The Science of Gilbert Fowler

The first head of the Department of Biochemistry was one of the most consequential researchers of his time   Gilbert John Fowler wore many scientific hats: he was a chemist, a biologist and an environmental scientist – decades before environmental science became an active field of scientific investigation. He even fancied himself as an economist. […]

Neurolathyrism: An Unsolved Mystery

Experiments in PS Sarma’s lab at the Department of Biochemistry in the 1960s explored a mystery disease caused by excess consumption of seeds of a controversial pulse crop   For many years, the Department of Biochemistry at IISc worked extensively on nutrition. Its researchers have analysed the importance of vitamin B1 in our diet. They […]

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. […]