Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
Middle Pliocene hominin species diversity has been a subject of debate over the past two decades, particularly after the naming of Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Kenyanthropus platyops in addition to the well-known species Australopithecus afarensis. Further analyses continue to support the proposal that several hominin species co-existed during this time period. …
Genome editing tools such as the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-associated system (Cas) have been widely used to modify genes in model systems including animal zygotes and human cells, and hold tremendous promise for both basic research and clinical applications. To date, a serious knowledge gap remains in …
India will ensure peoples' participation in mitigating climate change, union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday, adding that the prime minister was confident of India's lead in combating the global scourge. Addressing the first meeting of environment ministers of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) here, Javadekar …
In a world first, Chinese scientists have reported editing the genomes of human embryos. The results are published in the online journal Protein & Cell and confirm widespread rumours that such experiments had been conducted — rumours that sparked a high-profile debate last month about the ethical implications of such …
DNA technology has proved to be a worthy investigative tool for releasing the innocent citizens and bringing forth the person responsible for serious crimes. In a populated country like India there is requirement for these types of databases. The Union government is working on a new version of a legislation …
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) can be divided into four subspecies. Substantial phylogenetic evidence suggests that these subspecies can be grouped into two distinct lineages: a western African group that includes P. t. verus and P. t. ellioti and a central/eastern African group that includes P. t. troglodytes and P. t. schweinfurthii. …
The laboratory mouse shares the majority of its protein-coding genes with humans, making it the premier model organism in biomedical research, yet the two mammals differ in significant ways. To gain greater insights into both shared and species-specific transcriptional and cellular regulatory programs in the mouse, the Mouse ENCODE Consortium …
British-American resea-rcher John O’Keefe won the Nobel Medicine Prize Monday with a Norwegian couple, May-Britt and Edvard Moser, for discovering an “inner GPS” that helps the brain navigate. They earned the coveted prize for identifying brain cells enabling people to orient themselves in space, with implications for diseases like Alzheimer’s, …
The `peanut safe syringe' will be available in the commercial market, four years after it was invented. The state pollution control board (PCB) and the department of health has approved its commercial launch, and its inventor, Dr Baby Manoj, has approached HLL Lifecare for its mass production. The peanut safe …
“Microorganisms are the best chemists on the planet,” declared Michael A. Fischbach, a chemist at the University of California, San Francisco. For evidence, Fischbach points to the many lifesaving drugs that microorganisms produce. In 1928, for example, Alexander Fleming discovered that mould wafting into his lab produced a bacteria-killing chemical …
Two categories of evolutionary challenges result from escalating human impacts on the planet. The first arises from cancers, pathogens and pests that evolve too quickly, and the second from the inability of many valued species to adapt quickly enough. Applied evolutionary biology provides a suite of strategies to address these …
Groundwater is essential to modern human survival during drought periods. There is also growing geological evidence of springs associated with stone tools and hominin fossils in the East African Rift System (EARS) during a critical period for hominin evolution (from 1.8 Ma). However it is not known how vulnerable these …
“We can make a breakthrough in the field of regeneration of organs” A research being conducted on the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU) campus here on the earthworm’s regenerative capacity and its genome has attracted the attention of a researcher from the Department of Regenerative Medicine from Cedars – Sinai, the …
A team of researchers from Vector Control Research Centre (VCRC) in Puducherry and Pondicherry University has discovered bacteria in bird droppings that can kill mosquitoes. They have proposed to develop an anti-mosquito formulation using these bacteria, which can replace insecticides. The team, which conducted a three-year study , analysed 1,000 …
Malaria may alter the way people smell to make them more alluring to mosquitoes, according to a new finding that can help detect the deadly disease non-invasively through body odour. An infection with malaria pathogens changes the scent of infected mice, making those infected more attractive to mosquitoes, researchers have …
Mosquitoes that only gives birth to male off springs are the new weapon in the global fight against malaria. British scientists announced on Tuesday that in what will be a massive boost against the world's deadliest vector borne disease, they have successfully wiped out malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the lab. Scientists …
Neanderthal dietary reconstructions have, to date, been based on indirect evidence and may underestimate the significance of plants as a food source. While zooarchaeological and stable isotope data have conveyed an image of Neanderthals as largely carnivorous, studies on dental calculus and scattered palaeobotanical evidence suggest some degree of contribution …
Genetic studies have identified substantial non-African admixture in the Horn of Africa (HOA). In the most recent genomic studies, this non-African ancestry has been attributed to admixture with Middle Eastern populations during the last few thousand years. However, mitochondrial and Y chromosome data are suggestive of earlier episodes of admixture. …
A primary goal of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was to provide a reference collection of 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences collected from sites across the human body that would allow microbiologists to better associate changes in the microbiome with changes in health. The HMP Consortium has reported the structure …
The year of 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of C de Duve's coining of the term “autophagy” for the degradation process of cytoplasmic constituents in the lysosome/vacuole. This year we regretfully lost this great scientist, who contributed much during the early years of research to the field of autophagy. Soon …
