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The article presents the science news briefs. Topics include sun constantly emitting electromagnetic radiation and energetic charged particles as solar wind; team using satellite imagery and ground-based measurements of magnetic and gravitational anomalies for understanding the region's geological and geomorphological features; and Iodine being an essential micronutrient where deficiency causing goitre, hypothyroidism, and various developmental problems in children.

The article discusses glacier melting in the Himalayas has created thousands of such lakes, posing the risk of outburst floods. Topics include ‘polyhydroxybutyrate has usually produced using bacteria like Pseudodonghicola and Bacillus coagulans; and the researchers found about 161 of the 2424 lakes have stable, mostly in the ablation area.

The article offers news briefs, involve in Ladakh, Trans-Himalaya region, receives monsoon rains in summer and plenty of snowfall due to the Westerlies, and an increase in the electron count in the ionosphere, extending from about 60 to 350 kilometres above sea level, is caused by the sun's rays.

The article offers science news briefs. Topics include Krossfjorden on the northwest coast of Norway, is a deep water body with steep walls of rock on either side a fjord formed by Arctic glaciers, Ganga is considered a holy river, and Kajal Chakraborty and team from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Ernakulam have been exploring marine organisms for possible therapeutic molecules.

The article focuses on Pune Population Vulnerability: Cold- and heat-related mortality.

The article focuses on Canine bufavirus, known to cause enteritis in dogs, has been reported from Italy and China and researchers from the PVNR Telangana Veterinary University has investigated the occurrence of this virus in India.

The article presents the yellow vein mosaic virus causes severe damage to okra crops and resistant varieties developed using conventional methods did not yield good results.

The article explores Aluminium, a neurotoxin, accumulates in the brain, and causes neurological disorders and cognitive deficits. Exposure to aluminium has increased via food wraps, cookware and medicines. Gotu kola, Centella asiatica, is used in Ayurveda as a memory enhancer. Can it treat cognitive deficits caused by aluminium toxicity, wondered Tryambak Deo Singh and team from the Banaras Hindu University.

The article explores Conventional horizontal axis wind turbines are difficult to install. And, after installation, they make a racket. Vertical axis wind turbines, or Savonius rbines, are less expensive to install and produce less noise. And they operate even at low wind speeds. But they have lower power efficiency.

The article explores Wildlife consultant, Aniruddha Mookerjee, along with Minakshi Kalita and Anu Saikia from Gauhati University, investigated the snakehead fish trade in India. From the website of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, they collected and analysed commercial data – date of export, quantity, price, source and destination for all live snakeheads, from 2014 to 2019.

The article reports on the study by researchers at the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad in India to examine the effectiveness of sugarcane bagasse ash as material in cement production. The ash contains amorphous silica, which has excellent cementitious properties. Based on the study, a 10% bagasse ash and sand content plus 40% stone dust produced maximum compressive and tensile strength and minimum sulphate attack.

The article reports on the research conducted by entomologist Appadurai Daniel Reegan of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Bengaluru branch and colleagues to assess the prevalence of malaria in India's coastal regions and the environmental variables that cause it. In the study, the researchers collected smears from patients to check for malarial parasites. Also cited is the effects of temperature on malaria incidence.

The article reports that Klebsiella pneumonia normally live in our intestines, and the microbe can be dangerous and cause severe infections, and the development of antimicrobial resistance among this species of bacteria is a major concern, especially in low- and lower-middle income countries.

The article reports that Asansol covers a vast spectrum of coalfield and industrial activities, and understand how industrial activity impacts groundwater quality, Gourisankar Panda and team from the Asansol Engineering College collaborated with researchers from other institutes.

Multibeam swath bathymetry survey was carried out in the middle Indus fan region in the eastern Arabian Sea. Using high-resolution bathymetry data, major morphological features such as the Raman seamount and the Laxmi ridge have been mapped. This study also reveals the presence of sinuous channel systems, continuing towards the distal fan. Though there are several reports on the presence of channels in different regions of the Indus fan, we report here the presence of active channels to the east of the Laxmi ridge. The total length of all channels along the channel axis is about 915 km. The individual spreads of the channels vary from 189.8 to 1980.5 m. Most of the channels are shallow with the average depth measuring about 60 m. The longest channel is about 256.3 km long, 702 m wide and about 57 m deep. The channels observed are similar to the land-based fluvial channels. The channels identified are highly sinuous in nature, their meanders and cut-off meanders are similar to the characteristics of fluvial channels. In general, average channel course in the study area is more than twice the straight course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on plastic wrapping of bread significantly contributes to plastic waste and Aastha Bhardwaj and team from Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi came up with a solution: alternatives based on natural polymers.

The article focuses on Dye-sensitised Solar Cells with improved efficiency.

The article focuses on Detecting Malaria: Hemozoin as biomarker.

The article focuses on the WHO issued the eleventh version of the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-11 and the international classification used to be revised almost every decade, but the transition from ICD-10 to ICD-11 took almost three decades.

The article focuses on Siachen, the largest glacier in the Karakoram Range, is located at the western end of the Himalayas. Topics include the contrast with the worldwide glacier decline pattern, the Karakoram glaciers are reported to be in a balance by some researchers, and the some have reported that they are even gaining mass.

The article focuses on Extracting Volatile Compounds: Using solar convection dryer.

The article focuses on Kashmir Himalayas have hotspots of medicinal plant diversity, but the ecosystem there is sensitive to minor climatic changes which can threaten the very existence of the plant species.

The article focuses on Mission Bamboo: For economy and environment.

'Satellite sea surface temperature data is cost-effective to monitor coral reefs and predict bleaching', adds his colleague, Kalyan De. From satellite data, they discovered that surface temperature at the sites was up to three degrees higher than in peripheral areas. In 2015, sea-surface temperature rose to a record level. 120, NO. 6, 25 MARCH 2021 975 Current Science Reports Assessing Coral Bleaching Sensing sea-surface temperature The Malvan marine sanctuary in Maharashtra is rich in corals. [Extracted from the article]

The article explores Beryllium-10, a radioactive isotope, is produced by cosmic-rays. In the atmosphere, cosmic rays and the shower of secondary particles produced by them interact with oxygen and nitrogen nuclei, ejecting nuclear particles to form beryllium-10. Extremely high energy cosmic rays can reach the earth's surface.

The article explores Poonam Muttreja and team from the Population Foundation of India, Delhi created such a database with video and audio clips from a TV and a radio series in which Dr Sheha, a fictional character, tackles issues of sexual and reproductive health in a typical village. The team added fields of text as well as games that young people might like.

The article explores Solar stills distil water using the sun's heat. But they only work during peak sunlight hours. So, the daily yield remains low. One solution is to use composite materials for thermal energy storage. Such materials absorb heat to become liquid and release the latent heat when turning back to solid form, when the sun goes down.

The article explores Monika Garg and her team at the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, thought of anthocyanins. These coloured pigments are known to protect plants from temperature variations. So they collaborated with researchers from Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh and Water India Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru to do a series of experiments with wheat containing anthocyanins.

The article explores Oil palm cultivation is catching up in India. The crop now covers more than three lakh hectares over 12 states. So it is increasingly difficult for the National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm to update the data. Satellite images could be used to identify the locations of the plantations but do not have the resolution to provide data on the number of palm trees.

The article explores Researchers from the Mahavir Cancer Sansthan and Research Centre, teamed up with the Central Ground Water Board, Patna, and the Geological Survey of India, as well as with researchers from UK and Japan to survey the village. They analysed the arsenic content, in about a 100 samples of groundwater from hand pump wells as well as hair and urine samples from the households.

The article focuses on plants and fungi have various types of relationships and the saprophytic fungi try to feed on live plants and become pathogens and plants slowly develop the molecular machinery to resist. Topics icnlude the fungi are important collaborators in plant growth and productivity, and some are even protectors of plants from pests, and the diversity of interactions, plants and fungi must be able to modify and regulate the expression of each other's genes.

The article offers information on closing of educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented impact on the educational system including the teachers had to use online platforms.

The article focuses on group of scientists and doctors from the Indian Council of Medical Research and the MGM Medical College in Mumbai has investigated the role of Group B Streptococcus infection as risk factor for preterm births has published works on Group B Streptococcus infection.

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) launched from SHAR, Sriharikota on 10 July 2006 fell into the Bay of Bengal due to failure of the first stage L-40 engine. Search for recovering strap on engine(s) for conducting failure analysis was undertaken. Sagar Kanya, Sagar Purvi and Sagar Paschimi - the vessels of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, and Akademik Boris Petrov, a research vessel that was hired, were deployed in search and recovery operations. Methods adopted for search were swath bathymetric surveys, side scan sonar surveys, underwater videography and search by remotely operated vehicles. Divers guided by survey results, recovered three engines and parts of a fourth engine within 100 days of the mishap from 10 to 30 m depth in the Bay of Bengal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seabed topography of the Approach Channel to the Larsemann Hills in the Prydz Bay is important to understand the Prydz Bay drainage basin and interlinkage between its major topographic features. As India proposes to establish her third permanent station in Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica, the access to the site by safe navigation of vessels necessitated a bathymetric survey of the Approach Channel. The survey was divided into two blocks, a part of the Prydz Bay (latitudes 69°10′S to 69°22′S, longitudes 75°45′E to 76°15′E) and the Larsemann Hill Approach Channel (latitudes 69°22.00'S to 69°25.14′S, longitudes 76°04.00′E to 76°16.00′E). A total area of 55 km in length and 19 km in width was covered with 155 lineskm bathymetric data which was collected by deploying a boat-mounted shallow water multibeam echosounder system. Hull mounted multibeam system of R. V. Akademik Boris Petrov was used for the survey of the Prydz Bay and a total of about 410 lines-km of bathymetric data was collected. The survey area is a part of the Svenner Channel and maximum depth in the Prydz Bay was found to be 800 m. The maximum depth in the Approach Channel was found as 450 m. The area has variable morphological features and interlinks the Four Ladies Bank, Amery Ice Shelf and Amery Depression. Results indicate the glacial erosion in the channel. The Larsemann Hills Approach Channel was found to be in the depth range of 25-450 m, with a safe navigational passage up to the NE-SW boundary of the Larsemann Hills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the efforts by Dilip Kumar and Sonal Garg of GLA University, Mathura in India to develop benchmark data sets to facilitate the identification of fake news on social media. In their research, the partner used the web scraping tool Parsehub to collect original news from the most trusted news portals to fact check news. They focused on five categories, including election, violence, and politics.

The article reports on the efforts by geologists Mruganka K. Panigrahi and Satybrata Behera to develop methods to locate the location of gold ore deposits to reduce the excavation costs of gold mining operations. Topics include the various methods to detect the presence or absence of gold like the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and the prospectivity map created by Panigrahi and Behera on possible gold reserves in India.

The article reports on the research by scientists at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India, in which they reconstructed skin tissue using three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting to be used as treatment to burn injuries. The researchers created tissue constructs with skin cells within non-toxic polymer scaffold.

The article reports on the experiments conducted by a team of researchers led by agricultural scientist Anup Das to determine if the duration between cropping cycles could be used to farm quick growing crops by cultivating short duration rice and lentils at a site in Meghalaya, India.

The article reports on the study conducted by Doctor Prakash Prabhakarrao and colleagues at Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College on the risk factors during preconception and their relationships with adverse pregnancy outcomes.

The article reports on the direct-type solar thermal dryer developed by a team of scientists led by Subarna Maiti to improve the quality and increase the value of dried fish in India.

The article reports on a study by Indian researchers Ashok Priyadarshan Dimri and Pramod Kumar on speleothems or cave deposits by collecting oxygen isotope records at the Wah Shikar caves in Meghalaya and compare them with those from Jhumar and Dandak caves in Chhattisgarh, India. It discusses how the chemical and physical compositions of speleothems depict the environmental conditions during the depositional history.

The article reports on the lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in India, and it records a higher death rate than most other forms of cancer. It mentions the highest death rates from lung cancer are in the states with highest consumption of tobacco. It also mentions that lung cancer cases are more prevalent in the lower economic section of society.

The article discusses that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), breast cancer impacts more than two million women each year, causing the greatest number of cancer-related deaths among women. It mentions that breast cancer can be benign or malignant and the diagnosis is done by analysing microscopic images of biopsies. It also mentions that scientists from NIT Bhopal proposed a breast cancer classification based on a kernelized weighted extreme learning machine.