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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 projections Projected 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 Microbiology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-86454-1 See 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. 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 India National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) Inclusion of guava enhances non-heme iron bioavailability but not fractional zinc absorption from a rice-based meal in adolescents INTENSIFIED 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 diagnosis Evaluation of haemoglobin cut-off for mild anaemia in Asians - analysis of multiple rounds of two national nutrition surveys WHO technical meeting on considerations to determine haemoglobin concentrations to define anaemia in the lifecycle Singrauli 1st MP district to supply fortified rice in PDS See 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 Perspective Overview of Animal Laws in India Centers For Disease Control and Prevention: Global Rabies US National Library of Medicine: Striking back against rabies Burden of illness of dog-mediated rabies in India: A systematic review Modelling the challenges of managing free-ranging dog populations WHO 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 2015-2019 See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.