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The forgotten pre-Independence scientific contributions

There is the claim that modern India has not made scientific contributions commensurate with its

population and resources, because Indians remain unconnected with their own scientific tradition. There

were scientific giants in India before

Independence and the names of Jagadish Chandra

Bose, Satyendra Nath Bose, Meghnad Saha,

CV Raman, Srinivasa Ramanujan and

Yellapragada Subbarow come to mind. They

made their contributions when there were few

opportunities for research in Indian colleges and

universities. Compared to that difficult period,

Indian universities have been well supported after

Independence.

A few scientists have achieved greatness but most of them did so after leaving India. In any event, the

contributions of Indian science since Independence are nowhere commensurate with the investment in

higher education and the expansion of the university system in India. Not one Indian university figures in

the top 200 list of the world, and we appear to be slipping compared to other nations. Universities in

Australia, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong have leapfrogged over Indian universities in world rankings.

How are Indian universities doing within the less competitive BRICS countries? In the latest QS

BRICS Rankings, China has 45 of the top 100 places, where India has only 13. China's top five universities

are in ranks 1 through 5 whereas India's top university, the Indian Institute of Science, is at the 6th place.

Given this sorry situation, it is confusing to be told that Indian ideas have played a crucial role in the

development of modern science. We are not just talking about the symbol zero, algebra and astronomy, but

also inoculation in medicine, the periodic table of chemical elements, the field of linguistics, and the birth

of quantum mechanics (if the claim of its creator Erwin Schrödinger is to be believed), to mention just a

September, 2016

Indian Institute of Science

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few. We would rather believe that these are tall tales. In the West, almost all scientists are interested in the

philosophical tradition of science going back to the Greeks. They also write on their experience for the

general public and doing so bring the excitement of science to a wider audience. Some Indian scientists have

indeed written for the general public. But I know of no one excepting JC Bose and CV Raman who tried to

present the philosophical bases of their research. Many Indians (including scientists) consider science as the

job they must do for their company or university, but yet believe in magical thinking when it comes to the

consideration of larger scientific issues.

Others, when they have retired from their careers, go straight from physics to metaphysics and

expound on the unreality of this world! But it is true that India has a marvelous tradition of science that goes

back to Kanada's Vaisesika, which is a 2,500-year-old text of physics. This text was known to

pre-Independence Indian scientists but has been overlooked since. Kanada starts with six categories

(padarthas) that are nameable and knowable, proposing they are sufficient to describe everything in the

universe from concrete matter to the abstract atom. What could be more rational and logical than that? He

speaks of four kinds of atoms of which two have mass (one heavier than the other) and two that do not.

Just imagining this should be worthy of celebration even if it is only a coincidence that modern

physics also has four stable atoms, namely proton, electron, neutrino, and photon. The Greek philosophers are

praised for much less. Kanada does something additional that no one has attempted: he describes a system that

has place not only for inert matter but also minds and consciousness. He also sees chemistry and biology as

arising out of the various combinations of atoms.

Texts like this should be a source of inspiration and they belong to India's sastric (scientific) tradition

where the idea was to use logic and relentless questioning to arrive at insights about reality. It is good to know

that the rishis of yore were not only interested in matters of the spirit but also of this lived life.

courtesy – www.dailyo.in

2 Indian teens in Google Science Fair finals

US tech giant Google on Friday announced that two Indian teenagers are among the 16 global finalists for the sixth

annual "Google Science Fair 2016" and will compete for the $50,000 scholarship. All 16 finalists will travel with

their families to Mountain View city located in Santa Clara County, California, and the winner will be announced at a

ceremony on September 27. "From a breathalyzer test that could predict lung cancer to a carbon filter that may

significantly decrease styrofoam waste, these top 16 projects from nine countries around the world represent the

brightest ideas to make things better through science and engineering", said Andrea Cohan, Programme Lead, Google

Science Fair, in a statement.

Shriyank, 16, from National Public School, Bengaluru, submitted his project titled "KeepTab: A novel way to

aid memory with deep learning algorithms!" KeepTab is a wearable device-based solution which uses a cloud-based

deep learning framework to aid human memory recall the location of day-to-day objects.

Mansha Fatima,15, a junior at Sadhu Vaswani International School, Hyderabad, focused on creating an

"Automated Water Management and Monitoring System in Paddy Fields". The project aims to help farmers monitor

water levels in rice paddy fields as well as automate water levels for the best possible crop yields.

courtesy – www.timesofindia.com

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India’s monsoon winds trace back nearly 13 million years

The mighty monsoon winds that periodically bring rains that drench India first billowed around 12.9

million years ago, new research shows. The work provides the best look yet at the conditions that fostered the

modern monsoon. By examining sediments piled up around Indian Ocean islands, researchers uncovered a

geologic history of the South Asian monsoon stretching back tens of millions of years. The monsoon winds

began abruptly, researchers report

online July 20 in Scientific Reports.

That speedy start-up suggests that

factors such as global cooling were at

play in addition to the rise of the

Himalayan mountain range, which

scientists typically blame for the

monsoon’s inception.

The monsoon “came on really

fast, and it came on because the whole

system went over a threshold, not just the Himalayas,” says study coauthor Gregor Eberli, a marine

geoscientist at the University of Miami in Florida. Rainfall during the summer monsoon season accounts for

more than 70 percent of India’s annual precipitation. The temperature difference between the continent and

the adjacent Indian Ocean drives the winds. During winter, warm air over the ocean rises and draws in cool

air from the land to the north. In summer, the land becomes warmer and the winds flip direction. The snow

and high elevation of the Himalayas drive the temperature difference between the land and sea. But the

mountains grew over tens of millions of years, making it difficult to determine exactly when conditions

favorable to the monsoon began. Previous estimates ranged from around 28.7 million to 7 million years ago.

Eberli and colleagues traveled to a place where the monsoon leaves its mark: the bottom of the Indian

Ocean. Monsoon winds drive currents in the ocean, which in turn carry ocean sediments across the sea.

Sediment accumulates in mounds similar to snowdrifts when currents are strong. The strong currents also pull

nutrients from the seafloor toward the surface, boosting biological activity that in turn draws oxygen from the

water. That lower oxygen supply leaves a chemical trace in the sediments.

At a depth of about 500 meters below the sea surface, the researchers drilled a kilometer into the

seafloor and extracted sediments dating back roughly 25 million years. A weaker precursor to the modern

monsoon existed roughly 25 million years ago, the sediment data

suggest. Around 12.9 million years ago, however, the winds revved

up to their modern strength over the course of about 300,000 years,

a relatively short time compared with the formation of the Himala-

yas. The strengthening of the monsoon lines up with a period of

global cooling and the growth of the polar ice caps. That climate

shift may have boosted the temperature difference between the land

and sea, supercharging the winds, the researchers propose.

Hello Kiddies, Here is your Answers!!!

1. Hubble Space Telescope

2. The Milky Way Galaxy

3. Jupiter

4. No

5. No

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Why scientists of Indian origin are leaving a better life and returning to India

Call it the Swades 2.0. Ambitious and bright, a rash of scientists had left India for better opportunities

and, over the years, gained vital exposure to the best global research labs. After years of experimenting and

collaborating with some of the top scientists in the world, they have now chosen to return to their homeland.

Traditionally, such homecomings are driven partly by family compulsions, but of late it is a flurry of

fellowships and incentives by the government that has helped the scientists relocate to India. The main

attraction now is absorption into an institute where they can be part of the permanent faculty.

Says department of science and technology secretary Ashutosh Sharma: "Turning brain drain into

brain gain requires creation of appropriate opportunities at certain critical stages in the progression of a

scientific career." The first critical point, he adds, is right after PhD when substantial resources to train a

scientist have already been committed. The second intervention is to attract the scientists who have gone

abroad back to the country.

RA Mashelkar, a former director-general of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR),

says, "India is moving from brain drain to brain gain to brain circulation. An Indian scientist would love to

stay in India, provided he is given a challenging job here. And I strongly believe that India is becoming a land

of opportunity."

Shashi Kumar, Group leader, metabolic engineering, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and

Biotechnology

From Uttar Pradesh to the United States may seem a long journey, but for

Shashi Kumar it was a logical progression. Now a group leader at the

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Delhi,

Kumar, who was born in Tanda village, went to the US in 1988 soon after

submitting his PhD thesis in the University of Delhi. After staying there

for 12 years and getting a taste of various universities - University of

Virginia, Charlottesville, University of Central Florida, Orlando,

University of California, Berkeley - he returned to India in 2010 on a

Ramalingaswami Fellowship. "Coming back was a tough call and I kept postponing it for almost a year. But

deep within I wanted to do something for Indian science, which perhaps triggered my decision," says Kumar,

the son of a farmer.

The best part of working in India is the sense of belonging. "But Indian science has serious challenges

that need to be addressed, including that of research funds and quality of research," says Kumar. Although the

government is making an effort to arrest brain drain, it should enhance measures to attract the talent back to

the country, he adds. Is he here in India for good? Maybe not, says Kumar who would have been a farmer if

he hadn't chosen the scientific path. Has he thought about returning to the US? "Yes," he lets on, "I may go

back after my retirement. Science has no retirement age."

Shilpi Gupta assistant professor, electrical engineering, IIT-Kanpur

When Shilpi Gupta left for the US in 2008 after doing her BTech in engineering physics from IIT

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5

Delhi, she was clear that she was going there only for higher

studies. She joined the University of Maryland for an MS and PhD

in electrical engineering. In July 2014, Gupta moved back to India

under the Ramanujan Fellowship and is currently an as-

sistant professor in electrical engineering at IIT-Kanpur. She works

in the field of nanophotonics to study how light interacts with mat-

ter and how to make chipscale devices for application in optical

communication and sensing.

The Ramanujan Fellowship is targeted at global

talent in scientific and engineering who are keen to take up

scientific research positions in institutions and universities in the

country. "I never debated coming back to India. The

Ramanujan fellowship is an excellent initiative to provide startup, flexible funds to scientists who returns.

Having a constant inflow of funds for the first five years, which are the most important formative

years for an experimental lab, was the main incentive for me to apply for this fellowship," she says. Gupta is

at home at IIT Kanpur. The best thing about working in India is the satisfaction of being able to contribute, in

however small way, towards education in India. The pool of researchers and scientists in India is still very

small relative to the size of our young population."

Arindam Sarkar assistant professor, department of chemical engineering, IIT-Bombay

Arindam Sarkar is not too comfortable with funds driving research. He gives the example of the "massive

funding" by the Obama administration on batteries, which has "pushed most research work in electrochemis-

try towards batteries. My passion should drive my

research, not funds," he says.

Passion is what fuelled Sarkar's journey, from the small

town of Kuju in Jharkhand's Ramgarh district to a PhD at the

University of Texas in Austin, and then a postdoctoral from the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Before that he made

an unsuccessful attempt at an IIT exam and settled for the

Bhilai Institute of Technology in Durg, from where he moved

to IIT Bombay for his master's.

"Returning to India was always at the back of my mind.

When I was offered the Ramanujan Fellowship, I grabbed it," says Sarkar, who came back in 2013. He is

currently working at IIT-Bombay as an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering. The

Ramanujan Fellowship, he says, provides a handsome grant for conducting experiments, hiring students in

addition to a monthly salary.

Ask him whether he would like to go back to the US after some years, and he replies: "Although it is

hard to predict the future, I think I will stay put here in India." Reason: Unlike the West, India still provides

plenty of academic freedom in research.

courtesy – www.economictimes.com

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Young sunflowers keep time

Young sunflowers are sun worshippers. They grow best when they track the sun as it moves from east

to west across the sky. But the sun doesn’t provide their only cues on where to turn - and when. An internal

clock also guides them. This biological clock is like the one that controls human sleep-wake cycles. New

research shows that depending on the time of day, different sides of a young sunflower’s stem will grow at

different rates. Genes that control growth on one side of the stem - the east side - are more active during the

morning and afternoon. Growth genes on the opposite side are more active overnight. This helps the plant

bend from east to west so that the youngster can track the sun as it moves across the sky. Because the west

side’s growth speeds up at night, this will position the plant to face the next day’s rising sun.

“At dawn, they’re already facing east again,” notes Stacey Harmer. She’s a plant biologist at the

University of California, Davis. Harmer and her team found that chasing the sun like this allows young

sunflowers to grow bigger.

The researchers wanted to better understand what was prompting plants to bend back and forth. So

they grew some indoors with a light source that didn’t move. Yet even though the light stayed in place, the

flowers moved. They continued to bend to the west during each day, then turned back toward the east each

night. Harmer and her colleagues concluded that the stem was responding not just to light, but also to

directions from an internal clock.

This regular, daily pattern is called a circadian (Ser-KAY-dee-un) rhythm. and it’s similar to the one

that controls our own sleep-wake cycles. Such a system can be very useful, Harmer says. It helps young sun-

flowers run on schedule even if something in their environment changes temporarily. A cloudy morning, or

even a solar eclipse, won’t prevent them from tracking the sun.

Once they mature, the plants stop following the sun back and forth across the sky. Their growth slows

and eventually stops with the flower's head perpetually facing east. That offers an advantage, too. Once the

sunflowers are old enough to produce pollen, they need to attract bees and other pollinating insects. Harmer

and her colleagues found that east-facing flowers get warmed by the morning sun and attract more pollinators

than west-facing ones. Just like the planet they live on, sunflowers’ lives revolve around their namesake star.

courtesy – www.sciencenews.org

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Mathematics to help diagnose cancer

Personalized medicine is a healthcare approach in which medical procedures are tailored to the

individual patient's genetic, physiological, and biochemical type along with other characteristics. Cancer

treatment is one type of care where a personalized approach is most needed and often applied. A few classical

mathematical models have been developed to describe the natural path of breast cancer, but they tend to

address the primary tumor and secondary metastatic growth separately, according to the paper "Combined

mathematical model of the growth of breast cancer" by Senior Research Fellow of HSE International

Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Structural Analysis Alexey Neznanov and Research Assistant of the

Laboratory Ella Tyuryumina.

But a cancer's natural history does not always end with primary tumor removal; in many instances,

secondary distant metastases can later develop and, if allowed to grow to a certain size, are likely to result in

death. In addition to comprehensive treatment of the primary tumor, cancer patients today are assessed for

secondary metastatic growth. Mathematical models used to facilitate such assessment should be capable of

accurately describing the following stages:

latent period of primary tumor growth;

visible primary tumor, its diagnosis and removal;

latent period of distant metastatic growth; and

visible secondary metastases, their diagnosis and treatment, and the patient's outcome, including death.

The authors' goal was to design a comprehensive mathematical model capable of describing the entire natural

history of breast cancer, including the development of primary tumor and secondary metastases according to

histological stage, and predicting patient outcomes and survival at the time of the primary tumor treatment and

removal.

Computing the Invisible

By developing a new mathematical model, the aim was to improve cancer growth prediction. In particular:

review known mathematical models for describing the growth of primary tumor and secondary

metastasis in breast cancer;

develop a comprehensive mathematical model of primary tumor and secondary metastasis development

for this type of cancer (Combined Model);

identify critical periods in the course of primary tumor and secondary metastasis development, which

can affect the prognosis of survival;

implement the Combined Model as a software solution; and

determine the scope of the Combined Model's applicability and areas for further research.

Their Combined Model describes both the primary tumor and secondary metastasis growth ac-

cording to histological stages and helps predict survival prognosis. "By matching it to the official breast cancer

classification, we found our model to be quite accurate in correlating the primary tumor size with patient sur-

vival prognosis," says Neznanov. "As was already known, the removal of primary tumor is often followed by

the latent growth of secondary metastases; our model makes it clear how the five-year survival rate depends on

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the size of the primary tumor in breast cancer patients." In particular, the model can give an indication of when

metastatic cells are likely to emerge, depending on the size of the primary tumor.

To facilitate the practical application of this Combined Model, a software tool was developed which is

also expected to be used in further research -- e.g. by enabling simple addition of new parameters for a more

accurate prediction of patient survival prognosis. The software is integrated with a database of source data and

prediction outcomes. Just two measurements of the primary tumor are required as the minimum source data for

the model.

Both the model and the software implementing it can improve the accuracy of predicting breast cancer

development and patient outcomes, which, in turn, can help with detecting secondary metastases. Tested on a

relatively small amount of clinical data, the new model showed better performance compared to existing tools.

The study's early findings were presented at the "Information Technologies and Systems 2015" conference.

However, according to Tyuryumina, this is only the first step. The researchers now plan to test the Combined

Model on larger amounts of clinical data, consult with cancer specialists to further improve its applicability,

and integrate the software with other tools for clinical data analysis used in oncology.

The paper is available in Russian at: http://itas2015.iitp.ru/pdf/1570162553.pdf

Story Source:

Reprinted from materials provided by National Research University Higher School of Economics.

courtesy: www.sciencedaily.com

Shantanu Narayen - President and

Chief Executive Officer

Preserving the status quo is not a winning strategy. As

Adobe CEO, this core belief drove Shantanu and his

leadership team’s successful transformation of Adobe,

moving its creative software franchise from the desktop to

the cloud, while creating and leading the explosive digital marketing category. He is passionate about building

and empowering teams to drive product innovation and scale Adobe’s business globally, while advancing the

company as a respected global brand and corporate citizen. Originally from Hyderabad, India, Shantanu has

an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering, a master’s degree in computer science, and an MBA from

UC Berkeley. He is a member of the Pfizer and U.S. President’s Management Advisory Boards and was

named one of the world’s best CEOs by Barron’s magazine in 2016.

If Shantanu were not at Adobe, he would be a professional golfer.

KNOW

YOUR H

ERO

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"Progress is made by trial and

failure; the failures are generally a

hundred times more numerous

than the successes ; yet they are

usually left unchronicled."

William Ramsay

Discover

VOLUME 03

ISSUE 05 SEP, 2016

Compiled & Edited By

Prasanth Nair

Reshmy Krishnakumar

Science International Forum, Kuwait

facebook.com/sifkuwait

For subscription mail to

discoveremagazine@gmail.com

Do You Know!!!

1. What is the name of a scientist who studies weather ?

2. Trying to predict the weather is known as weather _______ ?

3. An anemometer is used to measure what ?

4. Blizzards feature low temperatures, strong winds and heavy __?

5. Stratus, cirrus, cumulus and nimbus are types of what ?

You have time till next edition