Anthropogenic activities like industrialization, unplanned urbanization, deforestation and profit oriented capitalism have resulted introduction of many undesirable substances into our immediate environment creating environmental degradation to a great extent. Normally, nature takes the responsibility of reducing the adverse effect of these substances through the operation of many physical, chemical and biological processes such that these substances can be partitioned in various biotic and a-biotic components of an environmental ecosystem. Present study is an attempt to highlight the extent of partitioning of some heavy metals in the compartments of water, sediments, macrophyte and fishes of a sewage-fed fishery pond in East Kolkata Wetland (EKW). Study distinctly revealed that all heavy metals show a common preference to be deposited on the sediments with higher values (28.5 to 56.5%) followed by macrophytes (20.3 to 35.4%), fishes (15.7 to 43.2%) and water (less than 1.0%). Similar types of partitioning might be observed in each higher plants and animals. As an example, in fishes, higher accumulation of heavy metals were in viscera (27.5 to 69.2%) followed by bone (4.6 to 47.7%), gill (8.1 to 30.6%) and least in flesh (< 1.0 to 19.0%). Again, in cases of toxic metals, it has been observed that flesh contains less than 1% and while the essential group of metals (Zn and Cr) showed comparatively higher degree of accumulation (11.3 to 19.5 %). Thus, the study evidently forecasted that re-distribution of heavy metals in large number of inter and intra compartments of natural biotic and abiotic agents, could be considered as the most effective mechanism for reducing the undesirable consequences of heavy metals or any toxic waste along with passage of time.
Keywords: Biotic and abiotic components; Heavy metal partitioning; Fishery pond; East Kolkata Wetlands; Natural rectification.

This is a part of the project which developed an Information & Communication Technology based software application tool focused and addressing the issues related with the preparation of Environmental Monitoring Report and Environmental Management Plan in North-Eastern Coalfields under Coal India Limited. It addressed mine water treatment with cost analysis, Overburden Dump Management along with the parameters of Air, Water, Effluent Water, and Soil. This user friendly software tool enabled with GIS or Geographical Information System. The present paper dealt with the air pollution and its variations in a spatio-temporal scenario. In a highly vegetation domain which covered not only by forests but also wild life and tea gardens, air pollution played a pivotal role in maintaining the ecological balance, specially for micro organisms. Therefore the work opened a broad scope of research from air pollution to micro organism balance in an eco sensitive region.
Keywords: Pollution, GIS or Geographical Information System, OB or Over Burden, OCP or Open Cast Project .

A comparative study between the modified and unmodified nanosilica to fine tune the morphological and thermal properties of a model low-density polyethylene (LDPE) – ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) thermoplastic elastomer blend system is explored in this article. The nanosilica particles were melt-blended with the LDPE/EVA system through the variation of the sequence of addition. The blends were compression molded, and their morphological and thermal properties were evaluated. The incorporation of nanosilica particles produced a drastic improvement in thermal stability as compared to the control blend. The morphological studies clearly indicated that modified nanosilica had a homogeneous dispersion in the bi component polymer matrix leading to strengthening of silica-polymer interface. Interestingly, after modification the sequence did not play a major role in affecting the morphology of this system. Overall, although the properties of the unmodified nanosilica filled blends are strong functions of the sequence of addition, but, interestingly, the properties of the modified nanosilica filled blends do not depend much on the preparation procedure.
Keywords: Silica nanoparticles, blends, nanocomposites, dispersions, morphology, reinforcement .

Two different Coagulase negative staphylococcal environmental isolates BP/SU1(Staphylococcus epidermidis; MTCC accession number:9538) and BP/SU2 (Staphylococcus haemolyticus; MTCC accession number:5731) show a tendency to propagate in the biofilm mode specially on low surface energy mediums. In this study we have co-related the biofilm formation of the two species on polystyrene tissue culture plates with the quantity of utilizable sugar present in the culture medium. The dispersal of the same biofilms with common dispersing agents like NaIO4, DNase, and proteolytic enzymes has also been studied. Results indicate that though polysaccharides undoubtedly enhance the biofilm formation for both the species, their role as biofilm - material adhesive agents are minimal for these two strains.
Keywords: CoNS, biofilm, polysaccharides, NaIO4, DNase, proteolytic enzymes

The use of algae for producing biofuel is expected to play a critical role as an alternative energy source in the near future, particularly in light of depleting fossil fuel reserves and the adverse environmental impact on fossil fuels.This study discusses the production of biofuel from cyanobacteria and microalgae by various processes. Microalgae and cyanobacteria can produce high amount of lipids and that is the sole reason for they being identified as a potential biodiesel feedstock. They also have the ability to fix CO2 and have rapid growth rates. It is observed that algae can be converted to oily substances that grows in Carbon-dioxide enriched air. It also can contribute to solve major problems of air pollution resulting from CO2 evolution This experiment is undertaken to know the proper trans-esterification, amount of biodiesel production (ester) from cyanobacteria and microalgae species. In this experiment, common species such as Cyanobacterium aponinum and Spirogyra sp. are used to compare the amount of biodiesel production. It is observed that C.aponinum can produce high amount of algal oil and biodiesel (ester) than Spirogyra sp. However, biomass when calculated was found to be higher in C.aponinum compared to Spirogyra sp. The paper indicates that biodiesel can be produced from both the species with C.aponinum being a better one.
Keywords: Microalgae, cyanobacteria, Biofuel, Renewable energy, Transesterification

Discarding of plastic is one of the acute predicaments confronted in the environment today, cause majority of plastics are resistant to bio degradation. In biosphere, some microorganisms are available which got the potential to atrophy large variety types of plastic under suitable conditions, but due to the intricate composition of these polymers along with their hydrophobic nature, biological decomposition is a time consuming process. This problem can be mitigated by the inception of polymers and its derivatives from biological origins or by the production of large number of plastic degrading microbes. Some microbial stains mainly bacteria which got the ability to produce and store biopolymers under a defined environmental conditions and utilizing these as carbon sources and produces biomaterials like polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) or biological polyester. Thus they are innocuous by not producing toxic by-products and can be degraded easily by microorganisms. In this study, we have discussed the toxicity of Bisphenol A, a potent compound of plastic and also its biodegradation pathways.
Keywords: biodegradation, synthetic plastic, natural plastic, PHA, biological polyesters, biodegradability tests, environmental conditions

Kalmegh (Andrographis paniculata) is a very well known and popular medicinal plant used in both homoeopathic and ayuvedic system for a long time successfully as antiinflamatory, antibacterial, antiperiodic, antipyretic, antithrombotic, antiviral, hypoglycemic, hepatoprotective. It has proved its efficacy against colon cancer even. It’s such potential to treat different human diseases influenced to attempt a research programme to find out whether there is any effect of kalmegh extract against store grain pest and maintenance of seed vigor and viability in storage for some economically important crops like paddy, lentil, moong and gram. Three concentrations of treatment solution developed following the dilution process described in Homoeopathic Pharmacopeia of India from kalmegh leaves. Freshly harvested seed lots of the above crop seeds treated with the treatments by soaking drying method and kept in cloth bags in three replications along with two control treatments for six months in godown. Such experiment is done during two successive years and from the observation and calculated results it was revealed that crude kalmegh extract was most effective against store grain pest that gradually becomes weaker in dilutions. On the other hand, dilutions improved germination and related parameters in seed lings after storage in respect of control.
Keywords: Kalmegh , medicinal plant , storage , germination, seed vigour, viability number

In crystal structure, the homodimeric (α2) mimi-virus Tyrosyl-tRNA Synthetases (TyrRSapm) showed significant variation in dimer orientation as compared to other solved structures of TyrRSs. Previous report showed that Bacillus stearothermophilus N-terminal TyrRS exists as dimer under native condition and unfolds through a monomeric intermediate. In our previous studies, we have reported that the C-terminal anticodon binding domain of TyrRSapm might have an indirect role in noncanonical dimer formation. To study the implication of the noncanonical dimer interface on the structural and functional organization of TyrRSapm, we replaced all three W residues (both of dimer interface and C-terminal domain) systematically with F residues (using site directed mutagenesis) with four different combinations (W80F/W120F, W278, W80F/W278F, W120F/W278F). We took advantage of Trp (W) fluorescence as the biophysical reporter for probing dimer interface study. The circular dichroism (CD) spectra of Trp mutants are dramatically different from wild-type indicating a huge conformation reorientation due to mutations. Another unusual feature of this enzyme is that it contains 10 cysteine residues per monomer and none of them involved in disulphide bridge formation. Using DTNB reaction as a probe again it was observed that mutants behave differently indicating a major perturbation. Fluorescence anisotropy supported by analytical ultracentrifugation data showed that TyrRSapm and its mutants exist as dimer. The unfolding pattern of N-terminal and C-terminal domain shows significant difference from each other indicating differential melting of domains. Aminoacylation reaction showed that two of the four Trp. mutants retain enzyme activities though different as compared to WT, while the other two mutants lost their activities. Hence it can be concluded that, the Trp residues play a crucial role in the structural as well as functional organization of TyrRSapm that may be reflected as the non canonical orientation of dimer conformation in crystal structure
Keywords: Mimivirus, Tyrosyl-tRNA Synthetase, Fluorescence, Unfolding, Circular Dichroism, nalytical Ultracentrifuge