How scientists learned to see it coming A failed monsoon triggered the Great Famine of 1876-1878, which killed an estimated 5-10 million people in India. The tragedy sent officials in the British Raj into a frenzy, and the Indian Meteorological Department was tasked with preparing a seasonal forecast of the Southwest Monsoon rains. At […]
How small structures create stunning colours in nature In the 19th century, the piercingly blue morpho butterfly captivated the attention of people worldwide; its blue was so brilliant that one could not take their eyes away from it. Understandably, people wanted to extract the colour from the butterflies for human use, such as dyeing […]
How insects traverse impossible distances Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, the globe skimmer (Pantala flavescens) flaps its delicate golden wings, beginning a remarkable relay journey covering up to 14,000-18,000 km between India and Africa. These small insect travellers measure about 4-5 cm in length and are no heavier than a paper clip, yet they […]
The growth of Green Chemistry A weathered, nearly half-century-old plaque hangs on the wall of Paul Anastas’ office at Yale University – an unusual keepsake for an academic. Its story dates back to the 1970s in Quincy, Massachusetts, where eight-year-old Paul watched his neighbourhood wetlands get taken over by glass-fronted insurance and bank buildings. […]
Over the past 45 years, Gautam R Desiraju has made contributions to science that have put him in a rarified international plane. A pioneer in crystal engineering, Desiraju has been at the vanguard of the field he helped create, though his interests have extended well beyond his scientific area to philosophy, history, geopolitics, and even […]
Organ mimics are helping decode complex diseases On the lab bench, inside a Petri dish nestled between two metal coils, sits an unassuming glob of jelly. But this is no ordinary jelly – it is a squishy gel filled with magnetic particles and cells from the human lung. Once the power switches on, magnetic […]
Demystifying nature’s oldest pigment producers In Shantanu Shukla’s lab, dissecting insects is routine. The well-lit room, located in the Department of Developmental Biology and Genetics (DBG), IISc, is filled with young scientists studying scale insects – tiny plant vampires that feed on the plant phloem sap. The team investigates the intimate relationship between insects […]
Creating under constraint When Umesh Varshney joined IISc as an Assistant Professor, he was excited to dive straight into microbiology research. It was 1991, and he had just returned from his postdoctoral stint at MIT in Cambridge. He planned to study protein synthesis in Escherichia coli and DNA repair in mycobacteria, among other exciting […]
The case of the missing radioactive stones As the last flowers cling to their trees, and the spring blossoms begin to fade on campus, the onset of summer is marked by a very special time at IISc: the arrival of Open Day. Gates open, labs light up, and thousands of people throng the campus, […]
Chasing climate clues in underwater fossils Around 18,000 years ago, the Earth began to thaw. Expansive ice sheets that had covered much of the northern hemisphere for tens of thousands of years began to retreat. Sea levels rose, glaciers collapsed, and the planet slowly emerged from the last ice age. At the same time, […]
