Research Matters

What do you get when a trip to Sikkim does not follow the plan, thanks to hectic schedule and unfavourable weather? It's frustration for many; an "Eureka!" moment for some! A trip, meant to meet up with fellow scientists, ended with the discovery of two new species of diatoms—Stauroneis sikkimensis and Stauroneis lepchae.

All the electronic devices that we use today have components made of semiconductors, mostly silicon. In recent years, gallium nitride, another semiconductor, is making its way into electronics. It is better suited for high power and high-frequency applications. Researchers from IISc have developed India’s first-ever e-mode gallium nitride power transistor, whose performance is comparable to some of the best reports till date.

Very soon, the shortage of water and population explosion in the world may cost you your plate of biryani, and for many, their livelihood. Researchers from ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research, Hyderabad and Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad, have identified essential genes that help in the adaptation of aerobic rice to water-scarce conditions.

Two Russian institutes—A.N.Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution and Moscow State Agricultural University, and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India, have compared the chemical contents of the faecal matter of the Amur and Bengal tigers to examine the stress levels of these tigers in India and Russia.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, have developed a biomolecule-based fertiliser that can help address the drawbacks of chemical fertilisers. 

On April 26 2019, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Interferometer detected gravitational waves from a possible black hole-neutron star collision thought to have taken place 1.2 billion light years away. The event was observed by both LIGO observatories, based in Louisiana and Washington state in the USA, and the Virgo facility based in the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Italy.

SLC-IT, along with researchers from Panthera, New York, USA, have attempted to model the conditions for a suitable habitat for snow leopards in Ladakh. Known as the ‘snow leopard capital of the world’, Ladakh is thought to harbour 60% of the snow leopard population in India. In this first-of-its-kind study, they have used data from direct observations and camera traps.

Researchers study how fishermen respond to extreme weather warnings and adapt to ill-effects of climate change.

Jumping spider Anarrhotus sp. found to build an orb-web as a nocturnal retreat, unusual for a spider from the Salticidae family. 

Nearly a century ago, Edwin Hubble, an American Astronomer, made the surprising observation that galaxies are moving apart, and that galaxies farther away from us are moving faster than nearby galaxies. With this, he showed us that the Universe is expanding. Towards the end of the last century, scientists discovered something even more surprising. When they more carefully studied how fast nearer and farther galaxies are moving away from us, they found that the Universe is not just expanding, but that the rate of expansion is increasing.