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Everyman’s ScienceEVERYMAN’S Vol. XLVIII No. 1, April ’13 — May ’13 SCIENCE Vol. XLVIII No. 1 (April ’13 – May ’13) EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD EDITORIAL BOARD Prof. Swapan Kumar Datta (New Delhi) Editor-in-Chief Prof. Premendu Prakash Mathur (Bhubaneswar) Dr. Ashok Kumar Saxena Dr. R. L. Bharadwaj (Agra) Area Editors Prof. Rajneesh Dutt Kaushik (Haridwar) Dr. (Mrs.) Vijay Laxmi Saxena (Biological Sciences) Prof. Amarendra Kumar Sinha (Jaipur) Dr. Mohan Khedkar (Amravati) Dr. Pramod Kumar Verma (Earth Sciences, Engineering & Material Sciences) Dr. Pitamber Prasad Dhyani (Almora) Dr. Manoj Kumar Chakrabarti Dr. Subhash Chandra Yadav (Varanasi) (Medical Sciences including Physiology) Prof. Lalit Mohan Manocha Dr. Arvind Kumar Saxena (Vallabh Vidyanagar) (Physical Sciences) Prof. D. S. Hooda (Guna) Dr. (Mrs.) Vipin Sobti Dr. Surya Kant Tripathi (Lucknow) (Social Sciences) Prof. Parimal C. Sen (Kolkata) General Secretary (Membership Affairs) Dr. Sanjeev Ramachandra Inamdar Er. Nilangshu Bhushan Basu (Dharwad) Prof. Surinder Pal Khullar (Chandigarh) General Secretary (Scientific Activities) Prof. Arun Kumar COVER PHOTOGRAPHS Editorial Secretary Past General Presidents of ISCA Dr. Amit Krishna De 1. Prof. A. K. Saha (1980) 2. Prof. A. K. Sharma (1981) Printed and published by Dr. Ashok Kumar Saxena 3. Prof. M. G. K. Menon (1982) on behalf of Indian Science Congress Association and printed at Seva Mudran, 43, Kailash Bose 4. Prof. B. Ramachandra Rao (1983) Street, Kolkata-700 006 and published at Indian 5. Prof. R. P. Bambah (1984) Science Congress Association, 14, Dr. Biresh Guha 6. Prof. A. S. Paintal (1985) Street, Kolkata-700 017, with Dr. Ashok Kumar Saxena as Editor. For permission to reprint or Annual Subscription : (6 issues) reproduce any portion of the journal, please write to the Institutional 200/- ; Individual 50/- Editor-in-Chief. Price : 10/- per issue 1 Everyman’s Science Vol. XLVIII No. 1, April ’13 — May ’13 CONTENTS EDITORIAL : Recent Trends in Biological Sciences Dr. (Mrs.) Vijay Laxmi Saxena 3 ARTICLES : Presidential Address : Energy Strategies for India Ajit Kumar Saha 5 Climate Change and Coral Vulnerability Sharmila Chandra 69 Virus as a Biosensor Rajib Deb, Satish Gaikwad, Sanjeev K. Shukla, C. Madhan Mohan and Sohini Dey 74 KNOW THY INSTITUTIONS 80 CONFERENCES / MEETINGS / SYMPOSIA / SEMINARS 83 S & T ACROSS THE WORLD 84 2 Everyman’s Science Vol. XLVIII No. 1, April ’13 — May ’13 EDITORIAL RECENT TRENDS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES Imagine a world where there is abundant and the potential to devise new approaches that address healthy food for everyone, where the environment traditional and systems level questions in new, is resilient and flourishing, where there is interdisciplinary, and especially, quantitative ways. sustainable, clean energy, where good health is the Modern researches in Biology rely on integrating norm. All these daunting challenges are knowledge from many disciplines to derive deeper interdependent – growing of more food without understanding of biological systems. That deeper harming natural environments, exploring new energy understanding both allows the development of sources without global warming or have adverse biology-based solutions for society’s problems and health effects. Fortunately, advances in the life also feeds back to enrich the individual scientific sciences have the potential to contribute innovative disciplines that contributed to these new insights. It and mutually reinforcing solutions to reach all of is critically important to recognize that in near these goals. Some plausible contributions of the future, Biology will not replace the ongoing life sciences to meet these challenges are : research; that research is the foundation on which (i) a wide variety of plants with faster maturation, the future Biology rests and on which it will drought tolerance, and disease resistance continue to rely. If we compare our understanding could contribute to a sustainable increase in of the living world to the assembly of a massive local food production. jigsaw puzzle, each of the sub-disciplines of biology has been assembling sections of the puzzle. The (ii) Food crops could be engineered for higher individual sections are far from complete and nutritional value, including higher continued work to fill those gaps is critical. Indeed, concentrations of vitamins and healthier oils. biological systems are so complex that it is likely (iii) Critical habitats could be monitored by arrays that major new discoveries are still to be expected, of remote sensors. and new discoveries very frequently come from Note that in the 19th century, persons individual scientists who make the intellectual leap investigating the living world used to be termed as from the particular system they study to an insight “naturalists” with interdisciplinary research that illuminates many biological processes. activities, combining biology, geology, and physics. Now it is time to invest in the development of Now, after decades of high productive specialization, the new aspects of biology because the life sciences the study of life is again becoming more are in the midst of a historical period analogous to interdisciplinary, by necessity combining previously the early 20th century in the physical sciences. The disparate fields to create a new horizon of Biology.” discovery of the electron in 1897 marked the The essence of this new horizon is the re-integration beginning of a major turning point in the history of of sub-disciplines of biology, along with greater science. Over the next few decades, physics, influence from the physical and computational chemistry, and astronomy were all transformed. sciences, mathematics, and engineering. This has Physicists uncovered the fundamental constituents 3 Everyman’s Science Vol. XLVIII No. 1, April ’13 — May ’13 of matter and energy and discovered that these Responses to great challenges often must be constituents interact in unanticipated ways. Chemists enunciated, formulated, and launched before the related the structure and properties of substances to capabilities to meet those challenges are in place. the interactions of electrons surrounding atomic In this way, the response often motivates the creation nuclei. Astronomers related the light received from of the necessary capabilities. The decisions to send stars and the sun to the chemical properties of the humans to the moon and to sequence the human atoms generating that light. In this way, new genome were both made when the relevant connections within the physical sciences became technologies were far from being up to the job. In apparent and drove further advances. These each case, establishing a bold and specific target theoretical advances also led to practical applications created unforeseen routes to solutions. Recent that transformed society. Having a “parts list” of technological and scientific advances have brought the physical world enabled scientists and engineers the life sciences to a point where rapid progress to develop technologies that would not have been toward understanding complex biological systems possible without this understanding. These is possible. Many of the essential ingredients are technologies led in turn to the electronic industry, already in place. Biotechnology is already emerging the computer industry, and the information as an interdisciplinary, system-level, computationally technology industry, which together have created a intensive subject. A piecemeal strategy, with many world that could scarcely have been imagined a different agencies, interdisciplinary projects and century ago. Before the transition associated with investing in various technologies would continue to the discovery of the electron, scientists gathered advance the efforts of some pioneer researchers increasing amounts of data, but those data could whose work has enormous promise. But the cross- not be put to full use because of the lack of a cutting technologies and tools that would genuinely conceptual framework. After that discovery, empower the Biotechnology will definitely require previously gathered data took on new usefulness, significant investment and advance planning. We entirely new areas of inquiry emerged, and discovery all expect that such sustained development in and application accelerated rapidly. Such discoveries biological sciences will result the eventual are critical junctures that send science and society realization of our imagination mentioned in the in new directions. beginning of this editorial. Dr. (Mrs.) Vijay Laxmi Saxena Department of Zoology D.G.(P.G.) College, Kanpur Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. —Carl Sagan 4 Everyman’s Science Vol. XLVIII No. 1, April ’13 — May ’13 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ENERGY STRATEGIES FOR INDIA Prof. Ajit Kumar Saha, D.Sc., F.N.A hen I express my gratitude to members hidden under the bowels of the earth, reclaiming W of India Science Congress for having deserts and swamps, conquering the barriers of chosen me for the highest office. I do not use distance” words of mere conventional courtesy. I deeply In choosing my theme I pay my respects to him, appreciate this honour, thought I may right away for I am beholden to him in more ways then one. say that I not admire your choice. Today this easy optimism has to a large measure In keeping up with recent tradition, I was disappeared. We know now that much of the energy required to lay down a focal theme for this Session pools from which we have been drawing our and I chose one