Three students from Telangana to head for Japan tour under Sakura programme
A. Shiva Reddy of TGSWREIS Damaragidda of Narayanpet, Sailu Sai Shrivalli of Sri Chaitanya School, Mancherial, and Shubhasree Sahu of Paramitha Heritage School, Karimnagar, will be among the total 54 students selected from across the country, touring Japan Monday onwards.
The tour of Japan from June 15 to 21, facilitated by the Department of Science & Technology, India, includes visits to The University of Tokyo, Omiya Kita High School – a certified Super Science High School, JAXA Tsukuba Space Center, the National Museum of Nature and Science, Mathematical Experience Plaza at Tokyo University of Science, and The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.
The students will also participate in a special lecture by Japanese mathematician Jin Akiyama at Kenkyusha English Language Centre and interact with Nobel laureates.
For Shiva Reddy, a Class 11 student who aspires to study at IIT, he will be interested in learning about Japan's technological advancement and innovations. For Sai Shrivalli and Shubhasree Sahu, Class 11 and 12 students, whose primary interests are in aeronautics, the exchange programme will be valuable field trip.
'We hear a lot about how the Japanese work hard, their innovation and work culture. I believe I am a young innovator and an ambassador representing my country, I will learn from their culture and work methods,' Sahu said. The three students, at the Inspire-Manak National Awards, proved their ideas.
Sai Shrivalli won the award for her simple menstruation device which promotes use of reusable sanitary pads; eco-friendly multi-functional agro machine for Sahu; and for Shiva Reddy, coconut fibre pots as an alternative to plastic pots.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Tech promised better rest. So, why are we still wide awake?
Did we sleep though the alarm? It must have sounded when tech first came for our health choices. We tracked everything: Calories, steps, resting heart rate, metabolism, breathing patterns, water intake. It all helped… until it didn't. Turns out, we need discipline, not data, to stay healthy. Knowing how long you slept or how deeply you did isn't going to make you more rested. (SHUTTERSTOCK) And here's tech again, coming for our sleep. The battle for eight hours of proper shut-eye has a leaderboard of its own. Smart rings are tracking REM cycles. There are AI-enabled mattresses and pillows that adjust themselves for perfect alignment. Spotify has playlists for white noise, whale sounds and music that gets more downtempo with every track, to lull you into stupor. At that Japanese home-goods shop in the mall, everyone's putting their hands into the hole to test if the bedsheet fabric really lowers the temperature by one degree. Melatonin melts are big business. Health nerds on Insta are convinced that eating two kiwis before bed will put them to sleep. And yet, we're no closer to sleeping better than before. Could sleepmaxxing be the thing that's coming in the way of rest? Gayathri Subramanian works at the cognitive neuroscience lab at Northwestern University, USA. She knows that sleep is more than a rest-and-reboot period for the body. 'It plays a crucial role in helping us learn new things, and it directly impacts memory consolidation and storage that acquire over the day,' she says. Subramanian is not surprised that there's so much interest in sleep now. We're sleeping later and less. And every tracking device is convinced that the problem can be managed with data. 'There's even a name for the phenomenon in which one is so obsessed with sleep data that it affects their rest: Orthosomnia,' she says. Put the devices away. We're probably expecting too much benefit from too little sleep. (SHUTTERSTOCK) Here's what sleep trackers won't tell you: Good rest isn't about the numbers. Even the eight-hour mandate is a myth, says Dr Ragavendar B, a Chennai-based consultant neurologist. For much of human history, we slept in two short spells over a 24-hour period, rather than one long one. It helped our ancestors migrate and fend off predators. We, meanwhile, aim for one eight-hour stretch, and we trust data more than how we feel in the morning. 'Sleep devices aren't change makers; they are awareness tools,' he says. They're problem finders, not problem solvers. We're probably expecting too much benefit from too little sleep. 'The data that these devices collect is only 85% accurate,' says Subramanian. Besides, they only illustrate the what, not the why, of troubled sleep. 'There could be underlying reasons, such as obesity, psychiatric issues, or sleep apnoea,' says Dr. Ragavendar. Those aren't things that a ring, cooling bedsheet or a whale-sound playlist can address. We'll probably make a bad sleep decision this weekend. We might stay awake longer, and hope to make up the resting time later. Don't push the deficit back by more than 48 hours, warns Dr. Ragavendar. 'It will increase stress hormones such as cortisol, which again leads to poor sleep quality, pushing you into a cycle.' The formula for good sleep is crushingly dull: Sleeping and waking at the same times, dimming the lights as bedtime approaches, putting the phone away, eating an hour before sleeping, getting warm and comfy. We knew that already. It's why no device, hack or trend has been able to actually deliver better sleep. Rest isn't something to win at; it's something to surrender to. The real flex isn't a high score on the Oura ring or checking the pillow app in the morning. It's actually being enough of a loser to call it a day, over and over, so you wake up a winner. From HT Brunch, Aug 16, 2025 Follow us on
The Hindu
5 days ago
- The Hindu
Landmark study offers new insights into what protects against dengue
The specific components of the immune response in a human body that protect against a dengue virus (DENV) infection and the subsequent illness remain unclear. Scientists are still trying to understand how natural infection and vaccination protect people so that they can develop better vaccines. Now, a novel study has revealed important insights into developing strong immunity against DENV, which is otherwise quite complex. Researchers from the US and Philippines have identified specific antibodies, known as envelope dimer epitope (EDE)-like antibodies, as the key for building broad, cross-serotype immunity following natural infection or vaccination. The findings, published recently in Science Translational Medicine, represent a significant step forward in understanding dengue immunity and could lead to more effective therapeutics. Disease burden and dengue vaccines Dengue is a major global health challenge caused by any of four DENV serotypes (DENV1 to DENV4). It is the most common vector-borne viral disease, with half of the world's population at risk, especially in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Americas. According to one large study in 2013, the economic burden of dengue in Southeast Asia is higher than that of 17 other conditions, including Japanese encephalitis, upper respiratory infections, and hepatitis B. And yet developing a universally effective vaccine has proven difficult thanks to the complex immune mechanisms involved. In DENV cases, the initial immunity after first infection (a.k.a. primary immunity) paradoxically increases the risk of severe disease rather than conferring protection when a person is infected a second time with a different serotype of the virus. This phenomenon, called antibody-dependent enhancement, occurs when non-neutralising antibodies bind to partially immature virus particles, facilitating their entry into immune cells and worsening the infection. All severe dengue cases requiring hospitalization result from such second infections. Since vaccines mimic natural infections, the risk of antibody-dependent enhancement after the first dose is the main challenge for dengue vaccines, which is why they are usually recommended only for individuals with prior exposure to the virus and avoided in dengue-naïve people. After exposure to at least two different DENV serotypes, a person develops true protection, known as 'secondary immunity', against future disease. Currently, two primary dengue vaccines are licensed (in some countries): Dengvaxia and QDENGA. These shots are most effective for individuals who have already been exposed to dengue at least once before vaccination. Laboratory confirmation of a previous dengue infection is required for vaccination with Dengvaxia. Outbreak in Cebu DENV is an enveloped virus, meaning it has a protective outer layer. A key component of this layer is the envelope (E) protein, which is the primary target for the body's immune response. The E protein is arranged in pairs on the virus surface, creating complex three-dimensional structures known as quaternary epitopes. EDE is a critical quaternary epitope and an important target for vaccines and therapeutic antibodies. In June 2017, Cebu province in the Philippines offered at least the first dose of a dengue vaccine to children aged 9-14 years. For the new study, the researchers recruited and followed a cohort of 2,996 such children. Of them, 1,782 received the first dose of the vaccine and the rest remained unvaccinated. The researchers collected baseline blood samples one month before the vaccination campaign and follow-up samples 17-28 months after the campaign. There had been an unusually large dengue outbreak in Cebu between the baseline and follow-up sample collection, with most cases caused by DENV2 (61.7%) followed by DENV3 (30%). The researchers measured different kinds of antibodies in the samples: EDE-like antibodies (targetting envelope dimer epitopes); neutralising antibodies (which can block infection by mature, fully formed viruses); and binding antibodies (those that attached to parts of the E protein without necessarily blocking infection). The study focused on the children who had had evidence of at least two prior DENV infections (those with 'secondary immunity') at the baseline. They followed up with the cohort up to October 31, 2022, to check how many with secondary immunity went on to develop dengue between the follow-up sample collection and the study closure date. All the samples were analysed in vaccinated and unvaccinated children in this subgroup in an attempt to reveal the true predictors of protection. More protective against disease The study's findings illuminated the role of EDE-like antibodies in the protective response. Specifically, the researchers found that EDE-like antibodies were highly prevalent in children with secondary DENV immunity, with 81.8% to 90.1% of participants having detectable levels. This was in stark contrast to individuals with only primary DENV immunity, where EDE-like antibodies were largely absent (detected in only 4% to 12% of cases). This suggests EDE-like antibodies are a hallmark of established immunity against dengue. The magnitude of EDE-like antibodies was also strongly and consistently correlated with broad neutralisation of all four mature DENV serotypes, indicating that these antibodies are crucial for widespread protection rather than just against a single serotype. The study observed that both natural DENV infection — due to the large outbreak during the study period — and vaccination significantly boosted EDE-like antibodies as well as general DENV-binding and neutralising antibodies. This effect was evident even in children who already possessed strong secondary immunity. Crucially, higher levels of EDE-like antibodies were consistently associated with lower odds of symptomatic dengue, dengue with warning signs, and dengue requiring hospitalisation. This protective effect was observed across multiple serotypes, demonstrating both serotype-specific and cross-reactive benefits. However, EDE-like antibodies had limited protective effects against viral replication. Thus, they were less protective against new infections but more protective against disease, especially severe disease. Perhaps the most significant finding was that EDE-like antibodies didn't just correlate with protection: they statistically explained a substantial portion of the protective effect seen with other mature virus-neutralising and E-binding antibodies. That is, when EDE-like antibodies were factored into statistical models, the protective effect of other antibodies was significantly diminished while EDE-like antibodies remained strongly associated with protection. Specifically, EDE-like antibodies explained 42% to 65% of the protective effect attributed to mature virus-neutralising antibodies and 41% to 75% of the effect of general E protein-binding antibodies. This observation strongly suggested that EDE-like antibodies are a primary, underlying determinant of broad, cross-reactive immunity against dengue. Limitations and the future Although the study had some limitations, such as a relatively small number of dengue cases for assessing protection against all four serotypes and a limited panel of monoclonal antibodies used for characterisation, it nonetheless marked a significant advance in the fight against dengue. The team provided a clearer understanding of the immune responses that truly protect against this debilitating disease. EDE-like antibodies also helped explain how neutralising and binding antibodies contributed to protection. Further research will be essential to formally validate EDE-like antibodies as reliable indicators of protection for vaccine efficacy trials. If this is validated, researchers will be able to design vaccines that specifically elicit high levels of EDE-like antibodies and thus better protect against dengue. Puneet Kumar is a clinician, Kumar Child Clinic, New Delhi. Vipin M. Vashishtha is director and paediatrician, Mangla Hospital and Research Center, Bijnor.
India Today
5 days ago
- India Today
India's R&D deficit: Just where are the scientists?
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated August 18, 2025)Nobel laureates and physicists Duncan Haldane and David Gross have just pointed out a huge mismatch: India has the talent, but is not benefitting because there's not enough funds for scientific research. Speaking at the Quantum India Summit in Bengaluru on July 31, Gross, who chairs an advisory board at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences here, says India's lack of investment in R&D doesn't bode GDP is up, but its contribution to 'investments to the future', which will drive new technologies and industries, is low. In 2009, India's R&D spend was 0.84 per cent of GDP; it fell to 0.64 per cent by 2021 and is estimated to be 0.7 per cent in 2025. This is much less than what the US (3.5 per cent) and China (2.4 per cent) Rs 1 lakh crore Research Development and Innovation (RDI) fund, announced in this year's budget, should help. It will be operationalised this year, with Rs 20,000 crore already allocated. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, launched last year, also has a fund, but will primarily invest in academic research and research labs. The RDI fund is meant for private sector R&D, with its Deep Tech Fund 1.0 focusing on strategic autonomy in critical sectors like clean energy and advanced materials. Last year, India was ranked 39th in the Global Innovation Index of 133 countries, up one spot from 2023. The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers per million people in India is 255, abysmal when compared to the USA (4,452), China (1,307), Korea (7,980), and far below the global average of 1,198. The trend of fewer FTE researchers and minimal spends points to an underlying crisis in the R&D sector. As one researcher at the summit put it: 'Cutting-edge research is so fast; if we lose the first few years [due to cost-cutting], we are behind our colleagues abroad already.'Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch
