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Disgusting, annoying or beneficial? What would you call these pestering fruit flies that don’t miss an opportunity to sit on your favourite cut fruit or visit your kitchen a few times? Whatever you call them, did you know we owe a great deal of our knowledge on evolution to these pesky flies?

In a recent study, researchers from Sai Nath University, Ranchi, and Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, set out to quantify the impacts of natural radioactivity on the surrounding environment in the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu. Their findings have been published in the Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences.

The Trustees of the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 at an event held today at the Infosys campus in Electronic City, Bengaluru. The winners include Dr. Manu V. Devadevan, Dr. G Mugesh, Dr. Majula Reddy, Dr. Siddhartha Mishra, Dr. Anand Pandian and Dr. Sunita Sarawagi.

Avian malaria or bird malaria has been linked to significant declines in captive and wild birds, such as penguins and Hawaiian forest birds.

The India International Science Festival, the country’s science extravaganza, begins today in Kolkata, the City of Joy. The event, held from 5th of November to the 8th of November, 2019, is being organised by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, in association with Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA).

A recent assessment by the World Meteorological Organisation has declared heat waves as the deadliest extreme weather event in the years 2015–2019, causing more than 8,900 deaths globally. In May 2015, temperatures crossed 45°C in Odisha and Telangana in the fifth deadliest heat wave in history, with a death toll of 2,300. With 30% of the global population living in regions susceptible to 20 heat wave days in a year and the rising global temperatures, one can conclude that its toll will only increase in the years to come. In such situations, warnings about impending heat waves can be lifesavers. However, very few studies have focused on such a prediction system to date, with none looking at real-time predictions. Now, researchers have developed a prediction system to predict heat waves a couple of weeks in advance. The study, funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India, was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Schizophrenia is used to describe a set of conditions that represent a fragmented psyche. People with schizophrenia often hear strange voices or see unreal visions. They may even start believing these hallucinations and have trouble expressing their emotions or rational thought in real-life situations.

Sometime in the middle of October each year, the Bomrr clan in Nagaland rush to the caves in Mimi village. With a good stock of burning firewood, men and women are ready for the bat harvest festival—an annual ritual where anywhere between 7,000 to 25,000 bats are suffocated or smashed to their deaths. These bats, the clan believes, have medicinal properties and can cure diseases like diarrhoea and body ache, and increase vigour. Now, a new study has shown that these bats, rather than being a cure to diseases, carry deadly filoviruses that could infect humans.

In the last one hundred and sixty years, in spite of hundreds of claims, some of them from first-class mathematicians, the Riemann Hypothesis, or the holy grail of mathematics, remains as elusive as ever.

Study shows how paper wasps use the space in their nests to feed their larvae and fend off diseases.