JOEL JOSEPH

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.

In the heart of Bangalore, a city known for its beautiful gardens and majestic trees – now dwindling – lies the lush green campus of IISc. Within it is a small patch of unmanicured woods, populated by over 49 tree species, many of them from the Western Ghats, besides several animals, including a variety of birds, butterflies, reptiles and primates.
The origin of this woodland, popularly known as the...

It is 5 PM on a Saturday. A group of children are glued to their screens, awaiting the host’s permission to join the week’s episode of Talk To A Scientist (TTAS).
Week after week, children from across...

When we perform goal-oriented tasks, we display motivated behaviour, which is driven by a combination of environmental cues and spontaneous cellular events.
Researchers in France studied food-seeking behaviour in two species of sea slugs – Aplysia californica and Aplysia fasciata – to understand motivated behaviour.
Neurogeneticist Björn Brembs said ‘the stu...

A recent study, published in Nature Plants, by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has shed light on how simple leaves – one of the two basic forms of leaves – develop in a plant. The team included researchers from the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB) and their collaborators from Shodhaka Life Sciences, Bengaluru.

In a new study, scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have experimentally shown the existence of two species of few electron bubbles (FEBs) in superfluid helium for the first time. These FEBs can serve as a useful model to study how the energy states of electrons and interactions between them in a material influence its properties.

A team of researchers from Mangaluru, Karnataka, has shown that information technology tools such as their Malaria Control System can be powerful allies in anti-malaria programs. Here is a report on how digitisation helped Mangaluru chalk its success story against malaria.

Bengaluru: The fortunes of a big science experiment that incumbent Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin opposed during his time as the opposition leader may be in for a reversal, as Stalin has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to shut it.
But instead of closing it, several scientists recently appealed to Stalin to approve and support the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO...

Bengaluru: Scientists cited studies that were not reproducible – and therefore were likelier to be false – more than those that were, according to a new study published on May 21, 2021.

Science is additive. Most findings we know now as facts were built over many years of research, by various groups of scientists working around the world. Sometimes generations passed before a real-world application of some early discovery came into view. But all of this progress ...

Scientists who study the brain look at it at different levels: from behaviour to neural networks, all the way down to individual cells, molecules and genes. Decoding each of these will eventually help us piece together the puzzle of how our brain works.
Rishikesh Narayanan’s lab at the Molecular Biophysics Unit in IISc works mainly at the cellular level, although they occasionally dabble in the molecular and network scales. Using computational and experimental techniques, they study how neuro...

Bengaluru: There are a lot of things to focus on while crossing roads — traffic rules, being on the lookout for potholes (not your phones), etc. But when a vehicle whizzes in out of nowhere, you can sense it and stop in your path.
How does our brain process this ‘salient event’ — sudden events that reorient our attention during routine tasks — even as it is focussed on something else?
Scientists from the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), Manesar, think they have a part of the answer, and...

Bengaluru: For over a century, cosmologists have assumed that the universe is homogenous and appears the same in all directions. But in the last few years, many physicists and astronomers have challenged this so-called cosmological principle.
A group of scientists from the US, the UK, France and India ...

Bengaluru: Entrepreneur Christina Wallace wrote in 2015, “for most people – myself included – the default [picture of a scientist] is probably a white man in a lab coat, hunched over a microscope.”
Thanks to many individuals, collectives and movements showing the mirror on racial, gender-based and caste-based discrimination in STEM, this stereotype is slowly changing. However, few still have promoted the inclusion of people with a disability in STEM.
Beyond the id...

Studies suggest that prolonged financial instability can be a major contributor to mental health challenges. There is great disparity in the level of remuneration and financial incentives offered to graduate students in India, a population that is highly vulnerable to mental health issues. In this article, Joel explores some of the issues early career researchers face with regards to their financial security, and how these can leave an impact on their mental well-being.
Independent studies fr...