The fossil fuel crisis arising due to our increased use of oil leading to diminishing oil reserves, is giving rise to an increase in renewable energy generation. While solar and wind are preferred to produce electricity, biodiesel is preferred as a replacement to petrol and diesel. Biodiesels are produced from plant or animal matter, like vegetable oil, animal fat or even waste cooking oil. Although biodiesels still produce exhaust gases, they are much cleaner and safer compared to the toxic fumes coming out of fossil fuel powered engines.

Invasive plants pose a major threat to the native vegetation of an ecosystem, resulting in severe competition for resources and in some cases, complete replacement of native plants by alien plants. Lantana camara is a well-known alien plant in India that has spread like wildfire and needs better strategies to manage this invasion. Since seed dispersal plays a major role in the spread of this shrub, a new study now attempts to understand how this plant succeeds in attracting various fruit eating birds that act as seed dispersers. By understanding how Lantana attracts these birds, better strategies to manage the weed could be developed, say the researchers.

The field of material science has immensely contributed to our progress and has arguably been a very important driving force behind all the scientific achievement that mankind boasts of today. With the discovery of conductors, superconductors, insulators and semiconductors, there has been a revolution in the field of electric engineering, computer science, electronics, aerospace and others. Now, a new class of materials to this list is topological conductors, which promises to conquer great frontiers in the field of quantum computers and others.  A new research has now shown that amorphous materials like glass can also become topological conductors, thus finding a myriad of applications in different fields. 

Since our young days as kids, we have been told that vegetables are healthy and that we should eat them. Then, we were told that raw vegetables are even better because they have more fibre and also cooking them will lead to destruction of some vital nutrients. Thanks to all this, now we have a wide range of salad recipes floating on the Internet and elsewhere! But can these supposedly healthy veggies turn out to be quite unhealthy? Yes say scientists from Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad!

India is home to not just a huge number of people, but also a myriad range of animals and plants. So it isn’t surprising when scientists discover new species of these animals and plants every now and then. And to add to the list of new discoveries, three geckos have now been identified by a team of researchers. For the first time, after 130 years, the discovery of these geckos have take the total number of geckos found in India to 11. Found in various habitats and across many parts of the country, the discovery of the geckos adds to the ecological richness around us and gives more insights into these lizard-like organisms and their lives.

Rainfall extremes have had devastating effects in the country, including floods in Gujarat and landslides in Darjeeling, both of which claimed many lives. With a warming climate, such extreme rainfall events are only going to increase.

The incidence of prostrate cancer, affecting the prostate gland in men, is one of the increasingly growing types of cancers and the cause of death across the world, particularly in developing countries. While traditional anti-cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy promise hope, they often come with undesirable side effects. In a new research, scientists have shown the possibility of natural extracts from two plants found in tropical regions of the country to be effective against prostate cancer. This research definitely promises to bring in new hopes in those battered with cancer, hope the scientists.

Coacervation is a phenomenon where in two liquids that are mixed together, driven by the difference in the electrostatic charge of the different molecules of the two liquids, separate out into two layers. Until now, Voorn-Overbeek theory, a well known theory that combines two other established theories-namely Flory-Huggins polymer mixing and Debye- Huckel electrostatics, has been used to explain the complex process of coacervation.

Termites are renowned architects whose mounds have inspired many building designs around the world. But did you know how termites build their mud castles? A new study has tried to understand how termites use boluses -- a combination of mud and saliva acting as bricks -- to build their mounds. The study also throws light on the properties of materials the termites prefer to use to build mounds and discusses reasons behind the same. This study, the researchers claim, is a first towards understand the unique procedure followed by nature’s best architects in building some of the finest castles. 

Space missions come with an unprecedented excitement of open a Pandora’s box of unknown facts, mysteries and phenomenons. It is hardly a surprise that New Horizons, NASA’s mission to explore Pluto and beyond has caused a great excitement in the field of planetary science. Launched in 2006, New Horizons has already provided mankind with the most intimate images of Pluto till date and is now cruising towards the Kuiper Belt beyond our Solar System. Read all that you should know about this space mission, its latest findings and its future stops as it progresses toward new horizons of space in an interview with Prof. Henry Throop.