Two of Kaziranga National Park’s ‘Big Five’ animals have made it to the planet’s ‘New Big 5’ for shooting with the camera.
Missing from the global list of “favourite animals to photograph” is the greater one-horned or Indian rhinoceros for which Kaziranga was born in 1905.
A team of researchers in the United States has come up with splitters for ventilators that will address the shortage of the life-saving equipment. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, Bengaluru, recently approved the equipment. IndVentr is the Indian partner making the device.
Earlier this year, Shriya S. Srinivasan and her team were in discussion with Indian health officials. But the interest in their equipment was low.
Dr. Srinivasan, a biomedical engineer, is the daughter of immigrant parents. She visits India frequently to give bharatanatyam performances. She did her Ph.D in medical engineering and medical physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. She took up Project Prana on the sidelines of her ongoing post-doctoral work.
Doctors living across the world — all alumni of the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) from the 1992 batch — have now banded together with a coalition of volunteer groups to offer end-to-end COVID-19 management for patients in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru.
While the Karnataka COVID-19 Volunteers Team (KCVT), with over 500 members, has set up a helpline (080-47166115) which counsels patients, refers them to doctors for tele-consultation, helps in home management and to find hospital beds, Mercy Mission is operating two COVID-19 care centres and has a tie-up with the HBS Hospital in Shivajinagar for critical care. While the helpline and tele-consultation with doctors is available for patients across the State, other on ground facilities are in the city.
As COVID-19 stands as a grim testimony to the damage an infectious disease can cause to human health and welfare, a major challenge in treating such diseases is misdiagnosis, which can lead to trial-and-error treatments, and improper use of antibiotics. Identifying the correct type of infection, is, therefore critical.
A recent study from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has identified a set of molecular biomarkers that can be used in the differential diagnosis of acute bacterial and viral infections.
First author Sathyabaarathi Ravichandran, Research Associate in the lab of Nagasuma Chandra, Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, explained that antibiotics are given even for viral infections in some cases because of misdiagnosis. With current methods, it can take a lot of time to test for bacterial or viral infections.
Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar reviewed ongoing efforts at Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), which is developing a vaccine for COVID-19, and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that has developed a drug that prevents viral growth and a better oxygen management system. He hailed them as “game changers in the fight against COVID-19”.
Dr. Sudhakar visited DRDO facilities in the city on Friday where scientists appraised him of progress on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) drug they are developing in collaboration with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Hyderabad. “Clinical trial results have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence,” DRDO scientists said.
He was also apprised of the OxyCare system, an intelligent oxygen management system that reduces exposure of healthcare providers by eliminating manual adjustments to oxygen flow. The PM-CARES Fund will procure 1.5 lakh units of Oxycare System at a cost of ₹322.5 crore. It will be deployed across the country, DRDO scientists said.
Arian K, a Class XII student, entered the Indian Book of Records for making stencil drawings of 50 film stars in 70 minutes.
A recently-published research paper unearths an oft-forgotten chapter in the establishment of IIT-Madras and its connection with the Cold War in Germany, which resulted in the formation of the now-revered institution.
One of the “largest and most successful educational projects” that emerged out of Indo-German relations during the Cold War, was the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) in 1959, which, when seen from the perspective of FDR, was largely driven by the Cold War foreign policy it shared with India.
Ramesh Powar has returned as the India women’s team’s head coach with the Cricket Advisory Committee preferring the former India off-spinner over former India batsman W.V. Raman.
WhatsApp. Riya Gupta
Her Instagram page, Blood Donor Connect, helps amplify the message. “It takes about 30-60 minutes each to find a donor after we get the initial request. We now do around 10 successful cases a day,” she adds.
Divya Jain, who had been amplifying requirements of oxygen and plasma on social media, roped in a tech-savvy friend and created the website fightagainstcovid19.org after buying a domain.
“I was getting a lot of requests for oxygen, plasma, hospital and medicines and I thought I have a good social media presence so should put it to good use.
I thought of doing it on small scale but then it grew to a seven-member team,” she said, adding that all the members are her colleagues and friends.