Everyone Indian eagerly waits for the arrival of the monsoon rains. Some to just get relief from the sweltering heat while others, like farmers are dependent on the monsoon for their crops. Even though the arrival of the monsoon in Kerala is predicted accurately every year, the monsoon predictions for the other parts of the country have not been dependable. Now, scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have devised a new mechanism to predict the arrival of the monsoon in central India up to one month in advance.

The Himalayan range is home to around 15,000 glaciers, holding around 3000 cubic miles of freshwater. Some of the well-known ones in the region include Gangotri, Yamunotri and Khumbu glaciers. Recently, owing to effects of climate change and global warming, the glaciers around the world have been receding at an alarming pace. The Earth however has gone through multiple cycles of warming and cooling periods, causing glaciers to recede and form.
  

Across many countries in the world, people from an economically backward background struggle to get adequate medical care. As a part of its Sustainability and development goals for 2015 the United Nations has declared ensuring “healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. This target of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) aims to ensure accessibility to quality health care services by the year 2030. With 13 years to go, an international team of scientists explores how this goal can be achieved in five South Asian countries. 

In 2015, the well-known social media platform Facebook partnered with other companies, like Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia to introduce internet.org. It was introduced to provide limited internet access to areas with otherwise no connectivity. In many rural and economically weak parts of the country, mobile users could, using internet.org, connect to Facebook and few websites chosen by the social media giant at a minimal cost. On February 11, Facebook withdrew internet.org, which later came to be known as free basics, from India.

Flooding in urban areas in a major threat to life and property. While there is a focus on immediate relief to the victims after the flood, long term effects of the flood need to be explored in more depth. In a recent study, an international team of scientists explores the aftermath of the floods in Chennai in 2015 with regards to the potability of groundwater. The team shows that even five months after the floods the groundwater is still unsafe for human consumption due to heavy metal and microbial contamination. 

Information and communication technologies (ICT) has been revolutionized with the arrival of smart devices and applications. Whether it is taking a video call, working from home, ordering food or arranging transportation, a smart device like our smart phones and computers, along with smart applications like Uber and Swiggy has made many of our daily chores much more efficient and simple.

Eyes are one of the most complex organs found in animals. Through evolution the eyes of animals have evolved to suit some needs better than others. Some animals can see the world in 3D, while some others can see in the dark. Animals living in places where the light doesn’t reach like caves, can’t use their eye and hence have primitive eyes. Researchers from Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, study the pit eye seen in the flatworm Planaria to understand how the organism senses the environment around it.

Gold is arguably the most enigmatic element on Earth. Its value as a form of currency, an industrial metal, and its cultural significance have made it the most sought-after metal all over the world. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that gold is the stuff of legend. A tad dramatic perhaps? But then the story of gold is dramatic! Its presence on Earth tells of stellar cataclysms and extraterrestrial travel.

The rhythmic contraction and relaxation of muscles of the food-pipe or the oesophagus, called peristalsis, pushes the food to the stomach. Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi have developed a mathematical model of the human oesophagus that could explain the pressure variation in the oesophagus. A detailed understanding of how food is pushed to the stomach can help develop an artificial food-pipe or prosthetic oesophagus, a lifesaving treatment for oesophageal cancer and certain oesophageal disorders.

Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have described a new species of plant in Coastal Karnataka. Here the team describes the morphological features that helped them identify the plants as a separate species. They find that Reissantia sessiliflora is endemic to the region and highlight the threats faced by the plant along with the actions the public can take for its conservation.