CSIR-Fourth Paradigm Institute is set to receive high-performance technology contributions from the chip-maker AMD as part of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The CSIR-FPI is among several global institutes, including Stanford School of Medicine, to get this assistance from AMD. AMD is contributing high-end computing systems or access to Penguin-On-Demand (POD) cloud-based clusters powered by second-generation AMD EPYC and AMD Radeon Instinct processors to … Continue reading CSIR-FPI to get AMD computing support for COVID-19 research

Soil liquefaction and its associated ground failures during an earthquake are major potential hazards. The important aspect of geotechnical earthquake engineering is to mitigate liquefaction and its associated effects for assuring the safety of foundations. There are different ground improvement techniques available for improving the liquefaction resistance of sand deposits. Ground improvement techniques such as sand compaction piles, stone columns, encased stone columns and prefabricated … Continue reading Ground Improvement Technique to Mitigate Liquefaction Hazards for Safe Building Construction

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a principal analytical technique used for the structure elucidation of molecules. This Primer covers different approaches to accelerate data acquisition and increase sensitivity of NMR measurements through parallelization, enabled by hardware design and/or pulse sequence development. Starting with hardware-based methods, we discuss coupling multiple detectors to multiple samples so each detector/sample combination provides unique information. We then cover spatio-temporal … Continue reading Parallel nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

This study is all about the structural analysis of protein complexes by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) single particle analysis (SPA) has had great impact as a biophysical method. Many results of cryo-EM SPA are based on data acquired on state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopes customized for SPA. These are currently only available in limited locations around the world, where securing machine time is highly competitive. One potential solution for … Continue reading Below 3 Å structure of apoferritin using a multipurpose TEM

Plants need to protect themselves from excess light, which causes photo-oxidative damage and lowers the efficiency of photosynthesis. Photosystem II subunit S (PsbS) is a pH sensor protein that plays a crucial role in plant photoprotection by detecting thylakoid lumen acidification in excess light conditions via two lumen-faced glutamates. However, how PsbS is activated under low-pH conditions is unknown. To reveal the molecular response of … Continue reading The molecular pH-response mechanism of the plant light-stress sensor PsbS

Soil microbes vigorously produce and consume gases that reflect active soil biogeochemical processes. Soil gas measurements are therefore a powerful tool to monitor microbial activity. Yet, the majority of soil gases lack non-disruptive subsurface measurement methods at spatiotemporal scales relevant to microbial processes and soil structure. To address this need, we developed a soil gas sampling system that uses novel diffusive soil probes and sample … Continue reading Soil gas probes for monitoring trace gas messengers of microbial activity

This is study is all about the Growing interest in exploring mechanically mediated biological phenomena has resulted in cell culture substrates and 3D matrices with variable stiffnesses becoming standard tools in biology labs. However, correlating stiffness with biological outcomes and comparing results between research groups is hampered by variability in the methods used to determine Young’s (elastic) modulus, E, and by the inaccessibility of relevant … Continue reading Measuring the elastic modulus of soft culture surfaces

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully demonstrated free-space Quantum Communication over a distance of 300 metres, for the first time in the country, the organisation said Monday. A number of key technologies were developed indigenously to accomplish this major feat, which included the use of indigenously developed “NAVIC” receiver for time synchronisation between the transmitter and receiver modules, and gimbal mechanism systems instead of … Continue reading ISRO Demonstrates India’s First Free-Space Quantum Communication