Due to fewer historical records, it is generally believed that famines and epidemics were less frequent in ancient India. However, various records depict India was not immune these natural catastrophes, they proved disastrous on some occasions; furthermore, certain other factors also the high presence of epidemics. This article aims identify responsible for India, such as deforestation, urbaniz...

Studies continue to report ancient DNA sequences and viable microbial cells that are many millions of years old. In this paper we evaluate some of the most extravagant claims of geologically ancient DNA. We conclude that although exciting, the reports suffer from inadequate experimental setup and insufficient authentication of results. Consequently, it remains doubtful whether amplifiable DNA s...

Domestication of dogs, buffaloes (?), elephants, and fowls occurred in India between 6000 and 4500 BC. Strong archaeological evidence is available for existence of an advanced civilization in Mohenjo-daro, Harappa (now in Pakistan) and certain other places in northern India around 2500 BC. The people of these civilizations had both humped and humpless cows, buffaloes, elephants, goats, fowl, et...

RESERPINE, an alkaloid ofthe plant rauwolfia, has gained an established place in the treatment of hypertension and also as a tranquillizing agent in states of tension and anxiety. The presence ofrauwolfia in Western medicine is new, and as far as the treatment ofhypertension is concerned, it was largely the published observations of Rustom Jal Vakil in the British Heart jrournal (Vakil, I949) t...

All previously obtained wolf (Cants lupus) and dog (Cams familiaris) mitochondñal (mt) DNA sequences fall within an intertwined and shallow clade (the 'wolf-dog' clade). We sequenced mtDNA of recent and historical samples from 45 wolves from throughout lowland peninsular India and 23 wolves from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau and compared these sequences with all available wolf and dog seque...