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NEWS ... GLOBAL NEWS ... INDIA’S GLOBAL TAKEOVER three hours' television a day. Urine But now a team from Geomar, an earth three hours' television a day. Urine samples taken at the beginning and end of the experiment showed a significant rise in melatonin levels, particularly among the younger children, by the end of the television-less week. As well as blacking out the video screens, parents were asked to reduce the intensity of artificial lighting in their homes during the experiment. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland, a pea-sized organ just above the middle of the brain. Exposure to light during the day inhibits its production, which normally begins around 9 pm, with rising levels of melatonin in the blood making people feel sleepy. Scientists are less certain about the role of the hormone in regulating the onset of puberty, an issue the Florence researchers intend to pursue. In Western societies, the arrival of puberty has advanced by about a year since the 1950s, when television became common. It is the light from the TV set that is the supposed problem. Extra exposure to light lowers production of melatonin, says Roberti Salti of the University of Florence. (Sources: Independent, 27 June 2004; New Scientist, vol. 183, issue 2454, 3 July 2004) But now a team from Geomar, an earth sciences institute at Kiel University in Germany, has come up with a completely new type of geological catastrophe to explain the death of the dinosaurs as well as three previous mass extinctions. If they are right, the culprit was neither a mete- orite nor a flood basalt, but a colossal underground explosion called a Verneshot (named in honour of Jules Verne). The Verneshot hypothesis attempts to explain a mystery that haunts the debate over why mass extinctions always seem to coincide with both continental flood basalts and meteorite impacts, when the odds of these happening simultaneously are vanishingly slim. In the past 400 million years, there have been four major mass extinctions. Between 380 and 364 million years ago, the Frasnian—Fammenian extinction pulses wiped out 60% of marine life. That was ollowed by the biggest extinction of all, when 96% of the world's species disap- peared at the end of the Permian, 251 mil- ion years ago. There was another huge die-off at the end of the Triassic, 201 mil- ion years ago. And finally, 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs and numerous other groups met their end at the Cretaceous—Tertiary (K-T) boundary. Each of these events is associated with oth a meteorite impact and a continental flood basalt. Yet even one such double whammy is highly unlikely, so could it really have happened four times? Meteorite impacts large enough to trigger a mass extinction are believed to occur less quiet metamorphosis is taking place in Asia as Indian companies buy up their rivals abroad. Last year, Indian firms took over more than 75 international compa- nies. It started with acquisitions in the information technology and related ser- vices sector, but now it has spread far and wide to cover other industries. In pharmaceuticals, Wockhardt has bought CP Pharma of the United Kingdom for $10.85 million. Tata Tea, part of the Tata Group, India's oldest industrial con- glomerate, has taken over Tetley of the UK, the world's biggest teabag maker, for US$430 million—becoming the world's second-largest tea company in the process. Among the most publicised deals, Tata Motors bought South Korean company Daewoo's truck plant in that country. Reliance Infocomm, belonging to India's largest privately held business house, Reliance Group, took over Flag International, a major telecom network. A recent report by Goldman Sachs, for example, predicts that India will be the third-biggest economy by 2050—just behind China and the US, in that order. In the UK alone, Indian firms have about 440 investments/joint ventures, with India being the eighth-largest investor. Last year, the top 92 Indian-American- owned companies in the US generated business of $2.2 billion and provided full- time employment to about 19,000 in 2002. There are 1,441 Indian companies operat- ing in Singapore; of these, more than 450 are technology enterprises. (Source: Asia Times Online, 22 June 2004, http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ FF22Df04.html) VERNESHOT HYPOTHESIS MAY EXPLAIN IMPACT CRATERS lhe argument over what killed the dinosaurs has raged for 25 years and polarised into two opposing camps: those who support a meteorite impact; and those who favour a prolonged bout of mega- volcanism—a "continental flood basalt". TV SCREEN LIGHT DEPRESSES SLEEP HORMONE IN CHILDREN xposure to television can influence melatonin levels in children and possi- bly contribute to the premature onset of puberty, according to a study by scientists from the University of Florence in Italy. The study found a 30% increase in lev- els of the sleep-regulating hormone in chil- dren who had abstained from watching television for a week. The findings are based on a study of 74 children from the Tuscan town of Cavriglia who volunteered to forego television, video games and computers for a week last month [May] in the interests of science. Aged between six and 12, the children normally watched an average of NEXUS +7 AUGUST —- SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com