Finally, we have another reason to believe that everyone is hard at work within the walls at NCBS! Faculty, students and researchers have lit up the world stage and brought back accolades. Here, we present a list of the prize winners from 2008 and 2009. We hope to follow up soon with a list from 2010!

A torch beam flashes and there is a glimpse of fur between the branches. A loris goes about its nightly business of feeding by trying to catch insects with its hands or gouge out resins from tree-holes, extricating itself from a mess of climbers and being bitten by mosquitoes. The Bengal slow loris is one of the three species of a genus of nocturnal primate found only in South Asia. They live in the rainforests of North-East India, sharing their habitats with a host of other interesting creatures such as leopard cats, civets, muntjacs, snakes, birds and spectacularly coloured moths. But beyond the rosy picture, the slow loris is threatened by the extremely lucrative illegal wildlife trade. Recent studies and market surveys have shown that slow lorises are one among the most commonly seen primate species in markets across their range. This has resulted in shifting the species from Appendix II to Appendix I of the CITES in 2007. Sadly, not enough is known about this widespread species (northeast India, Burma, Cambodia, southern China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) to put in place effective conservation measures.

A hard fought battle between competitors and judges has boiled down to these final, but difficult decisions. The first NCBS photo competition has come to an end with the announcement of the judges decision for best photo and runner-up. Ashesh's brilliant image of the hole in the roof of the cave had a clear edge over competition with unanimous votes from all our judges. The winner was clear, but the heat was on for the second spot.

As with the popular vote winners, the winners of the judges prize will receive cash awards reimbursable against the purchase of books, for Rs 1000 and Rs 250 respectively.Winners can contact the accounts section with the bills corresponding to their book purchase in order to receive their reimbursements.

Aditya Joshi, an unassuming member of the 2010 Master's in Wildlife Biology and Conservation Program was awarded the prestigious Ullas Karanth - J. Paul Getty award this year. This award, instituted to honor both academic and conservation excellence for the students of the Master's program, is in its second year of existence and Aditya is the third awardee. In addition to covering tuition and others costs of the course, this Fellowship also entitles Aditya to a travel grant to attend an international seminar to present results of his dissertation project.

The 7th of July 2010 saw Krishnapriya Tamma of Lab 3 (Dr Uma Ramakrishnan's lab), attending her first day at the workshop on Analytical Methods in Paleobiology, organized by the Paleobiology Database.Originally started by a group of young paleontologists and popularized by John Alroy, this database is an important forum for all paleontologists. The story of evolution cannot be told without fossil evidence, but understanding their role in the history of life on our plan has remained esoteric at best. Given the incomplete nature of the fossil record, this database plugs a major hole in fossil datasets, by allowing access to fossil datasets from all across the world. It also organizes this workshop every year, for 12 students selected from across the world. usually organized in Santa Barbara, US, this time the course made its debut in Sydney.