Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt and the Expansion of the Universe

When Schmidt found proof of accelerated expansion in the 1990s, he thought he had made a mistake Until recently, astrophysicists believed that gravity would slow down the expansion of the cosmos. This belief stemmed from the Newtonian understanding of gravity as a force of attraction: the falling apple and planets staying in orbit are standard […]

Having a ‘Green Open Day’ and Other Efforts Towards a Zero-Waste Campus

IISc Families and Friends (IFF) is a forum created to provide a platform for voluntary initiatives to work towards improving the quality of life for all those associated with IISc. A major endeavour of this organisation, started in early 2015, is to work for a “clean and green IISc”, which entails reusing and recycling all […]

Making Buildings Energy Efficient: Lessons from the Mechanical Engineering Auditorium

Jaywant Arakeri on how a scientific approach to architectural design can make our buildings greener Inaugurated in 2013, the auditorium in the Mechanical Engineering Department also serves as a classroom. What makes it unique is its design – energy efficient, yet sensitive to human comfort. The driving force behind this initiative was Jaywant Arakeri, Professor, […]

Students Shake a Leg, Using Folk Dance to Communicate Science

On 8 April 2017, undergraduate (UG) students from IISc performed Indian folk dances that communicated complex scientific ideas. The performances, which brought together the arts and sciences, were part of their humanities course Mapping India through the Folk Arts. The Saturday morning spectacle comprised six different dances, each of which was performed by a group […]

Helaine Selin on Happiness Across Cultures

Helaine Selin, a retired science librarian from Hampshire College, Massachusetts, USA, is an  author and an editor of several books, such as Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy, and Childbirth Across Cultures: Ideas and Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Postpartum. […]

Venkat Srinivasan

APC Lecture Series: Thirteen Ways of Seeing

Venkat Srinivasan, an archivist from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), gave a talk as part of the APC Lecture series titled Thirteen Ways of Seeing, on 19 April 2017. Srinivasan presented a template to bring together historians, journalists, scientists, and the general public to build […]