News & Comment

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.

The University of Hyderabad represents an unusual brush with 'corporatisation' of an Indian academic institute — a term its dynamic Vice-chancellor Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain secretly loves but doesn't use too often for fear of ruffling old-timers. In a chat with Nature India, he reveals his plans of a major metamorphosis of this 34-year old university.

Veronica Rodrigues and Gaiti Hasan discuss studies conducted over centuries that provide an insight into how animals detect smell.

Not just a pre-poll debt-waiver for farmers, India needs to optimize use of agriculture technology to wipe off bloodstains from its crop fields, argues Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan.

Indian malaria experts are making a strong case for the much-maligned insecticide despite international lobbies piling criticism over its use in public health programmes.

Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan on why technology is the mighty tool India can't ignore in its fight against poverty. He sows the seeds of a 'Biohappiness Movement' for India here.

In these rich tales of medicines and spices, you almost smell the pre-colonial era, says Subhra Priyadarshini.

(Reposted from our archives) Backing his vision with trademark optimism, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam says the overcrowding of space warrants immediate international safety protocols.