Science & technology

The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) and the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), the two prominent institutions under the Ministry of Ayush, Government of India for regulating medical education and conducting scientific research respectively, have launched ‘SMART’ (Scope for Mainstreaming Ayurveda Research in Teaching …

India’s first case of the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron was confirmed in Gujarat by the national genome sequencing consortium on December 31. XBB.1.5 has been driving COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Studies of the strain indicate that it is highly transmissible and evades pre-existing immunity. Yet it doesn’t seem to …

What are deepfakes? Deepfakes are digital media – video, audio, and images edited and manipulated using Artificial Intelligence. It is basically hyper-realistic digital falsification. Deepfakes are created to inflict harm on individuals and institutions. Access to commodity cloud computing, public research AI algorithms, and abundant data and availability of vast …

Early this month, the Indian Navy chief, Admiral Hari Kumar, at the annual press conference on the eve of Navy Day (December 4) had said that the Indian Navy had put on hold its plans to build a second indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-2) that is larger than IAC-1 (INS Vikrant). Instead, …

A new method to confine and absorb infrared (IR) light with GaN nanostructures can help develop highly efficient infrared absorbers, emitters, and modulators that are useful in defense technologies, energy technologies, imaging, sensing, and so on. GaN, a widely used material for blue light emission, is one of the most advanced …

The Tamil Nadu government has come up with a greenhouse gas inventory compendium for Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli. The aim is to prepare a contextual and inclusive climate- resilient action plans for these cities. The manufacturing and construction sectors accounted for the highest quantum of greenhouse gas emissions in Coimbatore …

Since the initial outbreak in 2019 in Wuhan, China, the world has seen multiple repeated waves of COVID-19 infections over the past few years, largely driven by the emerging variants of concern (VOCs) of the causative virus, SARS-CoV-2. However, until recently, China remained successful in containing the spread of the …

Some Internet-based firms have been tricking users into agreeing to certain conditions or clicking a few links. The unsuspecting users would not have accepted to such terms or clicked urls (uniform resource locator), but for the deceptive tactics deployed by tech firms. Such acceptances and clicks are flooding inboxes of …

Assessing the Mission Mode (MM) projects of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has flagged time and cost overrun in completion of projects, irregular closure of projects declaring them successful despite non-achievement of one or more key objectives and parameters, and taking up …

India ranks poorly on multiple health financing indicators. Its public health expenditure as a percentage of its GDP (1.28%) and share of general government expenditure dedicated to health (4.8%) remain akin to the poorest countries. Per capita health spending growth has not kept pace with rising incomes. Private spending still …

In a boost to the country’s maritime capabilities, INS Mormugao has officially joined the Indian Navy’s fleet, marking a significant milestone for indigenous military expedition. The warship ‘Yard 12705’, named after the Goan port city of Mormugao, is the second of the four Visakhapatnam-class destroyers being built under the Indian …

The English computer scientist Alan Turing’s “imitation game” or “Turing test” takes the stance that a machine successfully represents a human if it responds to a question like a human mind does. From Plato’s mimesis (representation) as the principle of art, to the Turing test, and to recent progresses in artificial intelligence, …

The spurt in coronavirus cases reported out of China has triggered global alarm. India’s Health Ministry has issued a directive to States to send positive samples to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) to check for new, concerning strains. The Health Minister, too, has called for a review meeting of …

The BF.7 variant of coronavirus, belived to be linked to the surge in COVID-19 cases in China, was identified in India as far back as July. Four instances of the Omicron subvariant was genome-sequenced in Gujarat and Odisha in the subsequent months, but it was not linked to increased severity …

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace watchdog, is rolling out new regulations, to be effective from January 10, to restrict the use of deep synthesis technology and curb disinformation. Deep synthesis is defined as the use of technologies, including deep learning and augmented reality, to generate text, images, …

In this era of globalisation, almost all nations are dependent on each other in the field of trade and hence rule-based freedom of navigation and security of sea lanes have become more important than ever for stability and economic progress of the world, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday. …

The results of a trial of an experimental cancer vaccine built on the mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) platform, made by Moderna and MSD (Merck&Co.), have shown promising results, media announcements claimed last week. Patients taking an immunotherapy drug Keytruda for advanced melanoma (a kind of skin cancer) were less likely …

The allure of quantum computers (QC) is their ability to take advantage of quantum physics to solve problems too complex for conventional computers. Several institutes and companies worldwide have invested in developing QC systems, from software to solve specific problems to the science that goes into expanding their hardware capabilities. …

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal have carried out whole genome sequencing of banyan (Ficusbenghalensis) and peepal(Ficus religiosa) from leaf tissue samples. They also undertook a comprehensive genome-wide phylogenetic analysis with 50 other angiosperm plant species, including four other sequencedFicus species. Genome sizes of these …

A NASA-led international satellite was launched from Southern California, on a major Earth science project to conduct a comprehensive survey of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time. Dubbed as SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), the advanced radar satellite is designed to give an unprecedented view …