Dr Syed Zahoor Qasim, who successfully led India’s first Antarctic expedition in 1981, has been commemorated for his contributions to the Indian polar programme in a special issue of Polar Science. A peer-reviewed academic journal, Polar Science aims to inform people about polar science, primarily in Asia. It is published by the National Institute of Polar Research in collaboration with Elsevier and is one of the few comprehensive academic journals in the field of polar science.

Researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, USA, assessed the reach of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program to the intended beneficiaries and took stock of its shortcomings.

Researchers at King George’s Medical University and Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, has estimated the burden of community-acquired pneumonia among children aged 2-59 months in four districts of Northern India.

Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland describe some interesting differences in the personalities of male and female Asian elephants.

In a recent study, researchers from Canada, Brazil, China, Mexico, India and Switzerland have tried to uncover the reasons behind this alarming statistic by analysing the causes of deaths in these children from India, China, Brazil, and Mexico. These countries have an estimated 40% of kids aged 5-14 years and report an estimated 200,000 deaths annually at these ages. The findings of their study were published in the journal The Lancet.

This week, from the 10th to the 16th of March, is observed as the World Glaucoma Week globally, to spread awareness of glaucoma—a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve and lead to total blindness if left untreated. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world accounting for upto 8% of total blindness.

Researchers from the USA, Australia and Canada identified some of the ‘hotspots’ and ‘coolspots’ of human activities in the world and analysed the impact of these activities on threatened and near-threatened wildlife.

Today’s world has more adolescents—children in the age group of 10-24 years—than ever in history. Of the 1.8 billion adolescents, a third of them, or 622 million, live in India and China. With this fraction of people growing up to be future citizens, are we doing enough to have their needs met? No, says a worldwide study on adolescent health and well-being, published in The Lancet.

Researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute, University of Washington, USA, and Oklahoma State University, USA, have reported the economic losses and associated health risk caused by stubble burning in some parts of north India. 

An international collaboration of researchers, including two from IISc Bengaluru, have described a new starry frog Astrobatrachus kurichiyana from the Western Ghats.