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Defining the brain mosaic in fruit flies and humans
Similar to a mosaic floor where different patterned tiles come together to make a composite and holistic image, our brains too consist of billions of unique neurons that finally connect together and generate coordinated brain activity. Unlike the mosaic floor, however, which is static, our brains are dynamic and activity in the brain changes based on environmental cues. So, what makes up the mosaic of our brain? Or, in other words, how are individual neurons different from each other?
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Protein Catch-22: Unravelling the Roles of Ataxin-2 in Health and Disease
Over thousands of people took the Ice Bucket Challenge, a sensation in the summer of 2014. Nominated participants were filmed dumping buckets of ice-cold water on their heads and they in turn, challenged their friends to do the same. Challenged participants had 24 hours to comply or refuse and thus forfeit a charitable financial donation.
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An integrated approach to understanding mental illnesses: doctors & scientists collaborate to study neuropsychiatric disorders
With nearly 2 –3% of the population of youngsters and adults (between the ages of 15–59 years) at risk of developing neuropsychiatric diseases, India needs to focus on understanding mental disorders.
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Active Evolvable Matter Lab Receives HFSP 2018 Young Investigator Research Grant
Prof. Shashi Thutupalli, head of the Active Evolvable Matter Laboratory at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore has received a 2018 Young Investigator Research Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP).
The prestigious three-year funding is intended to establish new collaborative ties with scientists around the world and empower these teams to combine their expertise in addressing fundamental questions.
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NCBS Evolutionary Biologists Win American Society of Naturalists 2018 Presidential Award
The American Society of Naturalists (ASN) conferred its prestigious 2018 Presidential Award to evolutionary biologists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, based in Bangalore, India. The ASN Presidential Award honors an outstanding research article from among all the papers published in the society’s journal, The American Naturalist, in the preceding calendar year. ‘Am. Nat.’ is a prominent scientific journal that publishes research papers in frontier areas of evolutionary biology and ecology.
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A new twist to an old story of cellular signalling in the eye of a fly
The eye of the fly
Is wondrous indeed,
For capturing images
At uncanny speeds.
The molecular signal
That makes this possible,
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For flour beetles, it’s better to be a woman in a man’s world
Recent work from Deepa Agashe’s and Radhika Venkatesan’s groups has shown that female red flour beetles reproduce better in male-dominated groups than in unbiased or female-dominated groups.
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Of Bugs and Beetles: Deadly bacteria select for immune memory in beetles
We live in a world dominated by microbes, and most organisms have had to evolve strategies to deal with both, beneficial and pathogenic microbes. For humans as well as the animals we have domesticated, vaccination is by far the most popular and effective strategy against many pathogenic microbes. Vaccination relies on immune memory: on first exposure to a pathogen, our adaptive immune system generates specific antibodies, protecting against re-infection by the same pathogen.
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SCIENCE GALLERY INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCES DIRECTOR FOR GALLERY IN BENGALURU
Dublin/Bengaluru, 27th November 2017— Science Gallery International (SGI) today announced the appointment of Dr Jahnavi Phalkey as the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru.
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Laws of attraction: hoverfly pollinators use multiple cues to identify flowers across continents
You and I live in a sensory world—sight, sound, touch and taste blend to give us a sense of our surroundings. However, imagine perceiving the world as a fly, with a brain the size of a pinhead. Yet many insects with miniscule brains manage to do exactly what we do—identify objects like a flower, or a plant.