On a Burmese fishing raft drifted to Madras

The article describes about the Burmese fishing raft with fishermen drifted to Madras accidentaly during 1987. Similar incidents were also noticed during 1986 and 1988

Environmental impact assessment in the shrimp farming areas of Nagapattinam Quaid-E-Milleth district, Tamil Nadu

To assess the effects of shrimp farming on the environment and on the coastal population, a study was undertaken by a team of scientific and technical staff of CMFRl in Nagapattinam Quaid-e-Milleth district, Tamil Nadu in September, 1995. Several small and large farms and corporate farms in nine coastal places, where a number of farms are located were covered in the study. With the help of the mobile laboratory of the CMFR Institute, the team collected and aneilysed soil, water and plankton samples in the inlet and outlet of the farm areas, shrimp ponds and from the wells of the nearby villages. Estimations on hydrological parameters, nutrients and total and differential counts of bacteria in the water and soil samples were made following standard procedures

Assessment of certain Anthropogenic Interventions and their Impacts along the Indian Coastline

Coastal anthropogenic activities such as sand mining, disposal of untreated or partially treated sewage and industrial effluents from selected centres along Indian coastline and their possible impacts impairing the coastal environment are discussed with the data collected for two year period from eight maritime states of India. Destruction of macro benthos due to large scale sand mining along the Malabar coast was estimated to show an average of 2760 m-2 day-1 equivalent to 10.42 g m-2 day-1 (wet weight) registering maximum during the post monsoon season. Non biodegradable objects such as polythene carry bags, ropes and sachets were recovered in considerable quantities from the beaches (0.145-9.8 g m-2) as well as from the fishing grounds (32-85 g haul-1). The domestic sewage disposed to Visakhapatnam inshore area registered appreciable density of toxic algal species such as Gonyalux fragilis, Peridnium depressum and Porocentrum gracile. Annual average of mercury in soft tissues of crab Portunus sanguinolentus was found in very high levels from Veraval (2.90 ppm) followed by Tuticorin (2.39 ppm), Visakhapatnam (1.83 ppm) and Cochin (1.77 ppm). However, arsenic levels were very high in all the tissue samples collected from Tuticorin, Mandapam, Chennai and Visakhapatnam

Not Available

Not AvailableThe article describes about the Burmese fishing raft with fishermen drifted to Madras accidentaly during 1987. Similar incidents were also noticed during 1986 and 1988.Not Availabl

Role of DFNB1 mutations in hereditary hearing loss among assortative mating hearing impaired families from South India

Abstract Background DFNB1, the first locus to have been associated with deafness, has two major genes GJB2 & GJB6, whose mutations have played vital role in hearing impairment across many ethnicities in the world. In our present study we have focused on the role of these mutations in assortative mating hearing impaired families from south India. Methods One hundred and six assortatively mating hearing impaired (HI) families of south Indian origin comprising of two subsets: 60 deaf marrying deaf (DXD) families and 46 deaf marrying normal hearing (DXN) families were recruited for this study. In the 60 DXD families, 335 members comprising of 118 HI mates, 63 other HI members and 154 normal hearing members and in the 46 DXN families, 281 members comprising of 46 HI and their 43 normal hearing partners, 50 other HI members and 142 normal hearing family members, participated in the molecular study. One hundred and sixty five (165) healthy normal hearing volunteers were recruited as controls for this study. All the participating members were screened for variants in GJB2 and GJB6 genes and the outcome of gene mutations were compared in the subsequent generation in begetting deaf offspring. Results The DFNB1 allele frequencies for DXD mates and their offspring were 36.98 and 38.67%, respectively and for the DXN mates and their offspring were 22.84 and 24.38%, respectively. There was a 4.6% increase in the subsequent generation in the DXD families, while a 6.75% increase in the DXN families, which demonstrates the role of assortative mating along with consanguinity in the increase of DFNB1 mutations in consecutive generations. Four novel variants, p.E42D (in GJB2 gene), p.Q57R, p.E101Q, p.R104H (in GJB6 gene) were also identified in this study. Conclusion This is the first study from an Indian subcontinent reporting novel variants in the coding region of GJB6 gene. This is perhaps the first study in the world to test real-time, the hypothesis proposed by Nance et al. in 2000 (intense phenotypic assortative mating mechanism can double the frequency of the commonest forms of recessive deafness [DFNB1]) in assortative mating HI parental generation and their offspring

Not Available

Not AvailableTo assess the effects of shrimp farming on the environment and on the coastal population, a study was undertaken by a team of scientific and technical staff of CMFRl in Nagapattinam Quaid-e-Milleth district, Tamil Nadu in September, 1995. Several small and large farms and corporate farms in nine coastal places, where a number of farms are located were covered in the study. With the help of the mobile laboratory of the CMFR Institute, the team collected and aneilysed soil, water and plankton samples in the inlet and outlet of the farm areas, shrimp ponds and from the wells of the nearby villages. Estimations on hydrological parameters, nutrients and total and differential counts of bacteria in the water and soil samples were made following standard procedures.Not Availabl