2019 was an exciting year for science as ever. We have collated the top ten stories that was popular on Research Matters in 2019. These were the ones that garnered most views because of readers like you. We would like to thank you for patronage and look forward to your support in the years to come.

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY) proved to be very attractive and has reached 80 million low-income families across the country. However, can we call it successful merely based on the number of people it has covered? A study, published by researchers from Canada, Austria, and the USA, compared the enrolment for the Ujjwala program and the trend of LPG consumption in rural Karnataka and found that although the scheme was successful in delivering its promises, it's success has been a topic of national debate.

Southern India, now battered with the scorching heat, is awaiting the monsoon showers that bring some respite during the month of June. It looks like the wait would not be too long and well worth it. In a press release issued today, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that the southwest monsoon rainfall over the country, on the whole, is likely to be normal.

In a study published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the researchers collected and analyzed data from various published reports such as the Global WHO FCTC Implementation Progress Reports of 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, WHO reports on global tobacco epidemic 2013, 2015 and 2017, Global Tobacco Surveillance System Data and the WHO-NCI Monograph. They examined the prevalence, trends and policy progress in smokeless tobacco control on the lines of the WHO FCTC guidelines.

Pune researchers take a molecular modelling approach to identify drug targets for the deadly Nipah virus.

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The virus spreads through blood-to-blood contact, and is usually associated with the use of intravenous drug use, blood donations and other unhygienic use of medical equipment leading to exchange of blood. Once infected, a patient can go years without facing severe symptoms, like liver failure and cirrhosis, only to feel it’s accumulated effects after a long period.

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder where the body does not produce or effectively use the hormone insulin, resulting in elevated levels of glucose in the blood. Monitoring the amount of blood glucose can aid effective diagnosis, treatment, and access to quality healthcare management to diabetic patients. One of the ways to monitor blood glucose is through commercially available biosensors. Although such a test can be done at home at any time, there is a growing need to have pain-free alternatives. Hence, researchers are exploring glucose biosensors that do not need so much blood and are reliable, accurate, biodegradable, biocompatible and user-friendly. In a recent study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the Indian Institutes of Technology Indore and Bombay, have developed one such sensor.

Researchers from IIT Bombay, Microsoft India and Google Inc, develop a search system to extract meaningful data from live social media posts

In India, one woman dies of cervical cancer every 8 minutes, and for every two women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, one succumbs to it. In 2018, all over the country, 7,84,821 people lost their lives to cancer. Numerous scientific research is underway to discover new and improved drugs for cancer. Chemotherapy, where anti-cancer drugs are administered to kill cancerous cells, is one of the traditional and most successful treatment methods. In a recent study, Dr Sumit Ghosh, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, discusses cisplatin, the first-ever metal-based drug used in chemotherapy.

A new study by researchers at the WHO attempts to throw some insight into how many boys and girls, between the ages of 11-17 years, are physically active across the globe. The study, published in the journal The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, analysed data from 1.6 million students in that age group during the years 2001-2016. It found that most adolescent boys and girls—four in five—aren’t as physically active as they ought to be in 2016.