Difficult task

Even though the invention of Mesoscale Model (Trailing tornadoes, August 29) has been hailed as a major breakthrough, developments in meteorology have been rather slow and inadequate. I think the basic problem is that more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface comprises seas and oceans. No wonder majority of meteorological disturbances occur on the water bodies, making weather forecast an uphill task for scientists.

Ameet Sengupta
Jessore Road

Blame it on fat

With reference to Food shield (August 22), it is well established in ayurveda that cancer is a disease caused by wrong lifestyle. Whenever the cycle of aahara (food), viharaa (living), acharaa (behaviour) and vichaara (thought) is upset, the chances of getting cancer increases. A few years ago a US-based study corroborated the ancient Indian insight when it revealed that an abrupt diet change ' from fish to red meat ' among the Japanese immigrants in the US led to a dramatic rise in the incidence of prostate and breast cancers among them. Just like breast cancer, prostate cancer, too, is caused by an excess of sex hormones, and fat stimulates the release of these hormones into the bloodstream. The Harvard study has reinstated that people who consume 30 grams of fat daily from red meat belong to the high-risk group.

Jaydev Jana
Picnic Garden

Irrational medicine

Dump the pills (August 15) should serve as a warning to all those pill-poppers who believe that there is a magic bullet for each and every disease. It’s no surprise that they prefer vitamin A tablets to fresh carrots, natural source of the nutrient. Such wrong notions have only helped proliferate irrational use of common medicines, hiking the profits of drug companies.

Jayanta Topadar
Dhekiajuli, Assam