University of Washington professor of seismology and geohazards Harold Tobin who also heads the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, explains the differences between predicting and forecasting earthquakes
An aerial view of the devastation by the February 2023 earthquake in Hatay, Turkey.
In short, no. Science has not yet found a way to make actionable earthquake predictions. A useful prediction would specify a time, a place and a magnitude – and all of these would need to be fairly specific, with enough advance notice to be worthwhile.
For example, if I predict that California will have an earthquake in 2023, that would certainly come true, but it’s not useful because California has many small earthquakes every day. Or imagine I predict a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake will strike in the Pacific Northwest. That is almost certainly true but doesn’t specify when, so it’s not helpful new information.
Earthquakes happen because the slow and steady motions of tectonic plates cause stresses to build up along faults in the Earth’s crust. Faults are not really lines, but planes extending down miles into the ground. Friction due to the enormous pressure from the weight of all the overlying rock holds these cracks together.
An earthquake starts in some small spot on the fault where the stress overcomes the friction. The two sides slip past each other, with the rupture spreading out at a mile or two per second. The grinding of the two sides against each other on the fault plane sends out waves of motion of the rock in every direction. Like the ripples in a pond after you drop in a stone, it’s those waves that make the ground shake and cause damage.
Most earthquakes strike without warning because the faults are stuck – locked up and stationary despite the strain of the moving plates around them, and therefore silent until that rupture begins. Seismologists have not yet found any reliable signal to measure before that initial break.
What about the likelihood of a quake in one area?
On the other hand, earthquake science today has come a long way in what I’ll call forecasting as opposed to prediction.
Seismologists can measure the movement of the plates with millimetre-scale precision using GPS technology and other means, and detect the places where stress is building up. Scientists know about the recorded history of past earthquakes and can even infer farther back in time using the methods of paleo-seismology: the geologically preserved evidence of past quakes.
Putting all this information together allows us to recognize areas where conditions are ripe for a fault to break. These forecasts are expressed as the likelihood of an earthquake of a given size or greater in a region over a period of decades into the future. For example, the US Geological Survey estimates the odds of a magnitude 6.7 or greater quake in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next 30 years is 72 per cent.
Are there any hints a quake could be coming?
A meme that somebody set on social media after the September 22, 2020 evening tremors and it moved faster than the earthquake.
Only about 1 in 20 damaging earthquakes have foreshocks – smaller quakes that precede a larger one in the same place. By definition, they aren’t foreshocks, though, until a bigger one follows. The inability to recognize whether an earthquake in isolation is a foreshock is a big part of why useful prediction still eludes us.
However, in the past decade or so, there have been a number of massive earthquakes of magnitude 8 or more, including the 2011 magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan and a 2014 magnitude 8.1 in Chile. Interestingly, a larger fraction of those very biggest earthquakes seem to have exhibited some precursory events, either in the form of a series of foreshocks detected by seismometers or sped-up movements of the nearby Earth’s crust detected by GPS stations, called “slow slip events” by earthquake scientists.
These observations suggest that perhaps there really are precursory signals for at least some huge quakes. Maybe the sheer size of the ensuing quake made otherwise imperceptible changes in the region of the fault prior to the main event more detectable. We don’t know, because so few of these greater-than-magnitude-8 earthquakes happen. Scientists don’t have a lot of examples to go on that would let us test hypotheses with statistical methods.
In fact, while earthquake scientists all agree that we can’t predict quakes today, there are now essentially two camps: In one view, earthquakes are the result of complex cascades of tiny effects – a sensitive chain reaction of sorts that starts with the proverbial butterfly wing flapping deep within a fault – so they’re inherently unpredictable and will always remain so. On the other hand, some geophysicists believe we may one day unlock the key to prediction if we can just find the right signals to measure and gain enough experience.
How do early warning systems work?
One real breakthrough today is that scientists have developed earthquake early warning systems like the USGS ShakeAlert now operating in California, Oregon and Washington State. These systems can send out an alert to residents’ mobile devices and to operators of critical machinery, including utilities, hospitals, trains and so on, providing warning of anywhere from a few seconds to more than a minute before shaking begins.
This sounds like an earthquake prediction, but it is not. Earthquake early-warning relies on networks of seismometers that detect the very beginning of an earthquake on a fault and automatically calculate its location and magnitude before the damaging waves have spread very far. The sensing, calculating and data transfer all happen near the speed of light, while the seismic waves move more slowly. That time difference is what allows early warning.
For example, if an earthquake begins off the coast of Washington state beneath the ocean, coastal stations can detect it, and cities like Portland and Seattle could get tens of seconds of warning time. People may well get enough time to take a life safety action like “Drop, Cover and Hold On” – as long as they are sufficiently far away from the fault itself.
What complications would predicting bring?
While earthquake prediction has often been referred to as the “holy grail” of seismology, it actually would present some real dilemmas if ever developed.
First of all, earthquakes are so infrequent that any early methods will inevitably be of uncertain accuracy. In the face of that uncertainty, who will make the call to take a major action, such as evacuating an entire city or region? How long should people stay away if a quake doesn’t materialize? How many times before it’s a boy-who-cried-wolf situation and the public stops heeding the orders? How do officials balance the known risks from the chaos of mass evacuation against the risk from the shaking itself? The idea that prediction technology will emerge fully formed and reliable is a mirage.
It is often said in the field of seismology that earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do. Scientists are already good enough today at forecasting earthquake hazards that the best course of action is to redouble efforts to construct or retrofit buildings, bridges and other infrastructure so they’re safe and resilient in the event of ground shaking in any area known to be at risk from large future quakes. These precautions will pay off in lives and property saved far more than a hoped-for means of earthquake prediction, at least for the foreseeable future.
(The author is Professor of Seismology and Geohazards, University of Washington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.)
New Delhi: A group of more than 1,800 scientists, science teachers and educators has written an open letter raising concerns about the chapter on “Theory of Biological Evolution” being dropped from the NCERT textbook for Class 10.
The signatories to the letter include scientists from noted institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) and IITs, among others.
As part of its curriculum rationalisation exercise, the NCERT had last year announced that the chapter “Heredity and Evolution” will be replaced with “Heredity” in the Class 10 science textbook.
Among the topics dropped from the chapter are ‘Evolution’, ‘Acquired and Inherited Traits’, ‘Tracing Evolutionary Relationships’, ‘Fossils’, ‘Evolution by Stages’, ‘Evolution Should Not Be Equated With Progress’ and ‘Human Evolution’.
The new books as per the rationalised curriculum have hit the market now with the commencement of new academic session.
Demanding that the theory of Darwinian evolution be restored in secondary education, the signatories, who are part of the “Breakthrough Science Society”, have said that understanding the process of evolution is “crucial in building a scientific temper” and depriving students of this exposure is “travesty of education”.
“Knowledge and understanding of evolutionary biology is important not just to any sub-field of biology, but is also key to understanding the world around us. Evolutionary biology is an area of science with a huge impact on how we choose to deal with an array of problems we face as societies and nations from medicine and drug discovery, epidemiology, ecology and environment, to psychology, and it also addresses our understanding of humans and their place in the tapestry of life,” the letter said.
“Although many of us do not explicitly realise, the principles of natural selection help us understand how any pandemic progresses or why certain species go extinct, among many other critical issues,” it added.
The scientists noted that in the current educational structure, only a small fraction of students choose the science stream in grade 11 or 12, and an even smaller fraction of those choose biology as one of the subjects of study.
“Thus, the exclusion of key concepts from the curriculum till grade 10 amounts to a vast majority of students missing a critical part of essential learning in this field,” the letter said.
Dropping of several topics and chapters by the NCERT has been caught in controversy with several chapters, which were not notified by the council last year, found missing from the new textbooks.
While earlier the NCERT had claimed that not mentioning certain changes in the rationalisation booklet could have been an “oversight”, later it said “minor changes need not be notified”.
Hyderabad: India on Friday joined over 65 nations in celebrating the 2nd World Quantum Day.
Since 2021, April 14 has been designated as World Quantum Day globally to mark the research efforts using quantum technologies. April 14 was selected by the World Quantum Network aimed at promoting the public understanding of Quantum Science and Technology globally.
April 14 is significant as it is a reference to 4.14, the rounded first digits of Planck’s constant – 4.135667696×10-15 eV/Hz, a product of energy and time that is the fundamental constant governing quantum physics.
This network constitutes scientist representatives from over 65 countries. Representing India are professor Urbasi Sinha from the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, and professor Arun K Pati, Head of Centre for Quantum Science and Technology, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH), a press note informed.
“It is lovely to have a day in the year dedicated to celebrate all things quantum. RRI has been at the forefront of quantum technology research in the country. I am excited at the future prospects in this field for Indian researchers,” said Prof. Urbasi Sinha, Group Head, Quantum Information and Computing (QuIC) lab at RRI.
Sharing his views on quantum technologies, Professor Arun K. Pati, Head of Centre for Quantum Science and Technology, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) said, “Quantum Mechanics rules all the happenings in the universe. More so, quantum mechanics has given rise to revolutionary fields of Quantum Computing, Quantum Communication, and Quantum Technology – all of which will have a lasting contributions to society at large.”
This year’s World Quantum Day commemorated the Nobel Prize in Physics (2022) which was awarded to the trio Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their efforts and experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.
In India, online and physical events were organised to mark this day. Around the world 350 events were planned to observe this day, the WQN website said.
New York: People get happy as they earn more, according to a new study which overturns the dominant thinking that money cannot buy happiness.
The study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, shows that, on average, larger incomes are associated with ever-increasing levels of happiness.
Two prominent researchers, Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University and Matthew Killingsworth from the University of Pennsylvania, surveyed 33,391 adults aged between 18 and 65 who live in the US, are employed and report a household income of at least $10,000 a year.
For the least happy group, happiness rose with income until $100,000, then showed no further increase as income grew. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group the association actually accelerates above $100,000.
“In the simplest terms, this suggests that for most people larger incomes are associated with greater happiness,” said lead author Killingsworth.
“The exception is people who are financially well-off but unhappy. For instance, if you’re rich and miserable, more money won’t help. For everyone else, more money was associated with higher happiness to somewhat varying degrees,” he added.
The researchers said that the study shows both a happy majority and an unhappy minority exist.
For the former, happiness keeps rising as more money comes in; the latter’s happiness improves as income rises but only up to a certain income threshold, after which it progresses no further.
These findings also have real-world implications, according to Killingsworth.
For one, they could inform thinking about tax rates or how to compensate employees. And, of course, they matter to individuals as they navigate career choices or weigh a larger income against other priorities in life, Killingsworth said.
However, he adds that for emotional well-being money isn’t all. “Money is just one of the many determinants of happiness,” he says. “Money is not the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a bit.”
Sydney: A team of researchers has found evidence of a new layer to the planet sitting within the inner core.
According to seismologists from The Australian National University (ANU), data gathered from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of the Earth’s inner core.
The researchers believe they have documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the “innermost inner core”, a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core, by measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core.
Earlier, it was thought the Earth’s structure comprised four distinct layers — the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core, but the current findings confirm there is a fifth layer.
“The existence of an internal metallic ball within the inner core, the innermost inner core, was hypothesised about 20 years ago. We now provide another line of evidence to prove the hypothesis,” said Thanh-Son Phaim, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.
The scientists looked at seismic waves that travel directly through the Earth’s core and ‘spit out’ on the opposite side of the globe from where the earthquake occurred, also known as the antipode.
The waves then return to the epicentre of the quake.
The researchers from the ANU compare the process to a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth.
“By developing a technique to boost the signals recorded by densely populated seismograph networks, we observed, for the first time, seismic waves that bounce back — and forth up to five times along the Earth’s diameter. Previous studies have documented only a single antipodal bounce,” Phaim said.
“The findings are exciting because they provide a new way to probe the Earth’s inner core and its centre-most region,” he added
Historically, the women in Kashmir have remained empowered enough to be part of every sphere of life. Though they have traditionally picked a set of jobs as their careers in education, governance, business and medical science to suit their homemaking role, some of them have opted for challenging careers. Humaira Nabi talks to a number of Kashmir women scientists detailing their journeys in the challenging field and their core research focus
A group of Kashmir women scientists (L to R) Zahida Qamri, Beenish Rufai, Manejah Yaroob, Humaira Gowhar, Samina Raja and Nasheeman Ashraf. KL Graphics
In Kashmir, throughout history, women have remained equal partners in life. It was the partnership between the men and women that made Cashmere Shawls dictate the fashion trends on Paris streets even when they hardly had enough to manage their meals. Two centuries later, half of the doctors in Kashmir are women. They are part of every field of life and, off late, they are academically performing better than men at all levels. So, how could they not be in science?
Though women have routinely chosen particular areas as their careers, there are dozens of Kashmiri women who have opted to be scientists, comparatively a challenging area. Some of them have impressive research to their credit and a few have actually pioneered newer systems and protocols to understand the complexity and diversity of life. Most of these scientists are serving offshore laboratories. Their journeys were interesting and belonged to the era when the infrastructure, back home, was not adequate enough to encourage their return. Most of them did research in these institutions and settled there. However, a few younger ones in recent years availed new openings to return home and serve Jammu and Kashmir.
The trend has only started and is expected to improve in the near future.
The Saffron Scientist
Kashmir has remained home to the world’s costliest spice for many millennia. Though there were efforts to study it scientifically and certain things were better understood. However, the spice waited for Srinagar scientist, Dr Nasheeman Ashraf to study it at the genetic level.
Nasheeman’s interest in Kashmir’s agriculture developed with her graduation when she studied at SKAUST-K’s Wadura campus in Sopore. With an All India Ranking (AIR) of 25, she passed the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) postgraduate admission examination and joined GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttarakhand for a master’s in Biochemistry. She did her doctorate from The National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi.
“It took me six years to complete my PhD. My research was based on chickpea, where I studied Fusarium wilt- a widespread plant disease that impacts its yield,” Nasheeman said.“I along with my fellow researchers developed transcript profiling of susceptible and resistant genotypes during chickpea-Fusarium interaction.”
This study led to the identification of a set of differentially expressed genes among which some were common to both genotypes while a subset of genes was specific to either of the genotype. “This helped us plan a strategy to develop the resistant cultivars,” she said.
Within a month after defending her PhD, Nasheman was offered a principal scientist position at the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), an institution tasked to discover new drugs and therapeutic approaches from natural products. She picked Crocus sativus, the Kashmir saffron. The choice was dictated by her urge to work on something that finds utility back home.
“The desiccated stigma of Crocus sativus forms the saffron, however, in some species of the plant, many other parts of the flower also form saffron,” Nasheeman said. “So, I tried to study the regulatory pathways of Crocus which enable these varieties to form saffron in the stigma and in petals as well.”
She started working on developing a transcriptome map for Crocus, which was used for the identification of genes involved in the regulation of this process. This helped her understand that Corcuspathways can be manipulated to develop the required components in other parts of the plant as well, which can increase the biomass produced. Normally, one kilogram of saffron demands the cultivation of 25o thousand blossoms. If the manipulation at the genetic level becomes a success, it can improve the yield, manage the demand-supply chain better and have better returns for the grower.
As an acknowledgement of her research, Nasheemanwas awarded with CSIR Raman Research Fellowship in 2016, which enabled her to work as a visiting scientist at the University of Kentucky, USA followed by an EMBO short-term fellowship to work in Spain.
“In Spain, they were already working on Saffron. It helped me to incorporate their expertise in my research and I got to study some of the plant samples, which produce saffron in petals as well,” Dr Nashman said.
Currently exploring non-traditional areas having the potential for saffron production, Dr Nasheeman asserts that all Kashmir districts can produce saffron. “Last year, I distributed saffron bulbs among a group of my students belonging to various districts for cultivation. We covered all the 10 districts and found that it grew everywhere,” she said. “The findings of the study will determine whether any other areas of Kashmir have the potential for saffron cultivation.”
Apart from starting her laboratory literally from the scratch and making it big, Nasheeman, now a principal scientist, has pioneered developing a gene database of Saffron which consisted of around 64000 genes. After she published the data, many offshore laboratories picked the thread and are following it up.
Planning For World
From Gagribal in Srinagar to the United States and then devising urban planning systems that interested a key UN agency, it has been a fulfilling journey for Dr Samina Raja. Trained as a civil engineer from Jamia Millia Islamia, Dr Samina Raja had a predicament that while she was being trained to build she was not trained to think. With apprehensions about the impact of building on human health, Dr Samina saw challenges on a bigger scale and decided to pursue her Master’s in Planning, with a focus on housing, from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. Later, she opted for a PhD programme in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Prof Samina Raja heads the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities laboratory in the University of Buffalo, New York. Photograph by Alexender J Becker
“I remember the first lecture I attended during my PhD programme being about ethics, which, despite being an important aspect in all fields, is not widely discussed in developing countries,” Dr Raja said. “It focused on the fundamental concerns of why and for whom we are building while planning. It was a pivotal lecture. So, my PhD ended up being about land development and layered on to that was public finance. I studied the impact of land development decisions and buildings on human health and future generations.”
Subsequently, Samina Raja focused her training with economists and urban planners on what happens to local government’s public finances and taxes in the United States when an urban planner develops land for construction.
“There is a concept of the highest and best use of land in urban planning. It is also used sometimes in Kashmir and in South Asia. So, there is a heuristic notion that if, for example, farmland is converted into a building, we conceive that to be the best use of the land,” Dr Raja said. “I actually measured whether that was accurate. There is a widespread global method that teaches urban planners how to judge whether land development is good or bad. I tested the accuracy of the methods and discovered that the methods that planners use are flawed. It led me to my judgment that some ways an urban planner plans can be hurtful to the general public. To simplify, if you see a patch of farmland converted into a mansion and you think it’s a sign of progress, it turns out that it’s not, it’s complicated.”
Dr Raja’s PhD raised more questions than it offered answers for herself and many others. The key question her dissertation raised was about the general understanding of the appropriate use of land. That research forced her to reimagine how to plan and set her on a trajectory to develop tools and resources for healthy city planning.
“I ended up contributing to the newly emerging field of food systems planning. My research lab was the first one in the world that uses urban planning to improve food systems,” Dr Samina Raja, who now wears many hats said. Now Prof Raja is an Associate Dean and Director of the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab, which operates within the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Buffalo. “So, I was able to take my learning from the dissertation and apply it in one particular way to develop the lab, work with city governments, develop technical assistance models and train students. So, I think the impact of that dissertation is translated into the real world today in unexpected ways.”
In 2014, Dr Samina Raja along with her team conducted a national survey of urban planners in the United States. With 40,000 local governments across the United States, her team reached out to them about the impact of urban planning on human health and food and found that only one per cent of local governments were focused on the impact of their planning decisions on food systems. Dr Raja took note of the situation and along with her team pushed for a change to help urban planners in the United States to impetus their planning techniques.
“There is an association called the American Planning Association, which is the largest professional association of urban planners. In 2008, they published Planners Guide to Community and Regional Food Systems, the first advisory report on the topic for American planners. It was written by me and my colleagues and that was one of the contributions of our lab. Our lab trains local governments across the United States about the impact of a comprehensive plan, Master Plan as it is called in Kashmir, on human health. Similarly, I led the development of a report for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) on the impact of urban planning on food and health. Our team with the help of GIS and other technologies monitors the impact of urban planning on human health,” Dr Samina Raja said.
She is now dividing her time between teaching, supervising research, and advising civic organizations, local governments and national and global agencies. She has many researchers from Kashmir on her team, and her laboratory is already working with various scientists in Kashmir.
A Caset Scientist
Keen to talk hard science into Kashmiri, Dr Humaira Gowher is a Srinagar-born biochemist who is an Associate Professor at Purdue University and an Adjunct faculty at the University of Kashmir-run Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation (CIRI). She is studying the regulation of DNA methylation in development and disease in her high-end laboratory.
Having persuaded her early education at Caset Experimental School, Karanagar, Humaira considers herself being lucky to have grown up in a school which had the word ‘experiment’ associated with it. “Prof Chuni Lal Vishen, chairman of Caset Experimental School was way ahead of his time. He was a Princeton returnee, and had a vision of imparting education which was prevalent in the west but was not much appreciated here,” HUmaira said. “I believe that a fair share of my inherent knowledge has come from the school, and I’m very thankful to him for that.”
Being fond of biochemistry from an early age, Humaira joined the Aligarh Muslim University, then the only institute offering the course. “I completed my bachelor’ and subsequently my master’s in Biochemistry from the AMU. During the course of my studies, I developed an inclination for research. I was fortunate enough to be a part of experimental research as a summer trainee for a couple of months in Dr SE Hasnein’s lab at the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi, which instilled a love for the subject and associated research.”
After qualifying GATE examination, with a very high percentile, Humaira applied for the Indian Institute of Science and topped the biochemistry department. This made her the first Kashmiri woman to enrol at the institute. After spending two years at ISC, she left the programme and flew to Germany with her engineer husband. There, she continued her PhD at Justus Liebig University.
Having picked her research skills in India, she completed her PhD in 30 months. Her PhD revealed that the short catalytic domain of the mammalian DNA methyltransferases Dnmt3a and 3b are active without their large N-terminal part, which led to characterization, crystallization, and those enzymes in multiple labs around the world. There, she published seven first-author research papers. She was awarded Summa cum laude, an honorary title used by educational institutions to signify a degree that was earned “with the highest distinction”.
“I received a lot of offers from UK and US, but I chose United States because I felt it to be more inclusive unlike Europe,” Humaira said. “I joined one of the pioneers in the field of chromatin Biology named Gary Fasenfeld, who is a student of the legendary Linus Pauling. I had the privilege of working in his lab for eight years and the experience was outstanding. While I learned science and associated things, the best thing about working with Gary Fasenfeld was that I learned how to be humble. Working with someone, who has produced around eight Nobel laureates, you don’t expect him to be that humble but he is.”
With a vision of working independently and owing a lab, Humaira after her postdoc, was appointed as an Assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Purdue University. During the course, she has established her own laboratory and is working independently.
Perfecting A Vaccine
A Ramanujan fellow and previously a Senior Resident at AIIMS Bhopal, Dr Beenish Rufai is a young Kashmiri scientist who did the genome-sequencing of all the tuberculosis strains inflicting India and for the first time created the circular reference genome of the pathogen Myobacteriumorygis. Student of Kothibagh Higher Secondary School, Beenish chose Microbiology as a major during her graduation and post-grad studies in Dehradun. “I chose microbiology because I was always fascinated by the microbes,” Beenish said. “I loved to see these tiny creatures under the microscope who happen to be a cause of much of the disturbance in the world.”
At AIIMS in Delhi where she did her PhD, she joined the clinical microbiology division under Dr Sarmand Singh. For more than a year, she studied various aspects of microbiology. It included studying all the seven strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that have come up right during the course of its evolution.
“I studied these lineages with the basic goals of analysing how they spread in India, how they are evolving, and why there is such a high prevalence of drug resistance in India,” she said. “We found 52 per cent of patients infected by Beijing lineage prone to drug resistance.”
The study revealed every stain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has occupied specific geography. In North India, they found a Central Asian strain of Mycobacterium Tuberculosisis. In South India East African lineage of the disease dominates. The Beijing lineage was in the North Eastern region because of its Chinese origin but during the epidemiological transmission survey, it was found that these strains are circulating all over India.
“We found North Eastern part more TB drug resistance and more vulnerable to the disease,” Beenish said. “It was at that time we did comparative genomics-aligning the genome of all the strains of TB and studied their commonalities. We found that a particular gene known as CRISPR, which is known to provide some adaptive immunity to the bacterial cell is deleted in Beijing strain.”
Later, she went for postdoctoral training at McGill University in Canada, where she researched Mycobacterium Bovis. Mycobacterium Bovis is a zoonotic disease which spreads from infected animals to humans. This settled a myth forever. Earlier, it was presumed that in India people get infected by TB transmitted from animals but it was not. “In microbiology, there is a strain, known as a reference strain, which is defined as any microorganism acquired from a recognized culture collection,” Beenish explained. “It is the standard that allows it to be compared to other strains. We didn’t have any reference strain of Mycobacterium orygis so I had to develop a circular reference Mycobacterium orygis so that we could distinguish a suspected sample of Mycobacterium orygis from other strains. I got successful and developed the first circular reference genome of Mycobacterium orygis.”
It was later that Beenish started probing the TB vaccine in vogue and came to the conclusion that humanity lacks an effective TB vaccine. Discovered in 1921, the BCG vaccine was the outcome of science when the genetic architecture of the strains wasn’t fully understood. With evolving strains and increased drug resistance, the efficiency of the BCG strain to provoke our immune system and give protection against TB has also rained down.
It was this project that brought her back home to work at IIIM in Srinagar where she had to establish her laboratory from a scratch, almost following Nasheeman. She is working on techniques that can improve the efficacy of the BCG vaccine. “I work on membrane vesicles of TB that are released from the bacteria inside the host body,” explained Beenish. “These vesicles are already known to have a role in immune invoke evasion. I thought to engineer the BCG strain. If there are some vesicles that are actually helping our immune system in a positive manner against infection, so we can engineer this BCG strain so that they release these vesicles. I aim is to work on the BCG strain to engineer it with such genes that aid in the secretion of these vesicles thus enhancing the efficacy of the strain.”
Dr ZahidaQamri
For Zahida Qamri, it was a quantum jump when she convinced her family that she must move out and study. This led her to get admission to Jamia Hamdard. Fighting weather and managing the cosmopolitan culture, Zahida did her master’s and a PhD in biochemistry.
Her research work was around diarrhoea, one of the major health problems in children under one year of age. In certain cases, it could prove fatal. “During my doctoral programme, I examined the stool of the children and developed DNA fingerprinting of the bacteria I found,” Zahida said. “The purpose of my study was to identify and characterize the bacterial strains which cause diarrhoea in infants, by using various techniques. I also studied drug resistance among diarrhoea-causing bacteria.”
During her post-doctoral programme in microbiology, Zahida developed an interest in oncology. She was selected to Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi as a research scientist, where she worked on breast cancer. “During our research, we hoped to identify a cancer-causing gene in the North Indian population. If we locate that gene in any person during genome sequencing, we can inform them about their propensity for cancer.”
At that time, there was a job opening at Harvard Medical School for breast cancer and she applied for a post-doc. “ I had studied breast cancer at Safdarjung Hospital; I incorporated brain and lung cancer in the study during my postdoc at Harvard. It was a great opportunity. I started drawing experiments and writing grants independently,” Zahida remembers.
After spending 30 months at Harvard Medical School, she moved to Ohio State University where she worked for 12 years. Later grants dried up. Then, she did a master’s degree in clinical and pre-clinical research from the same university. “The programme helped me get into a new field of managing clinical research and the impact of our work that we do in labs, on common people,” Zahida said. Clinical trials, she said, is a new and emerging discipline. “For better management, Western countries are outsourcing the field. To enter the field, you do not require a specialist degree. You may even participate from home, thus the current work-from-home culture made forth by the pandemic is a bonus. Internet access and electricity are two fundamental requirements in this field.”
Now, she spends her time with JK Scientists, a Srinagar-based network of scientists who identify and guide new talent.
Medical Innovation
Married to a networking engineer from Silicon Valley, Dr Manijha Yaqoob was a successful medical professional from SKIMS, Soura, when destiny subjected gave her an opportunity to get into the technology side of health care in San Francisco after marriage. She is into medical innovation. “While I enjoyed medical practice, I decided to take leverage of the immense technology that I was surrounded with,” Dr Manijha said.
Currently serving as a Physician Scientist at Roche USA, Manijha for the last 18 years has been working with various companies including Abbott Vascular, Medtronic Neurovascular and many others. Apart from working on various drugs and medical devices, her most remarkable work includes a drug-eluting coronary stent called XIENCE V. Whereas coronary stent, made of plain metal, was invented long back, XIENCE V decreased its risk reduction which included restenosis, a stage when an artery previously opened with a stent or angioplasty becomes narrowed again. Besides, she has also been a part of the team whose innovation helped retrieve clots from stroke patients’ brains.
Stressing upon the importance of health technology, Manijha believes that medical students must not shy away from choosing an interdisciplinary medical profession if they have a bent on technology. “I have trained medical professionals across the world,” Manija said. “Doctors have a major role to play in innovating products and devices, by giving a medical perspective thereby proposing inventions with better efficacy. Doctors must not stick to writing a prescription, they must broaden their vision.”
(This report is merely a start to showcasing the Kashmir women in science. More is in pipeline.)
The Sun’s North Pole was surrounded by a tornado-like whirl when a large chunk of its surface broke off. Even though researchers are working to understand how it happened, the video of the event has shocked the space community.
The extraordinary occurrence was captured by NASA’s James Webb telescope and announced last week on Twitter by space weather forecaster Dr. Tamitha Skov. Scientists are particularly concerned about the most recent development since the Sun continues to release solar flares (also known as prominences) that can occasionally interfere with communications on Earth.
“Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. Implications for understanding the Sun’s atmospheric dynamics above 55 degrees here cannot be overstated!” Dr Skov said in a tweet last week.
The prominence, as defined by NASA, is a big luminous feature extending from the Sun’s surface. Although there have been other incidents of this kind, the scientific community is baffled by this one.
“Additional measurements of the #SolarPolarVortex show that material travelled around the pole at a latitude of about 60 degrees in about 8 hours. This suggests that 96 kilometres per second, or 60 miles per second, is the upper bound for the assessment of the horizontal wind speed in this occurrence.” Dr. Skov stated in a later tweet.
A chunk of the prominence broke off and was whipped into the solar atmosphere, causing a “vortex” that had never been seen before, according to solar physicist Scott McIntosh of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, who has been watching the Sun for decades.
Now that the weird occurrence has occurred, space experts are investigating it to learn more about it and paint a clearer picture. Despite being constantly watched, our favourite star continues to surprise us with unexpected events like the numerous strong flares this month that interfered with contact on Earth.
Houston: Ganesh Thakur, an Indian-origin professor in the US, has been appointed as the vice president of the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST), an organisation that brings the state’s top scientists and researchers to advance research, innovation and business in Texas.
The TAMEST board of directors on Tuesday appointed Thakur, a distinguished Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Houston (UH), vice president alongside Brendan Lee, who will serve as the president.
Originally from Jharkhand, Thakur is the first UH faculty member to lead TAMEST.
During his two-year term as vice president, he will help coordinate and guide the board of directors with strategic planning, programmes and communication.
He will eventually be named the president of the organisation in 2025.
“Texas is home to some of the most brilliant minds in the world, and I’m honoured and excited by this opportunity to strengthen collaboration and advance innovation across the state in fields critical to our continued growth and development,” said Thakur, who has been a member of the organisation since 2016, most recently serving as treasurer.
“TAMEST is a scientific and biomedical intellectual engine for the state, and I am passionate about its mission to benefit public good and business,” he added.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors, Thakur is a globally recognised pioneer in Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). His patent on forecasting the performance of water injection and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using a hybrid analytical-empirical methodology provided a much faster approach that served as an alternative to more time-consuming reservoir simulation.
In a USD 5 million partnership with Oil India Limited, Thakur’s team helped capture carbon dioxide from petrochemical plants to boost oil recovery in several fields in Assam. The project is targeted to help reduce India’s carbon footprint and increase its ability to fulfil its energy needs.
“Dr Thakur’s leadership, passion and cutting-edge research have been instrumental in positioning the University as a strategic partner to the energy industry,” said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, UH vice president of energy and innovation.
“His extensive knowledge and expertise will be of great benefit to TAMEST and the state of Texas. I sincerely congratulate him on this well-deserved appointment,” he added.
“We fully support Dr Thakur’s involvement in this key leadership position which is critical to advancing innovation across our state. He has an incredible passion for teaching and collaboration which will be a great asset to the TAMEST,” said Joseph W. Tedesco, Elizabeth D. Rockwell Dean of the Cullen College of Engineering.
Thakur joined UH in 2016 with a grant from the Texas Governor’s University Research Initiative (GURI). He joined as director of UH Energy Industry Partnerships after almost four decades working in the industry at Chevron, where he served in several leadership roles, including vice president of reservoir management.
He earned his doctorate in petroleum and natural gas engineering (PNGE) from Pennsylvania State University in 1973, after earning his master’s degrees in mathematics and PNGE there. He also has an MBA from Houston Baptist University and received his bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from IIT (ISM) Dhanbad in India.
TAMEST membership includes all Texas-based members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the state’s nine Nobel laureates and 18 member institutions, including the University of Houston. It brings together the state’s “best and brightest” scientists and researchers to foster collaboration and advance research, innovation and business in Texas, according to the TAMEST website.
