Chandni Gurusrikar

Changing landscapes, habitat loss, fragmentation, and global climate change have been listed as the main reasons for biodiversity decline worldwide. Now, a new study from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, has added to the growing knowledge that anthropogenic activities can impact genetic connectivity or the movement among habitat patches usually resulting in mating and genetic exchange.

Recently, the campus had the pleasure of hosting two eminent French scientists. Dr Pascale Cossart of the Institut Pasteur and Dr Didier Roux of the National Academy of Technologies of France spent time at the Cluster over two days this October.

The state of bees, and work from Dr Axel Brockmann's Honey Bee lab at NCBS is covered by the Live Mint in this article. 

 In the backdrop of climate change, NCBS, a subsidiary of TIFR, has taken up a study on the carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption by evergreen forests of Western Ghats, at Nilkunda forest area in Siddapur taluk.

Chandni Gurusrikar has been awarded Sanctuary Asia's Wildlife Service Award 2019. The award recognises her work with the local communities, the forest department and various other stakeholders to protect and conserve the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and the river Cauvery. 

On 18 December, 2019, the Bangalore Life Science Cluster was visited by a delegation from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, led by  Prof.  Antoine Petit, President, CNRS.

A software engineer from Karnataka, Chandni Gurusrikar,  who was involved in conservation projects across the landscapes of Bandipur,  Nagarhole and Bhadra tiger reserves,  received the wildlife service award of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation. 

A new study from the National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, has thrown some light on the mystery of how flies can land on vertical and upside-down surfaces. Sanjay Sane’s group at NCBS has shown that fly landing maneuvers have two distinct modules of behavior – deceleration and leg extension. The team has found that deceleration or slowing down, is like a reflex action, and sets in at a distance proportional to the speed of flight. In other words, at higher flight speeds, deceleration sets in earlier and further away from the landing surface.

Researchers have discovered a new species of non-venomous burrowing snake in Arunachal Pradesh, named Trachischium apteii.