On the 26th of March, 2018, Prof. K VijayRaghavan, ex-Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and ex-Director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), was appointed the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. He succeeds Dr. R. Chidambaram and is expected to assume the office shortly.

The forest owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti), an owl endemic to the forests of Central India, has been the centre of a century-old debate among ornithologists. Its classification into the particular genera is at the stem of this debate. Now, a new study by researchers, involving genetic analysis of the owl’s genome, may put an end to this debate forever.

Scientists from National Center for Biological Sciences, Wildlife Conservation Trust, FERAL and University of Montana, examine genetic diversity of tigers in India to identify the importance of connected forest corridors to future populations and minimize their risk of extinction in the coming century.

Tigers face threats like degradation on habitats and conflict with humans that has caused their numbers in India to dwindle. When the number of members in a population goes down, the population faces another threat, inbreeding depression. Scientists from the National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, study the genetic makeup of tiger populations to mediate the ill-effects of inbreeding depression.

Many important process in the body require the movement of cells. From forming our fingers during the development of an embryo to healing wounds in adults, all are possible due to cell movement. But how does cell know in what direction it should move? A collaborative study from Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, USA comprising researchers from NCBS Bangalore, National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School, USA, find strong evidence for the ‘cytoskeletal force model’, which is one way of explaining how cells move.