Scientists and researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore have come up with a new citizen-science repository on Indian mammals, called Mammals of India (MaOI), which is an online, peer- reviewed, freely-accessible portal that was launched late September 2018.

A team led by Dr. Praveen Kumar Vemula from the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), Bengaluru, an autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology, used a chemical reaction to convert the ester into acid by using a catalyst to make the pesticide inactive.

Indian farmers usually do not wear any protective gear while spraying chemicals in fields. This exposes them to harmful toxics contained in pesticides, causing severe health impacts and even death in extreme cases. Indian scientists have now developed a protective gel to address this problem.

The gel, named poly-Oxime, has been prepared by researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (InStem), Bangalore from a nucleophilic polymer.

A team of researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in India led by Dr. P.V. Shivaprasad wondered whether another type of molecular regulator, named microRNAs, also contributed to the domestication of rice. We hope that our finding promotes future research to identify other changes associated with domestication of plants, spearheading further improvement in crops for the future," states Dr. Shivaprasad.
 

From Old Letters Preserved In Godrej Cabinets To One-Of-A-Kind Scientific Equipment, A Peek Inside NCBS Bengaluru’s Upcoming Scientific Archive.

The archive will be open to everyone, and its curator hopes that someday it will be part of an interconnected digital archive of science that enables storytelling across different disciplines.

Kiran Marathe, a young 20-something researcher from the National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, works on one of India’s most under-studied species of insects — the cicadas. Two new species of cicadas have been discovered in the Western Ghats, one in Goa and the other in the Kodagu district of Karnataka.

A team of geneticists, conservation biologists and wildlife officials are in the process of preparing a genetic map — that is, tracing out the sequence of genes — from Machhli’s DNA, which was extracted at the time of her death. Dr. Uma Ramakrishnan, at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, is leading Machhli’s genome analysis.

A new study shows bats love a caffeine kick just as much as we do. The study authored by Shasank Ongole and Dr. Mahesh Sankaran from the National Centre for Biological Sciences in collaboration with CWS Scientist Krithi K Karanth finds that bats, in fact, love shade-grown coffee.

Shade-grown coffee serves as an important commuting route for bats and if properly managed, these coffee plantations can have significant ecological value for bats, a new study has said.

For a fruit fly, flying is just about everything. It is the most important innate behavior that helps the fly reach out to food sources and mates, escape predators, and find secure sites to lay eggs. But what gives the fruit fly its ability to fly relentlessly and reach out to your fruit bowl? A recent study from the lab of Prof.