A World of Science in April

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"With the Indian Ocean still reeling from the massive earthquake and tsunami which devastated its coasts last December, killing over 270 000 people in a single day, A World of Science looks at plans to ensure that we see the next tsunami coming, wherever in the world it strikes. UNESCO is co-ordinating efforts to put in place a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean by 2007, within a global programme for all types of natural hazards launched by the United Nations in January.

"In this issue, we interview four young scientists from different corners of the world, who explain why their governments should be interested in what they have to say on science policy matters.

"In Horizons, we discover a new deadly weapon against malaria, that “silent tsunami … which takes every month the number of people who died in the Asian tragedy” last December. An Iranian biotechnologist has come up with a biolarvicide which proves fatal to the malaria-bearing Anopheles mosquito but is innocuous to all other living species, including humans. The Biotechnology Research Centre in Tehran belongs to the international network of Microbial Resource Centres developed by UNESCO over the past 30 years together with UNEP and UNDP.

"Horizons also visits the ‘sea gypsies’ of the Andaman Sea, a group of semi-nomads who have roamed the waters straddling southern Thailand and Myanmar for centuries and whose knowledge of the sea saved them from last December’s tsunami."