The summer is here, and the newspapers are already flashing headlines on how hot this summer could be. While we humans may turn on the air coolers, what would the thousands of animals and plants do? It turns out, some trees have unique tricks up their leaves, quite literally! A new study by researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA, shows how tropical trees deal with the heat and the adaptations in their leaves that help them survive in extreme heat conditions.

A new study by scientists at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology and All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi have identified the potential role of two genes--ARID1A and KAT2B in the development of obesity.

After the devastating Tsunami in 2004, various measures have been taken by the Government of India to be more prepared in the future. Indian Tsunami Early Warning System (ITEWS) is one such effort undertaken by  Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).

For the first time ever, scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Pune uncover the process of transport of fats in the body.

Termites are known to be efficient farmers who farm a kind of fungus in their colonies to digest the wood that they feed. Scientists from the Indian institute of Science, Bangalore and École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, Montpellier, France, explore whether the termites prefer a certain species of fungus and if they can identify weed fungi and remove them.

Scientists at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research- Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) have, for the first time, used Chrysophanol  derived from Himalayan rhubarb to develop MALDI matrix- a matrix used to analyse large molecules.

Scientists from the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research explore whether seasonal variation in abundance of food and water have any effects on the size of elephant groups. The researchers found that although group sizes were larger in the dry season compared to the wet season at the population level, that was not so at the clan level.

Dev Raj Sikka was born on 1st March 1932, in Jhang Maghiana in the undivided Punjab. After completing his M.Sc in physical chemistry from Agra University with a first rank, Sikka began his career in the Indian Meteorological Department in 1954. He later joined the Institute of Tropical Meteorology (known today as Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology), becoming its Director in 1986.