We all know that the geometric object of minimal surface area amongst all shapes with a fixed volume is the round ball, whose boundary is spherical. Water blobs try to minimise surface area and curl into spherical droplets. The physical problem of surface-area minimisation is thus quite well understood. What about the opposite problem of surface-area maximisation? Does the problem even make sense? Indeed it does. Trees try to maximise surface area to get the most of sunlight through their leaves.

In the last one hundred and sixty years, in spite of hundreds of claims, some of them from first-class mathematicians, the Riemann Hypothesis, or the holy grail of mathematics, remains as elusive as ever. The conjecture, which originated from the work of Bernhard Riemann on the distribution of prime numbers, has now been extended and generalised into a monstrous beast. Its cunning and long arms now encompass almost all areas of mathematics, far beyond its site of origin.

Tiny RNA lost during domestication created robust rice varieties, shows study by NCBS, Bengaluru. 

In a recent announcement made by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, 23 scientists from across the country have been elected as Fellows of the Academy. The list contains nine scientists from Bengaluru, with five from the Indian Institute of Science, two from TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics and one each from National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).

Researchers from the National Centre for Cell Science, Pune and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Bhubaneswar, have identified a novel noncoding RNA that causes cancer in mice.

Researchers from NCBI, RRI, University of Barcelona, CSIR - Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, CNCI, and University of Queensland tried to understand how cells maintain their shapes in spite of expelling material from their membrane.

An international team, including scientists from California Institute of Technology, USA, University of Oxford, UK, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune and several other universities from around the globe, are probing radio waves emanating from the source that the produced gravitational wave event GW170817. Their study could reveal more information about the events that cause gravitational waves and its aftermath.

Scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Université libre de Bruxelles- Institute of Neuroscience, Belgium, Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Pune and Sophia College for Women, Mumbai are now a step closer to understanding how the development of neural and glial cells – the two primary cell types in our brains – is regulated in a developing brain.

Born on 26th November, 1926, in Jhang, in undivided Punjab, Dr. Yash Pal was an Indian scientist, educator, science communicator and educationist. After completing his M.Sc. degree in Physics from Panjab University, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his PhD. His areas of specialisation included cosmic rays.

In 1948, celebrated physicist and Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman introduced what came to be called Feynman diagrams. These were a pictorial representation of mathematical equations and served as a powerful tool in understanding and visualizing complex interactions between sub-atomic particles like protons and electrons. But this simplistic tool could not handle complex problems, where particles underwent many interactions, but instead produced incomprehensible and confounding answers, like infinities.