When we read research papers, there’s much that we do not know about the studies and their authors. An ecologist sets out to fill the gaps In 2016, I began a series of interviews with scientists about the backstory of papers they had written. Scientific papers often present a cleaned up version of science even […]
A scientist and his small team of volunteers have steered the cause of plants by creating a unique database, an important first step in the battle for species conservation and habitat restoration On the third floor of IISc’s Biological Sciences building is a room which, at first glance, may seem like a computer science lab. […]
KP Sinha, a versatile physicist whose association with IISc stretches back almost fifty years, will turn 90 in July 2019 KP Sinha is an unusual man. Getting one PhD is hard work, but he chose to do two. And rare though it is for theoretical physicists to work in more than one field, Sinha mastered […]
A look at an evolving technology that has been changing how we communicate It was February 2009. A 560 kg satellite named Iridium 33, whirling around the planet in the low earth orbit 789 km above the Taymyr Peninsula in Serbia, met a fatal end. It clashed with the defunct 900-kg Russian satellite, Kosmos 2251. […]
A unique pilot project helmed by a team of scientists from India and Scotland Berambadi (Photo: Rohini Krishnamurthy) About 200 km southwest of Bengaluru is Berambadi, a village nestled between mountains, swathes of agricultural fields, the Hirikere lake, and the Bandipur National Park. This verdant countryside with tidy roads that borders Karnataka’s neighbours Kerala and […]
How is genetic information translated into chains of amino acids which combine to form proteins, the building blocks of life? In Gene Machine, published by Harper Collins India, Nobel Laureate and the President of the Royal Society Venkatraman Ramakrishnan – better known as Venki Ramakrishnan – answers this fundamental question in biology even as he […]
The story of an IISc scientist who brought molecular techniques into research on the deadly disease in India A young T Ramakrishnan, who lived with his family in Ernakulam in Kerala, helplessly watched his mother being sent to Andhra Pradesh’s Madanapalle sanatorium, one of the few such medical facilities in the country created to […]
American neuroscientist Michael Zigmond’s research shows that physical exercise could go a long way in fighting Parkinson’s disease Michael Zigmond is a believer. “I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want to be a neuroscientist,” quips the IISc-DST Centenary Chair Professor. Notwithstanding his evangelism about the virtues of a career in neuroscience, Zigmond found his own […]
AI is propelling science in unexpected directions, but it still needs scientists at the steering wheel Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has penetrated every corner of our digital world. From aiding email servers identify spam, to helping websites recommend movies and GPS apps map out the quickest route through traffic, we increasingly depend on algorithms that […]
The limited success of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) I and II set up in the 1990s meant that the government had to something different to control HIV spread: India had roughly one-eighth of the world’s HIV burden. And in 2002, the US National Intelligence Council projected that by 2010, about 20-25 million people will […]
