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

Thanks to efforts from the Bengaluru Butterfly Club (BBC), Karnataka Forest Department and the Indian Foundation for Butterflies (of the National Centre for Biological Sciences - NCBS), the awareness, conservation and detailed documentation of butterflies has helped to have on record more than 170 species found in Bengaluru alone.

In aquatic environments, like the inland rivers in India, the waters are muddy. The visibility is poorer in these parts from more clearer blue oceanic waters. Many of the animals living in these waterways rely far more on sound than sight for their survival.

Pests continuously adapt and become resistant to our efforts to eliminate them, and as ecologists at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) discovered recently, this happens in nature too, in the fight between plants and insects.

 What exactly is a forest? India’s green cover is not easy to understand. There are different types of greenery, lands where trees shouldn’t crop up even if they can, and the definition of forests, savannas, and other green ecosystems vary across the country. 

An interview with Dr Vinothkumar of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore Life Science Cluster, who works with the cryo-electron microscope (Cryo-EM) on membrane proteins and disease. 

Read more and watch the interview.

Bats are reservoirs of many microorganisms responsible for infectious diseases. One such is a type of virus called filovirus, which causes severe haemorrhagic fever in humans and primates.

A new study has found that there may be virus spillover – tr ..
 

A new study conducted by the Bengaluru-based National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS) along with two other health institutions has found that the transmission of virus from one species to another may be occurring between bats and humans.

“When I was a student, Late Prof. K. S. Krishnan who was on the interview panel asked me, ‘how do flies land on the ceiling?’ Although seemingly an innocuous question, it turns out to be a really complex phenomenon,” says Prof Sanjay Sane from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru. Now, after several years of research using the modern state of the art tools and months of video recordings his team has answered the question.