River Floods, IoT Farming, Multicellular Evolution, Thermal Batteries, Sarus Cranes and more...

Weekly Newsletter | Issue #26 - 25 June, 2025

Jun 25, 2025

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In this week’s stories: Changing river flood patterns across India, using Cyber Physical Systems and Neural Networks for crop disease detection, Fluid physics helping multicellular evolution, Storing heat from the sun using thermochemical storage devices, and using duets of Sarus Cranes to identify their sex.

We also have a fascinating story of the scientific process, resilience, and innovation in solving problems during the pandemic, written by Dr. Chaitanya A. Athale of the Division of Biology at IISER Pune.

In the regional section, we have stories in Hindi and Marathi. There is also STEM news from other Indian media outlets. Don’t forget to check out Scidle - the science wordle, for a new science word every day. There are plenty of STEM events to attend this week, both online and in your cities.

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Stories in this edition

India's riverine floods are changing in surprising ways | IIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee

A new study presents a comprehensive understanding of how river floods in India have evolved over the past 40 years, from 1970 to 2010, based on records of river flow from 173 different monitoring stations spread across the country.

EdgePlantNet, a neural network-powered crop disease detection tool for smart agriculture applications | IIT Patna, IIT Bombay, RGIPT

The application uses Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to identify disease symptoms from images of leaves, and is small enough to be run on IoT devices.

Unexpected Fluid Physics Around Snowflake Yeast Offers Clues to the Evolution of Multicellular Organisms | NCBS, ICTS, Others

The research showed that the metabolism of the yeast created fluid flows around them, which helped transport nutrients further than would be possible just by diffusion.

IIT Bombay researchers propose bottling sunlight in the summers to use as heating in the winter | IIT Bombay

Scientists at IIT Bombay (IITB) are applying chemistry to trap summer sun for freezing winters. Read the story to know more.

The Secret Language of Sarus Cranes: Using Duets to Identify Sex | Gopi Sundar, NCF

Researchers used the complex duets of Sarus Cranes to identify distinct signatures in the audio that could then be used to determine their sex.

Guest Post: Engineered RNA-sensor on filter-paper discs that can distinguish between Zika and Coronavirus - Prof Chaitanya Athale

Prof. Chaitanya Athale from IISER Pune shares his journey of building a low-cost RNA-based biosensor to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the pandemic and overcoming the challenges of the lockdown.

Science Games & Puzzles

Try the science wordle game - Scidle, and share your score with the world!

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Regional

Hindi (हिन्दी):

ग्रीष्मकालीन सौर ऊर्जा को संचित कर, शीतकाल में ताप उत्पन्न करने का विलक्षण सुझाव

Marathi(मराठी):

बरणीत भरलेले उबदार ऊन! थंडीत उष्णता मिळवण्यासाठी उन्हाळ्यातल्या सूर्यप्रकाशाची साठवण

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