The covid-19 crisis is still going on throughout the world. It has affected over 11 Million people and leaving 527,835 people globally dead as per WHO reports on 5th July 2020. Amid Covid-19 crisis researchers have been working tirelessly for Covid-19 vaccine production. There are more than 200 candidates and only 15 have entered clinical trials globally. In India, there are two…
What are locusts? Locusts belong to a species of grasshoppers that belongs to the family Acrididae. This is a broad category consisting of various species of the Acrididae family. They are well known for their swarming habit. These species are usually solitary but change their behaviour to gregarious and nomadic. Locusts sightings in India These…
Scientists from the University of Utah in the U.S. developed a sensor that could be paired with a smartphone and can detect coronavirus. Massood Tabib-Azar, a professor at the University of Utah, electrical and computer engineering, has received a $200,000 National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant to develop a portable and reusable coronavirus sensor. The quarter-sized sensor could…
In December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases appeared in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China but the cause was unknown. Scientists suspected something novel, this was not due to the bacteria as previously thought but a novel virus. WHAT IS CORONAVIRUS? Corona in Latin means crown. Under the electron microscope, the virus capsid or outer layer looks like a…
COVID KAVACH ELISA Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune developed the indigenous IgG ELISA test named “COVID KAVACH ELISA” for antibody detection for COVID-19 which is the first Indian antibody detection kit for Coronavirus. Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe, thus, the demand for testing kits is also increasing. India imports most of these diagnostic kits from other countries….
Covid-19 normally spreads from a person to person. When an infected person sneezes or coughs, droplets containing the virus spread in the surrounding area. Any healthy person could come in contact with these and get infected. One can get infected even when they get into contact with the things or artifacts contaminated with the virus particles. There were…
Scientists at CSIR-IGIB (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research‘s Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology), New Delhi have developed a paper-based strip for testing COVID-19 named ‘FELUDA’. It Can test Covid-19 in just a few minutes. It is named after Satyajit Ray’s popular fictional detective character and stands for “FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay’’. “It will detect the…