Features

For the much-hyped Bihar suburb of Taregana, the July 22 total solar eclipse turned out to be a no-show, thanks to truant monsoon clouds. Debiprosad Duari, who was there to get a vantage view, says he isn't disappointed as he witnessed another historic event -- the roaring success of India's science popularisation programme in a rural hamlet.

Fasting could be an effective way to control diabetes, says Kulbhushan Tikoo.

There's a lot of debate on whether the Indus valley script is evolved enough to be categorised as 'linguistic'. Nature India traces the history of scientific work regarding this, the latest findings and views for and against the theory.

In times when much-debated stem cell therapies are opening up myriad treatment options for every possible malady, could heart ailments be far behind? In a critical analysis of use of human stem cells in clinical studies and animal models, Lakshmi Pillai and Deepa Bhartiya also look at the hurdles that need to be crossed to make stem-cell based regenerative medicine a reality.

American doctors announced the country's first successful 'near total' face transplant this month, the fourth ever conducted in the world. Earlier, Subhra Priyadarshini spoke to a London team of doctors planning the world's first 'full face transplant' in 2009.

Despite a global economic downturn, the only research-driven company in eastern India is upbeat about its growth.

Eastern India's romance with basic science research has been historically celebrated. Why's it that Kolkata has not been able to retain the coveted position through the ages? Will the region bounce back with a slew of new measures planned? Nature India investigates.

As medical education becomes an increasingly transnational experience, is India in a position to make the most of it, asks Suneel Bhat.

Indian graduate students are multitasking geniuses - they do everything from logistic updates to ordering reagents and repairing instruments when in the lab. But for their post-docs they chose Stanford or MIT with a Noble laureate mentor. Kangkan Halder, a post-doc himself, probes deeper into the minds of his peers to rationalise these dilemmas.

In the research-driven industry of Hyderabad, the industry-academia link is conspicuous by its near absence. Nature India tried to probe what keeps the two most important pivots of the R and D cycle away from one another.