In Search of Drinking Water

Researchers at IISc are working on innovative solutions to improve water quality   In August 2011, K Kesava Rao, Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, visited the village of Yellampalli, about 100 km north of Bangalore. The residents of the village were faced with a huge problem: water scarcity. To make matters worse, the […]

Children of the Soil

The soil under our feet is teeming with life, and understanding and nurturing it has a positive impact on our lives   A memory. My friend and I followed the ball as it bounced towards the pit in the backyard. Heat wafted up, and the air was saturated with a warm, earthy smell that wasn’t […]

Rock Stars

How geologists connect the dots to tell stories of the Earth’s evolution   It was a clear but cold July evening in the Kumaon Himalayas in Uttarakhand. Prakash Chandra Arya and his younger brother, Vikas, were on day one of their 15-day trek from a village called Munsiyari to the Milam glacier, more than 4000 […]

When Continents Collide

Seismologists have their work cut out when it comes to understanding and predicting earthquakes and their impact   Beneath the serene snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas, danger lurks. Scientists are increasingly worried about a big earthquake overdue in the Himalayan region, anticipated to have a magnitude greater than 8.0 on the Richter scale. To give […]

Soil Sleuths

Geotechnical engineers, who investigate soils and their properties, play an important and sometimes overlooked role in civil engineering   A vacation on a Spanish beach in the 1960s sparked a revolution in the construction industry. French engineer Henri Vidal was piling up sand to build a sand castle when he realised that no matter how […]

Charting a Course to Net Zero

Several researchers at IISc are working on technological solutions to tackle some of the causes of climate-induced disasters, and reduce carbon emissions   A sizzling heatwave across North India, prolonged power outages, and 20 million dead. Fortunately, this is a work of fiction, the setting in the first chapter of The Ministry for the Future, […]

Rodents to the Rescue

The small mouse has enabled giant leaps in biology research   Claudius Galen (129-199 CE), a prominent physician in ancient Greece, obsessively studied anatomy – the science of how our bodies are structured and how our organs function. Since the ruling Roman government prohibited working with human cadavers, he dissected animals instead, to gain knowledge. […]