Micro & Nano Plastics, Cancer Fighting Molecule, Snow Leopards, Water Poverty, Mars Dating and more...

Weekly Newsletter | Issue #21 - 21 May, 2025

May 21, 2025

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This week, learn about the first government-approved genome-edited rice varieties—DRR Rice 100 (Kamla) and Pusa DST Rice 1—created using genome-editing technology based on CRISPR-Cas.

In this week's stories, the process of micro and nano plastics formation, a new molecule to fight aggressive triple-negative breast cancer, the most extensive snow leopard survey, the relation between water poverty and temperature shocks, mining minerals on Earth to study Mars and more. In the regional section, we have stories in Hindi and Marathi. There are also STEM stories from other Indian media outlets. Check out the events section for all this week's public science events. Don’t forget to check out Scidle - the science wordle, for a new science word every day.

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Stories in this edition

Study sheds light on how micro and nano plastics form | IIT Bombay, Columbia University, others

A study by a team at IIT Bombay and their collaborators reveals how the majority of commercial use plastic degrades into micro and nano plastic particles.

Scientists design a new molecule to fight aggressive breast cancer | BITS Pilani, Jadavpur University, The Neotia University

Researchers designed a new molecule called compound 7c that targets a specific HDAC called HDAC3, known to play a key role in the development and spread of aggressive breast cancer.