News Feed 16 Nov 2021

Hill station in Almora district gets India’s first grass conservatory

Representative image. On Sunday, November 14, 2021, India's first grass conservatory, with a two-acre footprint, opened in Ranikhet, Almora district of Uttarakhand. The conservatory was built in three years by the Uttarakhand Forest Department's research arm with funding from the Central Government's CAMPA scheme. What is a grass conservatory? In the protection area, almost 90 different grass species of major scientific, ecological, medicinal, and cultural importance have been grown. There are seven different types of grass species in the protected area, including those used for fragrant, medicinal, feed, ornamental, agricultural, and religious purposes. The project's goal is to raise awareness about grass species' value, encourage their protection, and make field research easier. What is the need for grass conservatory? It's also crucial because grasslands are under assault from a variety of sources, and their acreage is declining, putting an entire ecosystem of insects, birds, and mammals that rely on them in jeopardy. Because of their…

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News Feed 8 Oct 2021

WHO approves first antimalarial drug Mosquirix

First antimalarial drug Mosquirix The World Health Organisation (WHO) has approved the first antimalarial vaccine RTS, S/AS01 (Mosquirix™) in the world. The World Health Organization has finally approved the world’s first antimalarial drug. Why is this such a big deal? Well, I’ll tell you why, every two minutes a child dies of malaria and this vaccine can save that child and millions of others. The vaccine is called RTS,S (trade name Mosquirix), it is 40% effective and that too not against all types of malaria parasites. This vaccine targets the parasite that’s most common in Africa- Plasmodium falciparum. It’s a 4 dose vaccine with all doses given between the 5th and the 18th month of a child. How long did it take for the World Health Organisation to recommend this vaccine? The European Medicines Agency authorized it in 2015 but the WHO sat on it for six years. How long did the development…

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News Feed 21 May 2021

What is Dipcovan developed by DRDO

Dipcovan- Covid-19 detection kit The Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), a laboratory of DRDO located in New Delhi has developed a COVID-19 antibody detection kit Dipcovan. It can determine whether or not a person has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The kit has a shelf life of 18 months. It has been developed in association with Delhi-based Vanguard Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, for the qualitative detection of IgG antibodies in human serum or plasma, which are developed in response to the coronavirus antigens. The kit will be sold commercially by Vanguard Diagnostics from the first week of June. Dipcovan is a DIPAS-VDx Covid-19 IgG antibody microwell ELISA. It can detect both Spike & Nucleocapsid proteins of the virus with 97% sensitivity and 99% specificity. It requires 75 minutes for the test to be done, and is expected to be priced at ₹75 per test.

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News Feed 18 May 2021

Retracted Covid-19 Research Papers

The side-effect of the rat race to publish Hitting the Pub Med search tab with the keyword Covid-19 lists a whopping 1,35,105 results for the articles published between 2019-2021. Yes, researchers have been working very hard, however, many if not all are seeing this just as an opportunity to publish articles on a topic receiving intense interest from around the globe. The shooting number of research articles is also a consequence of researchers staying at home due to lock down and focusing just on writing rather than conducting research in the labs. Moreover, journals have developed a soft corner for those researchers who are publishing covid-related articles. According to a Nature article Covid related publications were peer-reviewed faster at medical journals while other research articles took longer than usual to get published. Compared with other topics, articles on COVID-19 have been shown to generate more citations. So, just to earn those citation numbers people…

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News Feed 13 Apr 2021

Electric nose that can detect hydrogen sulfide gas

Artificial electric nose made which can detect emissions of hydrogen sulfide gas from sewers Scientists from the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) India,in collaboration with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have developed an electronic nose with biodegradable polymer and monomer that can mimic olfactory receptor neuron, which enables us to detect the smell of various substances. During the microbial degradation of organic matter under anaerobic conditions in the sewers, hot-springs and during the production of crude-petroleum products, as well as while refining natural gases hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is produced. H2S is a poisonous, corrosive, and flammable gas which at concentrations (less than 10 ppm) cause eye irritation and fatigue, and exposure to levels higher than 100 ppm results in severe neurological damage and cardiovascular conditions. This artificial nose can protect humans from the harmful impact of this gas while working under such conditions. The total size of the device is 5…

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News Feed 21 Jan 2021

Who got the nobel prize in medicine or physiology 2020?

The year 2020 Nobel prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded jointly to 3 scientists Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice from America and Michael Houghton from United Kingdom for their discovery of Hepatitis C virus. Harvey J. Alter, Charles M. Rice, and Michael Houghton (From left to right) According to the World Health Organisation, there are 70 million people infected across the globe and 400,000 mortality each year due to the chronic virus. The disease caused by the virus is responsible for liver failure and liver cancer. How was the Hepatitis C virus discovered? Hepatitis B virus was already discovered in the 1960s and was considered to be responsible for blood transmitted hepatitis, therefore, blood used to be tested for the virus before blood transfusions to avoid blood transfusion-related Hepatitis B disease. Although the number of patients infected through blood transfusion was reduced post Hepatitis B screening, but a large group of individuals were still contracting the disease after…

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News Feed 30 Aug 2020

How coronavirus testing is being conducted?

The emergence of Coronavirus and Diagnosis Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has emerged as that superstar who needs no introduction. Coronam is the Latin term for crown, and coronavirus has the crown-like appearance. As of now, global Covid-19 deaths have exceeded over 8 lakhs with total cases at 25.1 million and still counting. There was only one lab for testing on January 23, 160 labs on March 23 and 1370 labs by August, in India according to the health ministry. Previously known as a 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was officially renamed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) on February 11, 2020. This name was selected because the virus is genetically related (70% similarity) to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2002. Diseases are officially named by WHO in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) while viruses are named by the ICTV. Diagnosis of COVID-19 involves multiple phases from sample collection…

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News Feed 26 Jul 2020

Love-hate relationship among mosquitoes towards light

1. Mosquitoes and their incessant buzz From vexatious buzz to itchy bites and their exceptional ability to escape from our murderous actions and buzzing around again as if chanting what a loser we were. Yes, mosquitoes have been a threat to humans as they are vectors or carriers of deadliest diseases that have affected people across the globe. There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes in the world and at least 400 of them can be found in India. Before the female mosquito dies, it can produce up to 500 eggs. The only pleasant thing about mosquitoes is that they do not live long, but in the meantime, they contribute to the death of millions of individuals over the world. Yes, millions you read it right, according to World health organization every year mosquitoes result in deaths of over 1 million people around the world. Fun fact- Only female mosquitoes feed on blood, without…

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News Feed 21 Jun 2020

State of PhD in India

Why do the majority of Indians seek to do a PhD? The answer is a better-secured career, money, social status and so on, it’s unfortunate that research enthusiasm and the love for science has somewhere lost on the way. As a biologist, it’s disheartening to speak that the Indian education system has become an industry whose sole purpose is to manufacture PhDs. This has dramatically affected the law of supply and demand, which in turn has left hundreds of PhD scholars jobless. PhD in India has become more of a social flaunting rather than their own interest in research. This has collectively led to the decline of the research standards and research output. The entrance to the PhD program is no more than a joke Our education system has always put us before a test and encourages those minds who can immaculately memorize the maximum number of jokes and pen down before missing out…

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