India has banned the manufacture, sale, and use of identified single-use plastic items like plates, cups, straws, trays, polystyrene, and plastic carry bags from 1 July 2022. As an alternative, cotton, jute, or paper bags are being used for carrying groceries or pre-cooked food items. Often, these items are carried in paper bags made of recycled newspaper. The ink in printing the newspaper can potentially harm the items in contact, posing health hazards. Dr. Kritiraj K. Gaikwad and Lokam Hakim of IIT Roorkee’s Department of Paper Technology have developed a plant-based edible ink having all th ..read more

A recent study conducted by researchers from the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, has revealed the reasons behind the lowest Antarctic Sea Ice Extent (SIE) in February 2022. They have investigated the role of atmospheric forcing and climate fluctuations in identifying the causes of the sea ice retreat. The lowest Sea Ice Extent (SIE) record was assumed to result from the sea ice recession that began in September 2021. SIE is the area of ice that covers the arctic ocean at a given time. There is a difference between sea ice area and sea ice extent. Sea ice area is the ..read more

Artificial Intelligence solutions for screening, diagnosis, and decision support hold a lot of promise to improve access to healthcare and boost productivity and effectiveness of human health resources at all levels. However, it cannot happen automatically. There is a need to put together quality-assured and curated medical imaging datasets that truly represent India’s diversity of people, the settings and needs to realise that promise. In a new initiative, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have agreed to work together in this direction. A ..read more

The Department of Biotechnology and its PSU, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, on Wednesday announced that the Drug Controller General of India had given emergency use authorization for the first-of-its-kind intranasal COVID-19 vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech. The development of the vaccine was supported by DBT and BIRAC under the aegis of Mission COVID Suraksha. DBT launched the mission, and BIRAC implemented it to reinforce and accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development efforts as part of the Aatmanirbhar 3.0 programme. This is the fourth success story for the COVID-19 vac ..read more

The Union Minister of Science & Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh has approved a loan of Rs 1.15 crores to a Maharashtra-based start-up, M/s TGP Bioplastics to manufacture and commercialise a “compostable” plastic material. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) in the Union Ministry of Science & Technology, and the company. The project has also received seed funding under the NIDHI Prayas scheme of the DST, Niti Aayog, and United Nations Industrial Developme ..read more

Charcoal is widely used as fuel for domestic and industrial heating applications. While most of the developed countries are producing industrial charcoal through the retort system, it was not available for Indian charcoal producers because of technological barriers and the need for higher capital investment. Now, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, have developed a novel improved natural draft charcoal retort to address the technological and capital investment challenges of Indian charcoal makers. “This innovative reactor is proven to produce high-quality charcoal from ..read more

The Union Minister of State Science & Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh inaugurated the country’s first open rock museum in Hyderabad, on Thursday. The new rock museum on the campus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Geophysical Research Institute (CSIR-NGRI), houses around 35 different types of rocks from different parts of India with ages ranging from 3.3 billion years to around 55 million years. It aims to educate and enlighten the masses about the lesser-known physical properties of the earth and its surrounding environment. “One of the recent decisions we also t ..read more

New drugs could soon be in the offing for Zika virus (ZIKV) infection with a team of scientists at the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, getting new insights into how the virus multiplies inside the host. Zika is a major health problem worldwide. It is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, the same mosquito that causes dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever infections. In adults, the symptoms are mild fever, headache, conjunctivitis, joint pain, and body rash. However, in pregnant women, when it is transmitted to the fetus, it may lead to a condition ..read more

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras are working on developing new wearable devices that will assist people with hearing impairment and cerebral palsy, and other motor disabilities to communicate independently and enhance their quality of life. Two major projects are being developed: ‘Vibe’ for the hearing impaired and ‘iGest’for persons with cerebral palsy, and other motor disabilities. Both devices are embedded systems that will bring the latest developments from the Internet of Things and Machine Learning to wearable assistive devices. Such wearable devices will have re ..read more

The Union Minister of State Science & Technology; Minister of State Earth Sciences; and MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh has inaugurated an advanced 650 teraflops supercomputing facility at National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) at Mohali which will act as a facilitator for start-ups working in areas like telemedicine, digital health, mHealth with big data, AI, Blockchain and other technologies. Established at a cost of Rs. 20 crores, it will cater to the needs of the interdisciplinary cutting-edge research being carrie ..read more