Category: Science & Tech

Lara Marie Berger, Anna Kerkhof, and Nikola Noske, ‘Improving science literacy in the newsroom: Experimental evidence’, PNAS Nexus Science journalism is an endlessly fascinating enterprise. Being good at it doesn’t take more than being a ‘decent’ writer (as they say), a good journalist, and navigating science and science communication with a good journalist’s sensibilities. That...

India continues to face a large mental health treatment gap, with nearly 85% of individuals with common mental disorders receiving no formal care. However, over the past decade, access to antidepressant medication, especially drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), has improved, marking an important shift toward making treatment more available. This expansion is important...

The COVID-19 pandemic was a watershed moment for our country. While the pharmaceutical sector was robust, it lacked the capacity to produce specialised molecular components at scale. At the start of 2020, nearly all of the 20-plus reagents and enzymes required for making the vaccine kits were imported. Supplies were also vulnerable as the countries...

The pounding is a neurological reflex as well as due to a physical effect. When we are startled by a sound, the reflex can be activated within 150 ms, which is faster than acting due to conscious thought. This is because the sound travels from the cochlea through the brainstem to the amygdala, which treats...

Failure is part and parcel of research but many scientists consider discussing it in a scientific forum to be taboo. Laboratories are littered with unfinished experiments and inconclusive facts and theories that failed to stand the test of study. However, when science is being communicated — whether to funding bodies, professional journals or audiences —...