The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has published the R&D; Roadmap for Green Hydrogen Ecosystem in India. This document was published on 13th October, 2023. One of the central pillars of the National Green Hydrogen Mission is the establishment of a supportive research and innovation ecosystem for green hydrogen …
TEN YEARS of sustained research on the properties of composite materials at Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is now bearing fruit. Composites consist of glass fibres, carbon fibres and jute fibres, bound together in a matrix of a polymer like polyester and nylon. Smelling success round the corner, the …
IS CAFFEINE, which is present in tea, coffee and coke, harmful to pregnant women and foetuses? Although there have been indications to the contrary, a recent Canadian study has found evidence that expectant mothers who take caffeine before and during pregnancy may run a greater risk of foetal death (Journal …
High-temperature gas bubbles that dance and emit light have been developed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, by passing ultrasound through water. These astounding light-emitting bubbles (LEBs) can eventually be applied for inducing ultrafast chemical reactions in liquids and initiating nuclear fusion. The LEBs are generated from distilled …
A LONG-STANDING mystery about how bees -- considered completely deaf -- hear has been solved. Bees are known to convey information about the distance, direction and potential of a new food source or nesting site through a complicated dance language involving the wagging of the abdomen and vibrating the wings …
SCIENTISTS have now discovered that huge quantities of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, produced when fossil fuels are burned, are mopped up by boreal forests -- coniferous forests in the northern hemisphere -- which are themselves coming under the loggers' axe (New Scientist, Vol 141, No 1907). It is established …
JAPAN'S ministry of international trade and industry, in collaboration with major Japanese firms and universities, has committed $30 million over four years to research "cold fusion". The theory holds that hydrogen atoms can undergo fusion at room temperatures in small rods of palladium saturated with deuterium, the heavy form of …
Indian companies need to triple the total investment for in-house research and development (R&D;) to Rs 3,000 crore by the end of the century, according to a document prepared jointly by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Union government's department of scientific and industrial …
IF YOU are reluctant to leave bed on a dark, winter morning, stay right in there. People who wake up early in winters might be cutting short their required sleep, inviting unforeseen health problems (New Scientist, Vol 140, No 1899). Researchers say the natural sleeping patterns of humans are strikingly …
OIL-EATING bacteria, useful in cleaning up slicks, will soon have water wings, helping to keep them afloat in water. Using gene-splicing techniques, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, USA, have isolated 13 genes responsible for producing air-filled sacs in a floating bacterium called Halobacterium halobium. This comes in the wake …
SUSPECT diabetes? Get your eyes checked! A US company has developed a technique that uses eyes as a mirror for quickly and painlessly detecting diabetes, instead of the standard blood test for a patient's glucose level. In this technique, a blue light focused on the lens of the eye enables …
UNLEADED petrol is being touted as a green fuel. But it does more harm than good if vehicles using it do not have catalytic converters to render the exhaust gases safe, according to Roger Perry, professor of environmental control at the Imperial College in London (New Scientist, Vol 140, No …
If there is one thing a mouse cannot stand, it is the smell of other mice. Male mice with high levels of testosterone -- a male sex hormone -- mark their territories by secreting an oil in their urine, which scares off other mice. Scientists at Indiana University in the …
CONTRARY to received wisdom, boxing may not be damaging to the boxer's brain. In fact, anti-boxing advocates may be surprised to learn that this "inhuman sport" may even improve boxers' skills at elementary arithmetic, a British trial has concluded (The Lancet, Vol 342, No 8877). The trial examined the mental …
What do you think went wrong with scientific progress and the scientific establishments in Europe after the Second World War? The Second World War was a period of rapid technical achievement. Radar, jet engines and nuclear energy were successfully put to use in a very short period of time. As …
When a team of young French civil servants selected by the Paris-based Foundation Nationale Entreprise et Performance (FNEP) visited India in the second week of November, the media was quick to assume they had come to India with a technology offer. A press release from an apex industry organisation further …
THE AKKADIAN empire flourished on the banks of Euphrates in Iraq, from 2300 BC to 2200 BC. Though the reason for its sudden collapse has long puzzled archaeologists, Harvey Weiss and his colleagues at Yale University in USA now say it literally dried up and withered away. The archaeologists base …
In a significant breakthrough, the Hyderabad-based Directorate of Rice Research has developed five commercially viable, hybrid rice varieties from indigenous species. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director-general V L Chopra claims this will make India "the second country, after China, to exploit hybrid vigour in order to give a …
THOUGHT the dodo was a lumbering, fat bird? You might be mistaken, says Andrew Kitchner, curator at the Royal Museum of Scotland, who has discovered that early illustrations of the dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century, reveal a distinctly thin bird, while later drawings showed the more familiar …
"IF TISSUE culture companies can make profits, why can't villagers?" asks C R Raju, who has developed a tissue culture technique that he claims is cheap and easily transferable to the people -- a feat research laboratories are still to achieve. Raju developed the low-cost technique as part of voluntary …
IT DID not happen in Latur alone. Earthquakes can and do occur in what geologists generally consider peaceful regions of the earth. The 1819 Kutch earthquake and the 1886 Charleston earthquake in South Carolina, USA, are two famous examples of such rare errant behaviour of the earth. Both quakes were …
