Researchers from IIT Bombay, Microsoft India and Google Inc, develop a search system to extract meaningful data from live social media posts

Dr Neena Gupta, Associate Professor at the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, has been awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 2019, in the field of Mathematical Sciences. This prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the country for research in Science, honours scientists for significant and cumulative contribution to their area of research. Dr Gupta, the youngest person in Mathematical Sciences to receive this award till date, has been recognised for her contributions to affine algebraic geometry, especially in proposing a solution to the Zariski Cancellation Problem.

Since 2012, six bridges have collapsed in Mumbai, killing 28 people and injuring hundreds. Often, news of flyovers and pedestrian bridges tumbling down have made it to the headlines across the country. Although durable materials like steel and concrete are used in today’s structures, poor quality of construction and lack of maintenance are often blamed for such catastrophes. Contrast this with the rock-solid centuries-old root bridges found in Meghalaya—many as old as 250 years and still growing strong—built without modern tools or design. Could the structure of these bridges unravel architectural clues for urban construction? In a recent study, researchers from Germany and the USA have tried to understand the morphology and structure of these root bridges, built out of the aerial roots of strangler figs, and that have endured floods, earthquakes, landslides and fires.

Our genetic material is a big molecule of DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, whose structure is a double-stranded wound-up helix. It contains specific instructions that run a living cell, and these instructions are written on the strands. When cells divide, the DNA replicates too. In this process, the contents of the strands are read and copied carefully by unwinding the strands. But that's not as simple!

Banana, a nutritionally-rich, delicious fruit, is a widely-cultivated crop across the world and is a staple diet of people living in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Due to pests and diseases, only 13% of the global production is traded, and often, farmers in India experience severe loss due to fusarium wilt or Panama disease. A novel innovation now aims to change the fortunes of banana growers by helping them detect diseases and pests with their smartphone. In a recent study, researchers from the USA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia and India have developed a banana pest detection app powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

In a recent study, researchers from Anna University, Chennai, quantified the volume of virtual water trade in India. The study, published in the journal Groundwater for Sustainable Development, focussed on the trade exchange of popular crop and livestock products during the years 2006–2016.

Prof R B Sunoj of the Department of Chemistry of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay has received the 2019 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The prize recognizes his outstanding contributions for providing molecular level insights on organic reaction mechanisms.

Dr Siddhesh Kamat, Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, is among the 27 recipients of the European Molecular Biology Organization's (EMBO) Young Investigators Grant. EMBO is an organization headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and promotes international collaboration among life sciences researchers.

In a recent study, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur have explored the use of a new blend of chromium (III) as an eco-friendly electrolyte for depositing chromium-based coatings on metallic barrels. They reinforced chromium with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and a ceramic compound called yttria stabilised zirconia (YSZ), to improve the properties of the coat.

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.