Researchers from NIAS, Bengaluru, Kyoto University, Japan, University of Colorado, and the Northwestern University, USA, have tried to understand what causes of the strange preference of  ‘geophagy’, or ‘eating the earth’ in primates. 

Last week, the world enthusiastically awaited one of the year’s exciting announcements—the Nobel Prize in the fields of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry. First of them to be announced was the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, jointly awarded to James P. Allison, Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA, and Tasuku Honjo, Professor at Kyoto University, Japan. They were considered for this prestigious honour for their contributions to cancer therapy using our body’s immune system to attack cancer cells.