Science & Us

On October 16, 2022, Dr Dilip Mahalanabis died in Kolkata. In 1971, he pioneered the use of oral rehydration therapy in refugee camps near Kolkata saving many lives. This was the first time it was used in a crisis setting.  In this episode of Science and Us, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr Rajib Dasgupta about the scientific mechanism of oral rehydration therapy and why it works to save lives during acute diarrhoea. Dr Rajib describes the twists and turns which led to the final acceptance of oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea treatment at the global level. The show is co-hosted by Rakesh Kamal.  References Dilip Mahalanabis: The ORS pioneer who helped save millions of lives | The Indian ExpressMAGIC BULLET: THE HISTORY OF ORAL REHYDRATION THERAPYORAL MAINTENANCE THERAPY FOR CHOLERA IN ADULTS - The LancetOral fluid therapy of cholera among Bangladesh refugees[1] Mahalanabis D, Choudhuri A B, Bagchi N G, Bhattacharya A K, Simpson T WOral rehydration therapy: the simple solution for saving lives | The BMJDr. Bharati Pravin Pawar launches Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight – 2022 aimed at zero child deaths due to childhood diarrhoea    Exploring intra-household factors for diarrhoeal diseases: a study in slums of Delhi, IndiaSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In 2014, skeletons were found in the well in a Gurdwara in Ajnala area of Punjab. Who do the skeletons belong to? While historical records said that these could be Indian soldiers killed by the British during the 1857 armed uprising, there were several other theories about it. How did scientists go about investigating this mystery? We spoke to Dr J S Sehrawat, a forensic anthropologist from Panjab University. This podcast is the story of the fascinating world of forensic anthropology.  Reporting and research - Menaka RaoCo-host and audio editing - Rakesh Kamal Additional Reading: Short fieldwork report. Human remains from Ajnala, India, 2014Forgotten, Discovered and Then Forgotten Again: The 1857 Martyrs in Punjab's AjnalaCarbon dating, the archaeological workhorse, is getting a major rebootAspartic acid racemization of root dentin used for dental age estimation in a Polish population sample - PMC.Forensic odontological sex determination of Ajnala skeletal remains based on the statistical equations generated from the odontometrics of known teeth - ScienceDirectDental Age Estimation of Ajnala Skeletal Remains: A Forensic Odontological StudyPinpointing the Geographic Origin of 165-Year-Old Human Skeletal Remains Found in Punjab, India: Evidence From Mitochondrial DNA and Stable Isotope AnalysisSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In the past couple of decades, we have been hearing of cloudbursts in some part of the country or another. How is the Indian Meteorological Department studying this phenomenon? Why are these incidents increasing over a period of time, and what can be done to minimize the damages cloudbursts cause, both to life and property?To understand this phenomenon, we spoke to Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune studying climate change research, and extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, floods, heat waves, and cyclones among others.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

At 2000 deaths on an average per year, lightning kills more people than any other natural event or disaster. In this episode of Science & Us, we find out how climate change leads to an increase in lightning strikes, why it is not notified as a national disaster, and how we can protect ourselves from it. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Colonel Sanjay Srivastava, chairman of the climate resilient Observing System promotion Council (CROPC) and convenor of the Lightning Resilient India campaign. She also speaks to Arun Kundu, Secretary of Smart Future Foundation in West Bengal, about his work of visiting villages to make them lightning resilient. Our Contributing Editor Menaka Rao co-hosts this episode. Annual Lightning Report 2021-2022  Lightning occurrences and intensity over the Indian region: long-term trends and future projectionsProjected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming.Lightning kills more Indians than any other natural disaster. Can those deaths be prevented?See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In this episode of Science and Us, we explore how music helps autistic children communicate with others.Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks with Dr Nandini Chatterjee Singh, senior national programme officer, with Unesco Mahatma  Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) which works towards developing programmes and products that promote social and emotional learning and with the National Brain Research Centre in Manesar, Haryana. Dr Nandini conducted experiments with autistic children using functional MRI which gives us some understanding of how music and sung speech can open new frontiers for communication in autistic children. We also spoke to Meera Balachander, parent of an autistic man, Krishna Kumar to understand the role of music in his life.The show is co-hosted by Suryatapa Mukherjee.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

This April, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi demanding that the spent fuel from India’s largest nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu be dealt with. What has been the Indian government’s way of handling nuclear waste? How does it correspond with the way other countries are dealing with their nuclear waste? Independent journalist, Hariprasad Radhakrishnan reports on this issue and explains it threadbare. Co-hosting this episode is Suno India’s Rakesh Kamal.  For this episode, Hariprasad spoke to Dr TR Govindarajan, a retired professor of theoretical physics at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences who is also a part of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum. He also spoke to environmental activists, G. Sundarrajan, an anti-nuclear activist who runs an NGO named Poovulagin Nanbargal or Friends of Earth and SP Udayakumaran, who was the face of the anti-nuclear protests in Kudankulam.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

This is the second in the two-part series on how gendered understanding of science affects the way research is conducted. In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Sayantan Datta about how the certainty of male-female binary affects the way science is done.   Datta is a queer-trans science journalist and communicator who writes for feminist multimedia science collective, Life of Science. They also teach writing and communication at Krea University, in Andhra Pradesh.  Menaka Rao, and Suryatapa Mukherjee hosted this episode.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

March 8 is International Women’s day. We have two episodes this month on how gendered understanding of science affects the way research is conducted.  The first episode describes the protests led by feminist organisations on the unethical trials on contraceptive injections starting from the 80s till more recently. Conversely, we also discuss how there are very few women and almost no transgender persons enrolled in clinical trials which gives a very limited understanding of the impact of new drugs. In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr Vineeta Bal, Dr Sunita Bandewar and Sayantan Datta. Dr Bal is an immunologist who worked at the National Institute of Immunology and is now a visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Pune. Dr Bandewar is one of the working editors of Indian Journal of Medical Ethics and independent researcher in the area of bioethics and global health. Sayantan Datta, a queer-trans science journalist and communicator who writes for feminist multimedia science collective, Life of Science. They also teach writing and communication at Krea University, in Andhra Pradesh.  The show is hosted by Menaka Rao and Padmapriya DVL. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

What makes a healthy scalp? Scientists from the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal are working on understanding the scalp microbiome of Indians, both healthy and dandruff-ridden. They have now hit upon the role of coconut oil in maintaining a healthy scalp. Dr Vineet Sharma from IISER described the two ground-breaking studies on the scalp that have been done in their Institute.  Show notes: Frontiers | Comparison of Healthy and Dandruff Scalp Microbiome Reveals the Role of Commensals in Scalp Health | Cellular and Infection Microbiologyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-86454-1See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

While scientists discovered a new snake species in the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu, little did they know that this discovery would unearth a 185-year old problem of name mix-ups done in the past. In 2016, Deepak Veerappan, working with the Natural History Museum in London, received a new snake species from Tamilnadu. It was considered similar to banded racer (a widespread species). For this, they had to describe the snake, look at finer details, and also compare it to a banded racer. When they looked at the morphology and DNA of the new species, they found it to be different from banded racer. When they probed further into banded racer for comparisons, they found that banded racer was wrongly classified in the category of wolf snake. And all this mix-up happened due to Albert Gunther, a scientist, working with the Natural History Museum between 1875 and 1895. The specimens, snakeskin collection and paintings in the Natural History Museum, London and Bodleian Library, Oxford University among other repositories were analysed to deconstruct this. Though discovering a new species is not uncommon among researchers, this research traces back to historical archives and modern science to break a taxonomic confusion. The story is based on a research paper published in the journal of ‘Vertebrate Zoology. Sharada Balasubramanian, an environmental journalist, spoke to authors Deepak Veerappan and Surya Narayanan, and renowned herpetologist Varad Giri, for this story.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

The National Family Health Survey (2019-20) shows that 57% of women and  67% of children are anaemic in the country. This Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the rice that will be distributed in the public distribution system and other government schemes such as Midday Meal will be fortified with iron, folic acid and vitamin B12.  In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao tries to understand if the fortification of rice will help reduce the anaemia levels of people in this country. In the process, we try to demystify the biological mechanism of anaemia and how just pumping in iron in the bodies does not necessarily work. Menaka speaks with senior scientists Dr HN Mishra, the head of the Agricultural and Food Engineering department IIT Kharagpur, Dr Rajesh Kapur who worked as a scientist in the department of biotechnology now the Vice-Chancellor of People’s University in Bhopal, Dr Madhavan Nair, retired from National Institute of Nutrition and Dr Anura Kurpad, department of physiology, St John’s Hospital, Bengaluru. Reporting and research - Menaka RaoCo-host and audio editing - Rakesh Kamal Shownotes Do we really know what goes into our food? - Suno India(PDF) Perspective: When the cure might become the malady: the layering of multiple interventions with mandatory micronutrient fortification of foods in IndiaNational Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)Inclusion of guava enhances non-heme iron bioavailability but not fractional zinc absorption from a rice-based meal in adolescentsINTENSIFIED NATIONAL IRON PLUS INITIATIVE (I-NIPI)(PDF) Hemoglobin concentration and anemia diagnosis in venous and capillary blood: biological basis and policy implications: Venous and capillary anemia diagnosisEvaluation of haemoglobin cut-off for mild anaemia in Asians - analysis of multiple rounds of two national nutrition surveysWHO technical meeting on considerations to determine haemoglobin concentrations to define anaemia in the lifecycleSingrauli 1st MP district to supply fortified rice in PDSSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Street dogs are everywhere in India. From the highest mountain ranges to the harshest deserts, from densely crowded urban areas to rural fields. With around 60 million free-ranging dogs, India arguably has the biggest population of street dogs in the world. Most of these dogs aren’t vaccinated against rabies.  Rabies, one of the oldest zoonotic diseases known to humankind, kills 18,000-20,000 Indians every year. That’s a third of the world’s rabies burden. Nearly 97% of rabies cases are dog-mediated, as dogs are the major reservoirs of this neurotropic virus.   In this episode of Science and Us, Mahima Jain reports on the link between street dogs and India’s struggles with rabies elimination. From how India ended up with an overpopulation of street dogs, to the potential barriers in implementing the recently launched National Action Plan for Rabies Elimination by 2030, we take you through the many factors that complicate rabies control and dog welfare in India.  Show Notes:  Research:Rabies as a Public Health Concern in India—A Historical PerspectiveOverview of Animal Laws in IndiaCenters For Disease Control and Prevention: Global RabiesUS National Library of Medicine: Striking back against rabiesBurden of illness of dog-mediated rabies in India: A systematic reviewModelling the challenges of managing free-ranging dog populationsWHO Rabies: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rabies See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In September 2021, many people in Western Uttar Pradesh were struck by “mystery” fevers. Some even succumbed to them. Later the Central team found out that the fevers were mostly dengue fevers, or caused by scrub typhus and leptospirosis.  The fevers are “mysterious” often because local governments are not able to detect the cause soon enough. This is also because some of these areas have never seen these kinds of diseases. Climate change, urbanisation and a change in ways of living are some of the reasons for such diseases surfacing.  In this episode of Science And Us, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Ramesh Dhiman, a senior scientist who retired from the National Institute of Malaria Research. Dhiman has been tracking the effects of climate change on vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, kala-azar among others for decades now.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In 2010, scientists identified bacteria which were resistant to the strongest antibiotics in Delhi. The enzyme that makes the bacteria resistant was named after the city - New Delhi Metallo-beta Lactamase or NDM-1. Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin predicted the evolution of smarter germs or superbugs way back in 1945. This episode of Science of Us traces the history of antibiotics, and how humans have been outwitted by the microbe time after time. We spoke to Dr Ponnari Gottipati, the lead for the initiative, Superheroes against Superbugs that aims to build a community to tackle the growing threat of antibiotic resistance in India. I asked her what drug resistance is.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

There have been almost 12,000 cases of mucormycosis, commonly called ‘black fungus’, in India so far. Mucormycosis has a death rate of about 54% according to the The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Usually considered a rare disease, it is infecting those recovering from coronavirus at an unprecedented number, especially those who are diabetic. Gujarat and Maharashtra are the worst affected with almost 3,000 cases each of mucormycosis so far.  The Delhi High Court has ordered duty free import of mucormycosis medication Amphotericin B, while US-based Gilead Sciences is preparing to supply 1 million doses to India. But availability is not the only issue. The steep price of mucormycosis treatment is costing between five to fifteen lakhs per patient. Among the survivors of mucormycosis, some are losing their eyes due to the fungal infection. On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Akshay Nair, an oculoplastic surgeon in Mumbai. He has been treating several cases of mucormycosis in this pandemic. We explore causes, symptoms, preventive measures and treatment. So that if you encounter a mucormycosis infection, you’ll know exactly what to do.  Additional Reading: Mucormycosis Statistics | Mucormycosis | Fungal Diseases National Diabetes and Diabetic Retinopathy Survey report 2015-2019See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

India is experiencing the second wave of COVID-19 cases since the first week of February. India is recording about a lakh cases on an average daily. The wave started from Maharashtra and Punjab, and has now extended to Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu among others. Maharashtra still accounts for half the cases in the country on a daily basis. Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Subhash Salunke, the technical advisor to the Maharashtra Government on Covid-19. He is a public health official and has worked as the director of Health Services in the state before he retired.  He spoke about the challenges for the state government in the second wave. He also explained why the state is suffering a huge number of cases both in the first wave and the second wave.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

This is the second episode in the two-part series on developing COVID-19 vaccines for the Suno India show. In the first episode of the series, we discussed the different stages of clinical trials and how the vaccines were developed so fast.  In the second part, we are addressing key concerns about the cynicism around vaccine development. What are the legal processes involved in clearing the vaccines for mass vaccination in India? Were the vaccine trials fair and ethical? Is all the relevant information related to the vaccine development shared with the public?  For this episode, Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Amar Jesani, an expert bioethicist and teacher who has founded the prestigious journal, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics and advocate Murali Neelakantan, an expert in healthcare laws and drug development in India. Also listen “Vaccinating against COVID-19: How did we get so many vaccines so fast?"See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

The Indian government is gearing up for mass COVID-19 vaccinations. The question foremost on everyone’s minds are how were they developed so fast. The first episode of this two-part series for the Suno India Show gives a step-by-step explanation on vaccine development and what is different this time round.  For this show we feature the expert voices of Dr Shaheed Jameel, currently the director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University, and Dr Amar Jesani, an expert bioethicist and teacher who has founded the prestigious journal, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. Also Listen “Vaccinating against COVID-19: Has the vaccine development been a fair and transparent process?“See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the need for good clinical trials in India – they help us figure out treatments that work and ones that don’t. But some of these studies have been marred by reports of ethical violations, creating hesitancy among the general public. There are checks and balances in the Indian clinical trial rules and other guidelines that are meant to prevent these violations. One of these checks is in the form of a body called the Ethics Committee. In this episode, we demystify this ethics committee. What is their role? Why do ethical irregularities keep cropping up? And what can ethics committees do to prevent them?  For this episode, Shreya Dasgupta spoke to Dr. Urmila Thatte, a clinical pharmacologist, bioethicist and Emeritus professor at the Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai; Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global public health researcher at Yenepoya University in Mangalore; and Dr. Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, the clinical director for clinical research, academics and patient safety, at Peerless hospital at Kolkata. This episode was supported by a grant from the Thakur Family Foundation, which has not exercised any editorial control over the contents of the podcast.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

COVID-19 tests are done both for diagnosis and for surveillance. With many tests available for testing in various government and private labs, it’s important to understand when to get tested, how these tests are done and what the test results indicate. In this we understand more about COVID-19 tests with Dr Arjun Dang, CEO of Dangs Lab in Delhi NCR.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.