Sivagalai: The oldest Iron Age site in the world?
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Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
BHU study finds genetic link to high TB rates in Sahariya Tribe
Varanasi: A genetic study by researchers from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and four other institutions has identified a possible genetic factor behind the unusually high prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) in the Sahariya tribe of Madhya Pradesh. The findings were published recently in the international journal Mitochondrion. The Sahariyas, recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), record TB rates ranging from 1,518 to 3,294 cases per one lakh population—many times higher than the national average. The study, led by Prof. Gyaneshwer Chaubey of BHU, analysed mitochondrial genomes of 729 individuals, including 140 Sahariyas and 589 from neighbouring tribes and castes, to probe maternal genetic lineage and its role in TB susceptibility. Researchers found that the Sahariya tribe carries two rare maternal haplogroups—N5 and X2—that are completely absent in neighbouring populations. Phylogenetic studies suggest these lineages entered the tribe from western India during the early Iron Age, altering their genomic structure and possibly increasing their vulnerability to TB. "This is the first time a study has explained how a population's genetic structure interacts with a disease," Prof. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Chaubey said. Lead author Debasruti Das added that understanding genetic susceptibility in vulnerable communities could strengthen public health strategies in India, which bears the world's largest TB burden. Senior author Prof. Prashant Survajhala noted the findings point to a founder effect, where rare maternal lineages became concentrated in the Sahariya population, potentially affecting immune response to TB. He emphasised that genetic factors, coupled with malnutrition and poor access to healthcare, contribute to the community's high disease burden. The study, which used high-resolution mitochondrial DNA analysis—including new samples from Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh—was conducted by researchers from BHU, the University of Calcutta, Forensic Lab Jabalpur, and Jaipur. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.
Scroll.in
2 days ago
- Scroll.in
Short stories of the cosmos: A solarpunk creature, Comet Izumi, observes the Earth's changes
No cosmic drifter is an outsider in the spherical spinning shell of dormant comets, the dark Oort Cloud, which encases our disk-like solar system. This frozen frontier, about two light years away from the Sun, does what borderlands do: accommodate other abandoned aliens. Vagrant wanderers from distant star systems who have travelled, occasionally streaked by starlight, through the spreading hand of space fit in like a missing part of a swirling jigsaw puzzle. The Oort Cloud formed gradually, after the planets had jostled into place some 4.5 billion years ago, commingled the rolling, roiling remnants of the solar system with leftovers from other proto suns which our newborn Sun captured while whirling away from its birth cluster. These discards – hundreds of billions, even trillions of them – are a cosmic balancing act, poised at the heliopause where matched solar and interstellar winds create equilibrium. Its lip hangs open to the vast partial vacuum of interstellar space that is scattered with speckles of drifting dust, gas and smidgeons of rays. The dwarf sun, red Proxima Centuari rotates nearby, merely some 2.24 light years away. Occasionally, something disturbs one of its torpid comets. Cosmic snowballs of gases, rock and dust, they then begin their journey toward the Sun. The span of their voyages range in time and space, from the short 76-year periodicity of Halley's Comet to Siding Spring which made a startlingly close pass over Mars in 2013, but will not return for some 740,000 years. Some, like our protagonist Comet Izumi, whose trail we follow over billions of years, are even more enigmatic. Each of Comet Izumi's unknown orbits from the Oort Cloud is speculated to take just under a billion years. The comet has, therefore, survived billions of years of not flambéing into the Sun or succumbing to rare comet death through planetary collision. We have proof of such uncommon events unearthed in the Valley of the Kings, in the magnificent tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamen, mummified in c 1323 BCE. At the centre of his perfectly preserved broach sits a gleaming silica glass stone, yellow as sunswept honey, set as a sacred scarab. 28 million years ago, an ancient comet exploded over the Sahara, frizzling desert sand into silica over a scatter of 6000 square kilometres. Thus was Tut's bijou born. One day, a long time later, this translucent jewel possibly dazzled the eye of a nomadic tribesman who found it nosing out of an incalescent dune. Needing water for his young, pregnant wife he might have traded the gem sitting in his palm like a slice of solidified sunlight to an adventurous merchant who, marvelling at his good fortune, pouched it to present to the royal court where the pharaoh's craftsmen carved, polished and set its aurous light in gold, as a perfect adornment for a mortal descendant of the Sun. There exists, also, a mysterious black pebble found in the same region which contains microscopic diamonds. Impacting shock morphed the ancient comet's carbon bearing nucleus into diamonds; of which the pebble is a remnant and reminder. This unique stone is named in honour of a singular woman, Hypatia of Alexandria. Mathematician, pagan philosopher and astronomer, she was murdered by Christian monks one spring morning in 415 CE for her beliefs, for listening to 'the music of the spheres' and her work on astrolabes. Branded a sorceress Hypatia was pulled from her chariot, her flesh sliced into by jagged oyster shells and her limbs torn apart. How often had Hypatia, standing on her terrace in Alexandria, gazed into the glossy black pebble of the sky where stars twinkled codes in argots unidentified, and puzzled over the darkness shrouding human hearts? As unobserved comets blazed beyond Earth's horizon she must have wondered when our pulsing stone-hearts would tattoo out more than the mirror-language of the self. Perhaps brushing a curl of hair off her face, Hypatia speculated if the nucleus of the self will open its pores to wisdom and languages from other systems in existence. Comet Izumi's peanut-shaped nucleus, smaller in size than a double-humped hill, is balled in a heated blanket of coma from which its tail trails like a shimmering wake or a beautiful afterthought. Why was its trajectory triggered and how far after passing the Sun does it loop back through the inky waves of space, what dangers to its being has it encountered and when will it come to an end? Such answers lie in the magnificent, barely translated cosmic vocabulary written in hieroglyphics of time. Because scale, even in this small segment of our galaxy, vaults beyond our imagination. It submerges the mind into deep enchantment or lonely terror, depending on your outlook. We could begin to trace space-time scale with something comfortingly human-made, the spacecraft Voyager 1 . Launched from Earth in 1977, it has left the planets far behind and emerged from the heliosphere, the enormous bubble of magnetism and ionised gas that the Sun emits, marking its far sphere of influence. In the distance swirls the frozen rim of the Oort Cloud which Voyager 1, at its current speed of about a million miles a day, should touch in 300 years. The spacecraft will take some 30,000 more years to exit, if it survives this perilous space, home of Comet Izumi. Coming into its view is the frozen planet Earth which resembles a blind icy eyeball spinning in space. Izumi plunges on towards the Sun. But deep within Earth's oceans in hydrothermal vents anaerobic life has already commenced, soon followed by mats of cyanobacteria that begin photosynthesis, producing the noxious gas oxygen, more and more of it over centuries, which proceeds to kill off almost all early life, making way for a new order to take root and flourish. In its next notable flyby as Izumi passes Mars, the planet wears its characteristic covering; stripped of water and protective atmosphere. Mars is now dead and red. But as the comet passes Earth – this planet has transformed. On its crust ride oceans of billowing water and the green mantle of life; it revolves like a glowing jewel, flickering with emerald on ultramarine, viridian on turquoise swell, chartreuse lapping slate, violet against midnight blue, jade circled by cerulean, over which feathery clouds float as a moving mosaic of moisture. Izumi's burning tail seems to linger over the arc of Earth's horizon, as if mesmerised by such astounding beauty, as if each of its blazing dust particles is an incredulous eye. Excerpted with permission from 'FLYBY' in Earthrise Stories: Pasts Potentials Prophesies, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Red River Press.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
High rate of TB in Sahariya tribe linked to mitochondrial genetic factors
VARANASI: A remarkable genetic study conducted by researchers from Banaras Hindu University and four other collaborating institutions revealed a possible genetic link associated with the unusually high rate of tuberculosis (TB) in the Sahariya tribe of central India. The study was published on Monday in the international journal Mitochondrion. In the research, scientists specifically investigated the role of maternal genetic lineage (mitochondria) in TB susceptibility among the Sahariya tribe. The Sahariya tribe, recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Madhya Pradesh, has a TB rate much higher than the national average, recorded at 1,518 to 3,294 per 100,000 persons. This study, led by Prof Gyaneshwer Chaubey, a gene scientist at BHU, analysed the mitochondrial genomes of the largest dataset to date (729 individuals, including 140 Sahariyas and 589 from neighbouring tribes and castes) to investigate the genetic factors contributing to TB. Prof Chaubey said that matching the mitochondrial data of the Sahariya tribe with that of neighbouring castes and tribes revealed that the Sahariya tribe has two rare maternal haplogroups (types of mitochondria), N5 and X2, which are completely absent in neighbouring tribal and ethnic populations. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Omaxe State: India's 1st Air Conditioned High Street! Omaxe state Learn More Undo The scientists then wanted to see how these haplogroups reached the Sahariyas. For this, phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies were conducted. These studies specifically tell about the migration of any haplogroups. This led to the understanding that this maternal ancestry came to the Sahariyas through gene flow from western India during the early Iron Age. Due to this, the genomic structure of this tribe was affected, and this was probably the reason that the presence of these unique maternal lineages increased the susceptibility of the Sahariyas to TB. This study, for the first time, explained the interaction between the genetic structure of any population and the disease. Debasruti Das, the first author of the research, said, "India bears the world's largest TB burden, and understanding genetic susceptibility in vulnerable communities like the Sahariyas is important for human health. Our findings will help link genetic research to public health strategies." The study used high-resolution analysis of mitochondrial DNA, including new samples from the Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh, to trace the geo-historical origin of haplogroups N5 and X2. Prof Prashant Survajhala, senior author of the research, said that these results point to a founder effect, where these rare maternal lineages became concentrated in the Sahariya population, possibly affecting their immune response to TB. This research is a milestone for further studies to explore the functional effects of mitochondria and their interaction with environmental and socioeconomic factors such as malnutrition and limited access to health facilities, which further contribute to the high rate of TB in Sahariya. The research findings pave the way for health care approaches and robust TB control measures in tribal communities. The research was conducted by Debashruti Das, Prajjwal Pratap Singh, Shailesh Desai, Rahul Kumar Mishra from BHU; Pankaj Srivastava from Forensic Lab Jabalpur, Rakesh Tamang from University of Calcutta, and Prof Prashant Survajhla from Jaipur. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.
