It is hard to live without a good night’s sleep. However, 22% of the people in industrialised countries do that regularly, when they work in shifts, including those during the night. Working in different shifts disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm—a natural process in our body that regulates the sleep-wake cycle.

Researchers at the Indian Institutes of Technology at Kharagpur and Kanpur, and also from Princeton University, USA, have designed a model, based on social networks of voters, to make reliable predictions on the ‘surprise’ element of election results and suggest possibilities of decreasing it.

Researchers from the Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture, Srinagar, Punjabi University, Patiala and the Government Degree College, Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir, have studied the diversity of ant species from different regions of the Western Ghats.

Melting of glaciers in the Himalayas doubled in the last four decades, reveals spy satellite data

The need for secure electronic devices is pervasive at all levels; from banking transactions to defence and surveillance applications.

Researchers from two Bengaluru-based institutes—the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), have studied the distribution and the impact of protected marine areas on Bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. After months of data collection by scuba diving and capturing underwater photographs of the seafloor, their findings have now been published in the journal Oryx.

Researchers from IIT Bombay and Pennsylvania State University, USA, propose improvements to refine 3D printing using heat. The proposed model can provide accurate processing scenarios for different alloys without trial and error.

A recent study by an international group of researchers has revealed some unpleasant reality of a government-aided program in Bihar for diagnosing leprosy and has estimated the efficiency of an approach that can promote accurate diagnosis of the disease.

We often hear or read that ‘some species of a bird or animal is going extinct’, or ‘a new species of an amphibian or reptile was discovered in the jungles of the Western Ghats’. However, what exactly do we mean by ‘species’?

Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—  Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest

In a series of articles, Research Matters tries to explain the commonly accepted process of scientific methodology, the interpretation of scientific studies and the obvious pitfalls. It is hoped that this series will help lay public in analysing any understanding published scientific studies for what they are, instead of believing just because ‘scientists say so’. This article is the first in the series.