`Remote sensing is being used to predict crop-growing seasons'
Satellite technology is not just being used to monitor and predict climate change events. Its applications are now also accurately estimating crop-…
Why can't Indians access maps for 43 per cent of their country?
How is it that you can buy a map of India in Paris with details as fine as the location of all tyre puncture shops in Delhi (updated every six …
US embraces nuclear reactors to power spacecrafts
Thirty years after they were abandoned for good, nuclear reactors are making a fatal comeback in the US spacecrafts. In 2003, the US National …
Sergio Canavero: the brain behind first proposed head transplant
Surgeon Sergio Canavero, director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, has been making news for two years after he claimed he …
What makes us so?
This is no longer a question for philosophers. Evolutionary biologists also dwell upon it. Manuel Massot from Laboratoire Ecologie & Evolution,…
Developed nations are not bothered about marine resources
Fifty-five-year-old thomas kocherry , one of the founders of the National Fishworkers Forum -- a trade union network of 200,000 traditional …
Simulating real-life networks
India is a leader in IT. But how do researchers here apply the science to improve people’s lives? Malay Bhattacharyya, assistant professor …
Does science need spiritualism?
At the time of Independence, India saw 'big' science and technology as the only way ahead. Perhaps with good reason. Fifty-odd years later, though,…
Path lab in a tablet
Kanav Kahol, an expert on biomedical informatics, quit his teaching job in the US and came back to India to create a technology that would …
Farming fish and mussels
When bad management and increasing demand for inland fish led to plummeting stocks, fishing villages around the Ashtamudi estuary in Kollam …
India's Chandrayaan programme is "ambitious"
A moon rush is hotting up, with India, China and Japan devising substantial space exploration programmes to compete with the big players -- the …
Combining chips and drives
In today's information world, bits of data are processed by semiconductor chips, but stored in magnetic disc drives. Limitations of this …
'Mass housing is a self-defeating concept'
SUHASINI AYER-GUIGAN is an architect concerned with issues of rural development and habitat. Holding a degree in architecture from the Delhi-…
Only connect?
Telecommunications and the television (TV) broadcasting sectors have been most instrumental in ushering in what is called the 'Information society'…
The grand old man of Kannada
SOME PEOPLE live in years, others in deeds. At 91, Kota Shivarama Karanth has done both. Journalist, litterateur, dramatist, playwright, …
"The name of the game is resource productivity"
Currently chairperson of the Bundestag committee on environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsaecker has …
The best of Indian science
In this and the following issue, DOWN TO EARTH presents a review of India's ten best scientific research projects. The selection is based on the …
Geared to derail
Late last year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Indian Railways (IR) castigated the for squandering money on import deals which would …
How enabling is ICT?
In February, 100-odd people got together at the quaint little town of Baramati. All had a common goal: to exchange ideas on the use of …
Africa is heading for trouble
The founding president of African Academy of Science, Thomas R Odhiambo , has been working to evolve a framework necessary for stimulating …
Pocket air sensors
Rapid urbanisation coupled with growing industrialisation has increased the levels of pollutants in the air manifold. But detecting these …
Zeroing in on persistent pollutants
Paints and refrigerants have chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are difficult to remove …
"The UK has to live by its wits"
DAVID ANTHONY KING has been chief scientific advisor to the United Kingdom government for 3 years now. Prior to this, he was head of the …
Battle for the Internet
As the Internet becomes the public square and the marketplace of our world, it is increasingly becoming a contested terrain. Its potential for …