A zebra loach (Botia Striata) about 7 cm long, 2007. Photo: Lerdsuwa/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Zebra loach, a popular aquarium species, is being “unsustainably fished” out of Western Ghats’ waters to grace fish tanks across the world,…

A child runs under sprinklers on July 23, 2020, during a heat wave in Vienna. Photo: Lisi Niesner/Reuters New Delhi: Nearly 740,000 access deaths in India annually can be attributed to abnormal hot and cold temperatures related to climate…

The logo of GlaxoSmithKline seen at their Stevenage facility, Britain, October 26, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Matthew Childs/File Photo Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc have received an approval from Indian authorities for a late-stage…

The proposed site of the INO (left) and the entrance to the IMSc in Chennai. Photos: INO collaboration and IMSc Bengaluru: The fortunes of a big science experiment that incumbent Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin opposed during his time…

Medical staff seen wearing masks at RML Hospital as a precaution in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in New Delhi, March 30, 2020. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary Several commentators have put forth the view (here and here) in the past that…

An aerial view of low water levels at Lake Oroville, the second-largest reservoir in California, June 16, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Aude Guerrucci The suffocating heat wave that killed hundreds of people across the Pacific Northwest last week…

Photo: Ante Hamersmit/Unsplash Lee Gettler is hard to get on the phone, for the very ordinary reason that he’s busy caring for his two young children. Among mammals, though, that makes him extraordinary. “Human fathers engage in really…

A landslip in Indonesia caused by the removal of trees, which destabilised the steep slope. Photo: Rhett Butler/Mongabay Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests. These highland ecosystems support…

The National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru. Photo: NCBS New Delhi: A paper published by the journal Nature Chemical Biology, authored by researchers from the prestigious National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru,…

Army jawans construct a bridge near the Baghjan oil well, still on fire. Photo: PTI Ecosystems damaged in the 2020 Baghjan oil and gas leak fire in Assam, which took over five months to douse, might take at least a decade to recover 70-80%…

The cubs who lost their mother, are around 8 months old and have not learnt to hunt yet. The father of the cubs has been observed providing them food. Photo: Panna Tiger Reserve Early on June 6 morning, near a village in Panna Tiger Reserve…

L-R: the author, David Wake (1936-2021), Marvalee Wake and the Canadian botanist John McNeill, on the occasion of the centenary of the International Union of Biological Sciences, Oslo, July-August 2019. Photo: Geetha Gadagkar On April 29,…

SDRF members patrol the Ganges river past burning pyres of bodies that washed up on its banks, Prayagraj, June 25, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Ritesh Shukla/File Photo New Delhi: India’s COVID-19 deaths relative to infections hit a record high…

A dumbo octopus seen during a deep-sea exploration mission in the southeastern US, 2019. Photo: NOAA/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 Similar to some other countries such as China, the quest for minerals in the deep sea has been on India’s radar for…

A paramedic treats a COVID-19 patient, Johannesburg, July 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Sumaya Hisham The COVID-19 crisis has revived discussions on localising vaccine manufacturing to the African region to reduce the dependence on imports. The…

A photo of Antarctic ice. Photo: Derek Oyen/Unsplash The United Nations has announced that it has recognised a new record-high temperature of 18.3°C or 64.9°F set on the Antarctic continent last year. It was set at Argentina’s Esperanza…

A medical worker prepares to administer a COVID-19 vaccine, Ashdod, Israel, January 4, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen/File Photo The delta variant is driving waves of COVID-19 infections all around the world. With the World Health…

Villagers and park staff try to scare a rhinoceros away from crops in Bachhauli village. Photo: Peter Gill On a sunny afternoon in January 2021, a male rhinoceros lumbered through intensively farmed land in Bachhauli, a village outside…

Sirisha Bandla. Source: Twitter/@SirishaBandla Guntur: The grandfather of an Indian-American astronaut said he was “overwhelmed with joy” as she prepares to become only the second Indian-born woman to visit space. Sirisha Bandla, 33, who…

Image: PIRO4D/pixabay In an interview to cut through the clutter, Ashish Jha, a professor of public health, has said he is “not particularly concerned about the delta plus” variant, and that judging by what we definitely know at the moment,…

Vials labelled “AstraZeneca, Pfizer-Biontech, Johnson & Johnson, Sputnik V” are seen in this illustration. Photo: Reuters/Dado Ruvic Late last year, I asked: is it safe to have more than one type of COVID-19 vaccine? A trial has now…

Representative photo of mosquitoes: Reuters The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared China malaria-free on June 30, after a 70 year old effort to eradicate the disease. “We congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of…

A strain of Candida auris cultured in a petri dish at a CDC laboratory. Photo: Shawn Lockhard/Public domain Say “fungus” and most people in the world would probably visualise a mushroom. But this fascinating and beautiful group of microbes…

The logo of Covaxin on Bharat Biotech’s website. Photo: Jernej Furman/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 New Delhi: On July 2, researchers at Bharat Biotech uploaded the long-awaited scientific paper describing the results of the phase 3 clinical trials of…

A notice about the shortage of COVID-19 seen at a vaccination centre in Mumbai, April 8, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Francis Mascarenhas On June 26, 2021, the Government of India (GoI) submitted a second affidavit to the Supreme Court of India on…

Photo: Wolfgang Hasselmann/Unsplash Heat waves are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, not the more photogenic windstorms and floods. Hotter summers from climate change are causing concerns over new dangers to…

Employees operate a filling machine inside a lab at the Serum Institute of India, Pune, November 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Francis Mascarenhas/Files “ is a serious threat to education and, I believe, to the democratic principle itself. … No…

Representative image of an embryo. Image: DrKontogianniIVF/pixabay For 40 years, research into early human development has been guided by the principle that after 14 days, an embryo should not be used for research and must be destroyed.…

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan holds up a vial of Covaxin, AIIMS Delhi, January 16, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/File Photo New Delhi: Even as its Brazil deal has gone belly-up, with the company staring at two criminal…

Photo: Elizabeth Kay/Unsplash Those of us who learned arithmetic using pen and paper, working with the ten digits 0-9 and place value, may take for granted that this is the way it’s always been done, or at least the way it ought to be done.…