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A La Nina would have significant consequences for global agriculture because it typically brings wetter weather to eastern Australia and southeast Asia and drier conditions to the Americas. | Photo Credit: Ritu Raj Konwar/The Hindu There are early signs that a La Nina weather event may form in the Pacific Ocean later this year, Australia’s…
Read More “Australian weather bureau sees 50% chance of La Nina this year” »
Twelve breast cancer genes identified in women of African ancestry in a large study published on Monday may one day help better predict their risk for the disease and highlights potential risk differences from women of European descent. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Twelve breast cancer genes identified in women of African ancestry in a…
The male savannah elephant Doma and the male savannah elephant Mainos engage in greeting behaviour at Jafuta Reserve in Zimbabwe, in this undated handout picture. | Photo Credit: Reuters People greet each other in a variety of ways. They might say “hello,” “guten tag,” “hola,” “konnichiwa” or “g’day.” They might shake hands, bump fists, make…
Read More “For elephants, like people, greetings are a complicated affair” »
On the eve of Holi in Udaipur, Subash Chowk, a prominent intersection surrounded by luxury hotels, is transformed. Bhajans and Bollywood songs blare from speakers and firecrackers fly into the sky. In the centre stands tall the Holika Dahan, a 50-foot-high tree sheathed in hay and set ablaze, sending tongues of flame leaping over a…
Read More “For Udaipur’s Holi, Rajasthan’s semal trees are going up in flames” »
Researchers fondly call the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans “the worm” because of its widespread use in research to understand neuronal and molecular biology. It was the first multicellular organism to have its full genome sequenced and neural wiring mapped. C. elegans grows within 3-5 days from a fertilised egg to a millimetre-long adult, and it has…
Read More “This worm develops food habits and its offspring ‘inherit’ them” »
The front cover of Indian Rocketinte Shilpikal. Building a nation’s space programme from scratch is no mean feat. Once, in the early days of India’s own attempts in this direction, two of its scientists were asked to get ready to leave for Australia in one or two days. The idea was to make the most…
Read More “New book throws light on the people who helped build India’s first rockets” »
A recent study has found that episodes of heavy snowfall and rain likely contributed to a swarm of earthquakes over the past several years in northern Japan. This is the first time that climate conditions have been found to initiate some quakes. The seismic activity in the region was surprisingly found to synchronise with certain changes…
Read More “Can heavy snowfall and rain contribute to some earthquakes?” »
Higher consumption of most ultra-processed foods is linked to a slightly higher risk of death, with ready-to-eat meat, poultry, and seafood based products, sugary drinks, dairy based desserts, and highly processed breakfast foods showing the strongest associations, finds a 30-year U.S. observational study. The results were published in the journal The BMJ. The researchers say not all…
Read More “30-year study links ultra-processed food to higher risk of early death” »
Gold-billed magpies occupy the high altitude zone between 2,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level Magpies belong to the Corvidae family of birds that includes crows, jays and ravens. Birds of this family are generally considered to be noisy, inquisitive birds that in folklore from around the world have often been associated with omens, good…
Cattle have so far not been associated with being infected in large-scale, and as a result, cattle have not been well studied as domestic hosts for influenza A virus species. In contrast to the notion that cattle are considered to be almost resistant to infection with influenza A virus, H5N1 virus, which was first detected…
Read More “Will cattle be the next evolutionary lab for flu host-switching?” »