As COVID-19 pandemic marches on in India with over 800 positive cases and 19 deaths at the time of this article, there is an urgent need for deploying out-of-the-box innovations that can help curb this menace.
A computer based model of neurons in the urinary bladder
In 2008, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced Aditya-1, India's first solar mission to study the Sun. This ambitious endeavour, with various indigenously-developed instruments onboard, holds much promise for our scientific community as they expect to unravel the mysteries of our closest star, the Sun. Now renamed as Aditya L1, the data from the instruments onboard are expected to be a treasure-trove of information on the dynamic processes on the Sun's surface and its atmosphere.
Nature is an enigma; an ensemble of complex structures and functions come together to form a variety of mesmerising artefacts, including life. Richard Feynman, the well-known American Nobel Laureate and physicist, famously said—"Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy".
Among all the calamities caused by climate change, an increase in the salinity of the soil is one. It is projected that, by 2050, about half of today’s arable land across the world will be affected by salinity. This increase would also hit India’s rice bowl, the Indo-Gangetic plains, which is projected to lose about 45% of the crop yield. When salinity increases, plants respond by absorbing less water, which affects their growth. How then do we help agriculturally vital crops cope with high salinity?
Today is National Science Day—a day to celebrate the spirit of science and scientific temper across the county. It is a day to commemorate Sir C V Raman’s discovery of the Raman effect. This year, the theme of National Science Day is ‘Women in Science’, celebrating the contributions of women scientists to the field of science in India.
Researchers show that the shape of dried paint or ink deposit is related to the concentration and size of particles in these colloids.
Ever wondered why we use only specific inks for the inkjet printer? Why not any random dye? The wrong ink may result in non-uniform and patchy printing. Printing inks are colloids—tiny solid particles suspended in a liquid. The size and the concentration of the solid particles in ink specified for printers are designed to deposit uniformly on paper.
In a recent study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali, have studied the mechanism behind the phase separation of the tau protein fragment that forms characteristic aggregates associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Nanomaterials are revolutionising the way we do things with applications in medicine, electronics and biocompatible materials, to name a few. Scientists are studying various nanoforms of carbon—nanotubes, nanocones, nanohorns, two-dimensional graphene and even carbon onions! Now, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have added a new form to this list called nano carbon florets. These nano-sized florets, shaped like marigold flowers, have much more than just good looks to flaunt; they can help keep the environment clean by removing harmful heavy metal pollutants from industrial effluents. In a study published in the journal ACS Applied Nano Materials, Prof C Subramaniam and his team from the Department of Chemistry have designed nanocarbon florets that can remove up to 90% of pollutants containing arsenic, chromium, cadmium and mercury.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) approaches are the present-day buzzwords finding applications in a host of domains affecting our lives. These approaches use known datasets to train and build models that can predict, or sometimes, make decisions about a task. In one such case, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), Mumbai, have in a recent study, developed ML approaches using molecular descriptors for certain types of catalysis that could find use in several therapeutic applications.
