On successive weekends in November, hundreds of Delhi residents gathered at India Gate holding placards saying “I miss breathing” and “right to live, not just survive”. Winter’s onset once again plunged the National Capital Region into a dense smog, with the air quality index refusing to exit the ‘severe’ (301-400) or ‘very poor’ (201-300) levels....
Category: Science & Tech
Does India need to upgrade its biosecurity measures? | Explained
The story so far: New age biotechnologies endow powers to understand biology better and, consequently, harness biological agents to target humans. Thus, biosecurity measures need to be upgraded. What is biosecurity? Biosecurity refers to the set of practices and systems designed to deter the intentional misuse of biological agents, toxins or technologies. In other words,...
Joel Mokyr’s story of how science becomes technology is incomplete
On December 8, economic historian Joel Mokyr delivered his lecture in Stockholm as part of the ceremony in which he received his share of the special Nobel Prize for economics, for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”. His talk recapitulated his long-standing argument that a self-reinforcing relationship between science and technology...
Why Joel Mokyr’s story of how science becomes technology is incomplete
On December 8, economic historian Joel Mokyr delivered his lecture in Stockholm as part of the ceremony in which he received his share of the special Nobel Prize for economics, for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”. His talk recapitulated his long-standing argument that a self-reinforcing relationship between science and technology...
Why Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr’s story of how science becomes technology is incomplete
On December 8, economic historian Joel Mokyr delivered his lecture in Stockholm as part of the ceremony in which he received his share of the special Nobel Prize for economics, for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”. His talk recapitulated his long-standing argument that a self-reinforcing relationship between science and technology...
How is Asia-like artemisinin resistance emerging in Africa?
In the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese government was facing a serious crisis. It was losing more soldiers to malaria than to the war itself. Chloroquine, the antimalarial drug used for decades, had lost its effectiveness because Plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite, had become resistant to it. Desperate for...
UNESCO Ambassador Vishal Sharma visits INCOIS, backs dedicated ocean observation satellite
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO in Paris, Vishal V. Sharma visited the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) here and supported the idea of developing a dedicated space satellite for ocean observation for the region, along with expanding training opportunities for young researchers in the field. He reviewed its SynOps...
Wasps are excellent predators of pests and can play a big role in controlling them: IISc professor
Wasps have a great potential to be beneficial insects and can play a larger ecological role in controlling pests, said Raghavendra Gadagkar, professor and National Science Chair, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc. Delivering the T.N. Ananthakrishnan Birth Centenary Lecture on “You are how much you eat: Caste and nutrition in the Indian paper wasp, Ropalidia...
University of Liverpool marks start of Bengaluru campus project
The University of Liverpool has begun work on its proposed Bengaluru campus with a ground-breaking ceremony held at Alembic City on Monday. The campus, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2026, will offer UK-accredited degree programmes in Computer Science, Business Management, Accounting and Finance, Biomedical Sciences and Game Design. The Game Design course will be the...
Inside a scientific experiment that transformed skin cells into embryo-forming eggs
For millions battling infertility, the effortless miracle of procreation is a punishing ordeal of tests, treatments and trials, often chipping away not just at their finances, but also their sense of self. Researching embryos and embryo-like models is therefore critical to peering into the earliest moments of human development to understand why conceptions fail. A...
