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? Ever wondered what’s the lifestyle of Drosophila melanogaster, as they are scientifically called, within the four walls of a laboratory where they are experimented upon? Here is a sneak peek.

Imagine just switching on your lights and downloading a movie in a second. The world demands high-speed internet connectivity at a lower price. This increasing clamour for speed and bandwidth is opening up new avenues, and one such evolving domain is LiFi - a wireless technology that makes use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. Light waves are 10,000 times denser than WiFi signals, so there is vast untapped potential here.

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. The conjecture, which originated from the work of Bernhard Riemann on the distribution of prime numbers, has now been extended and generalised into a monstrous beast. Its cunning and long arms now encompass almost all areas of mathematics, far beyond its site of origin.

In a recent study, researchers from the Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Bengaluru, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands and the University of Sheffield, UK, have attempted to find what ailments plagued the residents of Devarajeevanahalli.

During the years 2018-2019, India witnessed a few ‘Kisan Long Marches’, where thousands of farmers took to the streets. They marched against state and central governments to alleviate their suffering. Their demands included loan waivers, proper land ownership rights, access to insurance and other welfare schemes, and obtaining a justified price for their crops. The Indian farming community is facing a crisis and farmer suicides are increasing by the day. Does the country’s social and caste structure add to these woes of the farming community? A recent study by researchers has found some insights. The study, published in the journal PLOS One, explored if caste of the farmers played a role in them having access to agriculture-related information. 

In a press announcement released yesterday, India has now joined 16 other countries as a Member of the Global Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Research and Development (R&D) Hub. For a country that ranks the highest in antibacterial resistance, this move expands global partnership opportunities to address challenges and improve collaboration in addressing the growing epidemic of antimicrobial resistance.

This article is the second part of the series ‘The How and the Why: Interpreting Scientific Studies’, brought to you by Research Matters. The series focuses on the method of scientific studies, including emphasising the importance of meta-analyses, the repercussions of the replication crisis and the inclusion of ethics in experimental biology. We hope this series will better enable our readers to understand and evaluate scientific research they are interested in and those that could impact their lives.

The walls were as quiet as ever. Warmth and protection radiated from them, but all went in vain against Ourelia’s boredom. She had been counting the days, as patiently as someone could, for the past 14 years. Every day presented the meticulous, yet mechanically planned, cellular routine in the same way. She would tend to the daily tasks by nibbling on the required nutrients and oxygen. She would then move on to cook some much-needed proteins and try to find some fun in watching the machine churn out strings of amino-acids.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia, UK, and the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, India, have explored how women’s work in agriculture affects nutritional outcomes for the family. The study found that although agricultural outputs have increased with women working in the farms, it has left them with little time to cater to the nutritional needs of their families and themselves, resulting in malnutrition.

Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—  Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest

In a series of articles, Research Matters tries to explain the commonly accepted process of scientific methodology, the interpretation of scientific studies and the obvious pitfalls. It is hoped that this series will help lay public in analysing any understanding published scientific studies for what they are, instead of believing just because ‘scientists say so’. This article is the first in the series.