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Can the omnipresent bacteria work for us, run our cars, refrigerate our food or fuel our aeroplanes? Yes, say scientists from the Indian Institute of Science and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore. In a ground-breaking interdisciplinary experiment, the team have built a micro heat engine that works using bacterial reservoirs. This study was the result of a collaborative effort between Prof. Ajay Sood and his graduate student Sudheesh Krishnamoorthy from the Department of Physics, IISc, Dr. Rajesh Ganapathy from JNCASR and Prof. Dipankar Chatterji and his student Subho Ghosh from the Molecular Biophysics Unit, IISc.

In the month of May, over 6000 personnel from the National Disaster Relief Force were deployed for rescue operations in Garwhal and Kumaon districts in Uttarakhand. A rather uncommon, unappreciated disaster had struck that region – forest fires. A recent study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore is a significant step towards understanding the cause of devastating forest fires.

In a major move to homegrown research, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, (IISc) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) today signed an agreement on transferring a technology on Radio Frequency (RF) amplifiers based on Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, developed at IISc. The signing ceremony took place at IISc where Prof. Anurag Kumar, Director, IISc and Dr. Ajit Kalghatghi, Director (R&D), BEL exchanged the agreement.

With the invention of telescopes in the 17th century, astronomers around the globe started studying the planets of the Solar system. Several spacecraft have been sent to the planet for exploration including orbiters, landers and rovers, with the recent ones being NASA’s MAVEN and Indian Space Research Organization’s MOM. The biggest challenge faced by the spacecraft on such expeditions is the heat generated due to its speed. Now, scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, are experimenting with a new technology that can help in faster dissipation of the heat in spacecraft entering the Martian atmosphere.

Do plants talk? Contrary to popular beliefs, plants are as equally adept in the art of signalling and communication as their animal counterparts. Prof. Renee M. Borges from the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has spent many years delving on the many aspects of plants communication and their language.

Scientists estimate that our Solar System is 4.567 billion years old. But, have you ever wondered how it was formed? How did the planets take shape from the initial gas and dust of the solar nebula and eventually, how did life evolve on Earth? What processes shaped the initial evolution of our Solar System? These fundamental questions drive Prof. Ramananda Chakrabarti and the researchers in his lab at the Center for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to study rocks on Earth and from space.

Bengaluru, apart from all its glory, is also loved for its pleasant weather and surprise light showers. But what makes up the raindrops in those beautiful showers? Are these raindrops formed when fresh river water evaporates and become clouds? Do salt water bodies like seas and oceans influence the constituents of the raindrops that fall in Bengaluru? A team from the Centre for Earth Sciences (CEaS) and Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru is exploring this relationship between rain and the role of ocean in driving it. Prof. Prosenjit Ghosh, a member of the study team and a Professor at the Centre for Earth Sciences, calls this research “the journey of moisture from ocean to the land".

On the outskirts of cities, large towers carrying  electrical wires is a common sight in the recent years. These wires carry electricity at Ultra High Voltage (400 kV to 800 kV) and are  not encapsulated with any insulation. Due to this, the air surrounding the wires  gets ionised and starts conducting resulting in an electrical discharge accompanied by a hissing sound. Prof.

One might think that driving a car in Bangalore can easily become a nightmare, thanks to the traffic! But a recent study by a team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Management, Bangalore have found that 62% of young adults in Bangalore aspire to own a car as soon as they can afford one. The team, lead by Prof. Ashish Verma from the Department of Civil Engineering, studied the attitudinal factors that influence car ownership decisions among urban young adults in a developing country like India.

Advancements in science, especially those pertaining to technology is often motivated by real life problems. The research at the Biomaterial and Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, headed by Dr. Kaushik Chatterjee of the Department of Materials Engineering, fits this narrative. The lab tries to make use of material technologies to address biomedical challenges. Their recent work focuses on developing a synthetic polymer using nano-technology that can be used as substitutes for bone grafting.