and triglyceride levels were reduced by 28.7, 30.7, 57.2, and 18.5%, whereas high density lipoprotein, total protein, hemoglobin, and body weight were increased by 33.0, 36.7, 15.7 and 16.7%, respectively. Moreover, urine sugar was reduced from +4 to +1. Thus, the study scientifically validates the traditional use of T. diocia in diabetes management and could be developed as an effective oral agent for treating diabetes mellitus and complications associated with it.

Inhibition of 5'-UTR RNA conformational switching in HIV-1 using antisense PNAs.

BACKGROUND: The genome of retroviruses, including HIV-1, is packaged as two homologous (+) strand RNA molecules, noncovalently associated close to their 5'-end in a region called dimer linkage structure (DLS). Retroviral HIV-1 genomic RNAs dimerize through complex interactions between dimerization initiation sites (DIS) within the (5'-UTR). Dimer formation is prevented by so calledLong Distance Interaction (LDI) conformation, whereas Branched Multiple Hairpin (BMH) conformation leads to spontaneous dimerization. METHODS AND RESULTS: We evaluated the role of SL1 (DIS), PolyA Hairpin signal and a long distance U5-AUG interaction by in-vitro dimerization, conformer assay and coupled dimerization and template-switching assays using antisense PNAs. Our data suggests evidence that PNAs targeted against SL1 produced severe inhibitory effect on dimerization and template-switching processes while PNAs targeted against U5 region do not show significant effect on dimerization and template switching, while PNAs targeted against AUG region showed strong inhibition of dimerization and template switching processes. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that PNA can be used successfully as an antisense to inhibit dimerization and template switching process in HIV -1 and both of the processes are closely linked to each other. Different PNA oligomers have ability of switching between two thermodynamically stable forms. PNA targeted against DIS and SL1 switch, LDI conformer to more dimerization friendly BMH form. PNAs targeted against PolyA haipin configuration did not show a significant change in dimerization and template switching process. The PNA oligomer directed against the AUG strand of U5-AUG duplex structure also showed a significant reduction in RNA dimerization as well as template- switching efficiency.The antisense PNA oligomers can be used to regulate the shift in the LDI/BMH equilibrium.