Tag: Health

Two disorders caused by the dysfunction of the reproductive and endocrine system are PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and endometriosis. Both are deeply linked by genetics and how our body regulates certain biological signals. Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal disorder, that affects the reproductive system in women. It leads to irregular menstruation, higher levels...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced the launch of a mission in Ladakh to examine the physiological, psychological and operational dynamics of gaganyatris (astronauts) and ground teams functioning in a high-altitude environment. Scientific data generated on crew performance and human factors will contribute directly to the Gaganyaan programme and future long-duration missions. Known...

Certain kinds of mutations in gene TP53, which encodes the p53 tumour suppressor protein, often dubbed the ‘guardian of the genome’, could perhaps be making acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) one of the hardest cancers to treat, new research has found. The study, led by Caner Saygin, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Medicine, was recently...

India’s relationship with fragrance is ancient, intimate, and profoundly sophisticated. Long before perfume became a global industry, long before it was bottled, branded, advertised, and sold in department stores, fragrance in India was understood as a lived technology-deeply embedded in medicine, ritual, daily grooming, aesthetics, seasonal rhythms, and even spiritual practice. Scent was never merely...

(Subscribe to Science For All, our weekly newsletter, where we aim to take the jargon out of science and put the fun in. Click here .)   Last week, an 11-year-old boy died in Kozhikode, Kerala due to a Shigella infection . The State Health Department said that six people had been confirmed as having...

Antibiotic-resistant typhoid infections accounted for at least 87% of India’s disease-related economic burden in 2023, according to a study in The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia. The total economic burden due to typhoid fever was estimated at ₹123 billion. Children under the age of 10 incurred the highest economic burden, contributing to over half of...

On a cold February morning, Jassuram Khanna, a farmer from Sujau village in Chakrata in Uttarakhand, felt a tightness in his chest on his way to the market. After waiting a few minutes, he called his son Suresh to come and take him to the doctor. They hired a private car and went to the...

The call woke me from a dead sleep. The ER physician uttered the words STEMI, short for ST elevation myocardial infarction. She didn’t need to say more: I was out of bed as she narrated the rest. A STEMI occurs when a ruptured cholesterol plaque triggers a cascade of clot formations, sealing the artery shut....

For a discipline so wedded to reason and fact as science is, it has fiendishly guarded its gender bias. Over centuries, pioneering women in science have been ignored, their achievements overlooked or usurped by male colleagues, their names left out of scientific publications; they have been underpaid and undervalued, denied promotions and advancements in careers,...

We have always known that antibiotics, life-saving drugs in serious infections, affect the composition of our gut microbiome (community of bacteria living in the gut). Now, scientists have found that certain types of antibiotics can be linked to changes that persist in the gut microbiome – and lower its diversity – for as long as...