JOEL P JOSEPH

Scientists have developed a new technique to detect cancers. The method uses ultrasound to turn a small part of our body’s tissue into droplets that are released into the blood. These bubbles contain molecules like RNA, DNA, and proteins that allow the scientists to identify particular types of cancer.
Roger Zemp, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada, led a recent study describing such a technique. He presented his team’s findings at ...

Scientists have cracked the mystery of how some cancer cells that ought not to survive could actually take help from their ‘neighbours’ to succeed and form drug-resistant tumours instead..

Viruses infect plants, animals, and humans. A virus’ spread from animals to humans could unleash pandemics like COVID-19 — significant public health crises with considerable economic and social fallout. To nip such infections in the bud, public health researchers have advocated the ‘One Health’ approach: monitoring and protecting plant, animal, environment, and human health in an integrated fashion.
Quick, easy, and cost-effective methods of detecting viral infections can go a long way in ens...

Scientists have fused brain-like tissue with electronics to make an ‘organoid neural network’ that can recognise voices and solve a complex mathematical problem. Their invention extends neuromorphic computing – the practice of modelling computers after the human brain – to a new level by directly including brain tissue in a computer.
The system was developed by a team of researchers from Indiana University, Bloomington; the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical C...

“You are more microbes than human.”
It is possible you have had this factoid thrown at you, with the thrower claiming that the microbes in our bodies outnumber our own cells 10 to one.
But according to an assessment published in Nature Microbiology, this is a myth. In a 2016 study the assessment’s authors cited, researchers from Israel and Canada estimated a 70 kg “reference man” to have 38 trillion bacterial cells and 30 trillion human cells. Most current estimates of the size of the gut mic...

Ants are social insects that live in colonies. Individual ants perform specific tasks for the colony, like supplying food, cleaning the nest, defending the colony, etc. There’s no ‘control room’ telling which ant what to do, yet they seem to know exactly what to do and when.

Consider the foragers – worker ants that bring food into the colony. The amount of food they carry perfectly ...

Safety measures before a surgery aren’t just to save lives – they can also significantly lower the health bill if followed in letter and spirit.

Investing in safe surgeries could significantly reduce the costs associated with surgeries in low-to-middle-income countries like India, according to a study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection.

Mark Monahan, a lecturer of health economics at the Institute of Applied Health, University of Birmingham, led the multinational study. The findin...

The recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act brought cheer to animal rights activists and drug developers alike. By approving the Act, the US government green-lit computer-based and experimental alternatives to animals to test new drugs.
The move is expected to boost the research and development of organ chips – small devices containing human cells that are used to mimic the environment in human organs, including blood flow and breathing movements, serving as synthetic envir...

Ameer Shahul is an investigative journalist turned public policy leader. In his first book, Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal, Shahul narrates the gripping story of how a Hindustan Unilever-owned thermometer factory unleashed a mercury poisoning catastrophe in Kodaikanal. In this book, Shahul recounts his personal experiences tracking the events as a reporter and Greenpeace campaigner in addition t...

The distribution of certain plants in different parts of the world is tied to their colonial history, according to a new study. These plants in places that the Europeans colonised are more similar to each other than to those in other random parts of the world.

An international team of researchers led by Bernd Lenzner and Franz Essl, a postdoctoral researcher and an associate professor, respectively, at the University of Vienna, conducted the study. Their findings were published on October 17.

Nearly two years since the Indian government proposed its ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ plan, there have been no public updates on its progress.
ONOS proposes to centrally negotiate a payment to journal publishers so that the papers they publish can be accessed by the people of India for free.
Subhash Lakhotia, distinguished professor at BHU said “the major catch is how much the commercial interests of publishers will be acceded to ...

The rationalisation of the goods and services tax (GST) rates has dealt a severe blow to Indian scientists. As the tax rates on scientific and technical instruments to public research institutes went up from 5% to “applicable rates,” scientists will now have to pay 12% or 18% GST on equipment they purchase.

It is still not clear how some seemingly healthy individuals develop severe COVID-19 while others don’t. According to some scientists, oral microbes could be the answer.
Normally, microbes in the oral cavity benefit us by checking the growth of disease-causing bacteria in our mouth and protecting us from infections.
But poor oral hygiene can alter this diversity of microbes, against beneficial bacteria and in favour of disease-causing bacteria, leading to ...

Sukant Saran is a physicist-turned-artist who has been creating sculptures since 2012, and has exhibited his work at various venues over the years. Some of these sculptures are on display in an exhibition named ‘Sculpting Science’, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. The exhibit closes on June 14.
His hand-made structures of clay are artistic expressions of fundamental concepts of science, mostly physics. Joel P. Joseph interviewed Saran for The Wire Science about his journey as an artist and into science-art.

In the acclaimed 2013 Malayalam film Drishyam, the protagonist – a middle-aged family man guarding a terrible secret – plants memories in the minds of several people in his village, in each case changing little but significant details about the date and time of their meeting with repeated, suggestive conversations.

He intends to gaslight the whole community into misremembering certain facts that will dilute any certainty about his actions, without drawing suspicion towards himself, and allow his family to get away with a crime.