Ideas Galore

The rice terraces in Banawe, Philippines was adjudged in 1998 as the best among the man made structures to receive an award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). It has conferred the International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Award. It hailed to be one of the world’s greatest engineering wonders. The Ifugaos, who are the aborigines of the area had built the structure using engineering principles far advance of their time.

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*** On Men’s Fertility

Fertility starts declining around the age of forty and its downward path is more swift among those who drink, smoke, take drugs and are overweight. Age and lifestyle factors affect the quality of sperm and the chances of fatherhood. Sperm count had been the standard test of fertility for men but bent that doctors were coming round to viewing DNA breakages in sperm as significant factor. If more than twenty percent of sperm is fragmented the chances of a partner becoming pregnant is significantly reduced. The usual lifestyle factors like drinking, smoking and being overweight were linked to DNA damage. This is one of the main reasons that when a man hits forty the chance of his partner in her thirties conserving either naturally is halved and there’s extremely little awareness of this sort has been done and its hard to convince men that this is one of the important part of the assessment process.

A change in lifestyle could boost the quality of sperm and aid procreation, but not delaying having children was always the best bet. The bottom line in all of this, is that couples should consider conceiving earlier when their fertility is at optimum levels, the report said.

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**On Global Warming

World Bank Carbon Fund sets up a facility for forest protection in poor countries. It would pay developing countries hundreds of million dollars and provide financial incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emission from deforestation. The facility has already attracted interest from more than a dozen developing countries including Indonesia, Brazil and several others in African Congo river basin. Deforestation contributes 20% of total greenhouse emission more than all the world’s cars, trucks, trains and airplanes combined.

Environmentalists, have encouraged the protection of tropical forests from cutting and burning which has contributed to the problem of climate change, the report said.

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