Our effort to simplify complex landmark research papers that have changed the existing paradigm in a field.
Illustration by Pearl D’souza
Mosaics in Membranes: Membrane Structure and Fluidity
Although invisible to the naked eye, the world inherently possesses an exceptional degree of randomness. Air molecules are in constant motion, moving to occupy available space and undergoing numerous collisions and interactions among themselves. This is the nature of the molecular world. Even water molecules are constantly moving, colliding and interacting with each other. Similar…
TELOMERASE AND CELL AGING: A Review of the Identification of the RNA Component of Human Telomerase
Have you ever wondered why or how your cells slowly age and die? Or as it is scientifically called, senescence of the cell. One of the many theories predicts that the reason lies in a repeat sequence of nucleotides (individual parts that make up our DNA) called telomeres present at the end of DNA and…
What makes you tick? The quest to decode the biological clock.
Life on Earth is adapted to the rotation of our planet. From bacteria to plants to mammals, a huge spectrum of organisms have an autonomous, internal and self-regulating biological clock that helps them anticipate and adjust to the routine rhythm of each day. But how does this biological clock actually function? What genes, proteins and…
LARES; THE IDEAL TEST FOR RELATIVITY
The theory of General Relativity, developed by Albert Einstein, describes the gravitational interactions responsible for planetary movements and the motions of galaxies, stars, and our attraction toward the earth. Experimental evidence of predictions made by this theory has been difficult to obtain. LARES, a geodynamic satellite has revolutionized the experimental approach to general relativity and…
16S rRNA – Backbone of Metagenomic Analysis
Microorganisms comprise nearly two-thirds of all the living organisms on Earth, which is roughly 1 trillion species of microbes, not to mention the innumerable strains evolving continuously. To put things into perspective, the total number of microbes on the planet is far greater than the number of stars in the galaxy. They have undergone over…
Central Dogma in Retrograde
David Baltimore spent the majority of his early life investigating the genetic systems of different viruses. During one such study, he discovered that certain viruses carry RNA polymerases. This discovery inspired a set of experiments with the Rauscher murine leukaemia virus (RMLV) that secured him his Nobel prize in medicine for the discovery of reverse…
The Game-Changing Drug
Chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML) is a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder or simply put, a cancer of the blood-forming cells. CML is a disease that had wrecked the lives of those affected until the development of Gleevec, a drug that revolutionized the treatment of CML.
Leading to Conclusions
The creation of false memories and corruption of the present through verbal suggestion is something any science fiction enthusiast would be familiar with, although it’s reality was a disputed fact among scientists for decades. It was a fringe field of study with little to no scientifically valid or analytical data present to back the claims.…
Discovery of the Role of Thymus in Immune Responses
Immunology, the study of immunity and the immune system has become all the more critical in today’s time, considering the world is currently reeling under the effects of the COVID – 19 pandemic. Our immune system consists of a wide array of organs and cells that work in tandem to combat foreign organisms that may…
The Internal Positioning System of the Brain
How do you perceive where you are? Is it intuitive, psychological, is it the external cues that the surroundings provide you or is it an in-built GPS within your biological system? Check this article out to find out.
Prions: A New Facet of Proteins
Our current knowledge of the elusive and bewildering class of infectious proteins called “Prions” primarily comes from the work of Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a celebrated American neurologist and biochemist. The journey to the discovery of prions is perhaps even more riveting than the infectious particles themselves. If you have never heard of prions before, this…
Lighting Up Your Neuron
You are an undergraduate student fresh into the realm of biological sciences. You are told that one of the biggest revolutions in the field of neurobiology is significantly and intricately tied with progress in the study of microbial membrane channels. Wouldn’t that sound absurd?
Where is the Universe Headed?
Since the beginning of humankind, people have looked up to the skies and wondered. Great civilizations named their Gods and Goddesses after the Sun and the Moon; poets, painters, singers, and authors personified celestial bodies as their muse. Studying and understanding the universe has drawn the interests of theologians, philosophers, and physicists ( and in…
We Need To Go Deeper!
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning (ML) that has become a leading approach to solving multiple problems in artificial intelligence, especially in the fields of natural language processing, complex computer games, and computer vision. In the field of computer vision and image recognition, deep learning has shown to be unreasonably effective, and grown…
Oxphos War: 1961-1978
World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Korean War, Sino-Indian War and the Falklands War: these were all wars fought in the 20th century. 8th July 1961 was the start of another war, a rather intellectual war, a war without weapons and casualties- the Oxphos War. The Oxphos (short for oxidative phosphorylation) War was…
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