Researchers at the Bengaluru-based NCBS have used hair shed by tigers to identify their family relationships.
 

The study, published in Ecology and Evolution is co-authored by researchers at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru and senior forest officers of the Rajasthan Forest Department. The matrilineages were corroborated with the help of records of family trees maintained by the forest department.

“Collecting and sequencing the whole genome with shed hairs of tigers is something that has been done for the first time,” said Anubhab Khan, who led the study done by the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, in collaboration with the Rajasthan Forest Department and Medgenome Labs.

Butterflies of India (IFoundButterflies.org), a website launched by Kunte in 2010, crowd-sources images to map and document butterflies in India.

Speaking at a webinar on ‘Vaccines for the 21st century” organised by the CovidGyan as part of its WebGyan series on Thursday, Dr.Kang stressed the need to deeply understand immune responses against new vaccines to ensure that people were protected against increased future risk.

IIT Bombay researchers have developed an algorithm which can be used to help conduct pooled testing of samples for COVID-19. In order to validate this protocol – known as Tapestry Pooling – in vitro experiments using synthetic RNA and DNA fragments have been carried out by NCBS and inStem, Bengaluru, and Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering, U.S. Further validation using clinical samples is under way.

“ADAAB, the whole world is gripped by coronavirus and most important in the fight against it is correct news and information,” Manal Shakeel, doing her PhD in Biology, tells her Urdu audience on YouTube. She is among the 15 researchers from National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, who are reaching out to the vernacular audience with information on the spread of Covid-19, while trying to dispel myths around it.

A team of scientists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (InStem) and other research institutes in Bengaluru are developing new disinfection technology; efficient sampling and new pooled testing methods; and technologies to screen potential drugs to treat the virus.

"We have formed a group of more than 600 clinicians, neurobiologists, data scientists, cognitive scientists, sensory researchers, and technicians from 50 countries to develop a common voluntary survey to determine if loss or change of smell or taste is a reliable symptom to indicate (Covid-19) infection," Shannon B. Olsson, the city-based American researcher, told IANS.

The study, published in the journal Zoosytematics and Evolution, describes the new species of green pit viper,