I am an early riser. During the dark winters of New England, I am up even before the sun, and that, you’ll agree, takes some doing. But though I am up, I am, usually, not about. Venturing out before the neighbors have had a chance to shovel the sidewalks is unwise, I’ve discovered, and I don’t bother getting out before 8 AM. In my South Indian hometown, Chennai, getting a head start on the day made practical sense because the sun could turn the outdoors into one giant oven, well before noon. Strangely enough, that land of three seasons – hot, hotter and hottest – once benefited directly from our frigid weather.

Late in the 19th century, ships carrying crystalline ice went from Boston to select tropical ports, including Chennai. The blocks were hewn out of the many frozen ponds that dot our landscape. Frederic Tudor, “Ice King,” had found the perfect insulating material for this precarious cargo: sawdust, a waste product of Maine’s timber mills. Later, he also sent apples with the ice. Sadly, no museum in New England exhibits the paraphernalia of the frozen water trade, ice-harvesting tools, as its centerpiece. Nor will you find prominent plaques by the sources of frozen water – some like the Fresh Pond Lake are reservoirs now – to remind us of the fantastic voyage of packed ice.

Except for a wedding cake of a building in Chennai called the Ice House, there is nothing at the other end either. The structure went up in 1842, when the city was called Madras. The British ruled India back then. The building has, of course, been remodeled extensively, but because of its location, right opposite the Marina Beach, you can easily picture loin-clothed workmen dragging ice across that wide road on wooden rollers. Currently, the building is a publishing office and is named Vivekanada House, after an illustrious Indian thinker. But ask the surliest of autorickshaw drivers to take you to Ice House and he will do it without a fuss. Chances are, he doesn’t speak English, has probably never heard of the frozen-water trade – local textbooks don’t mention it – but he won’t swear at you for giving him a hard-to-find address. That is a minor miracle. Improbably enough, the place name lives on in the city’s collective memory, two centuries later.

Though I like to visit my hometown briefly in the winters, nothing will make me budge from New England during the summers. In those warm months when the sun doesn’t go down till late, I walk around Walden Pond, made famous by Henry David Thoreau. When he stayed in the log cabin as an experiment in simple living, the philosopher must’ve created his own water supply from thawed ice or by melting snow. Of the ice trade, he’d written: The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. To others it may be nothing more than a forgotten bit of commerce, but  the journey of ice does appear extraordinary to me, connecting as it does my two worlds in such an unexpected way.

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This essay is part of an anthology of essays inspired by New England. The book was published by Paige M. Gutenborg, the book-making robot/espresso book machine, at the Harvard Book Store. More details.

Five years later—not a lot of time, admittedly—data, computers, and statistical tools are indeed having a major impact on science. In the domain sciences—traditional fields like physics, biology, and chemistry—the old ways are holding. People still care about causation, mechanisms, and coherent theories, but in many disciplines, researchers are looking to supplement those traditional elements of science, harvesting gains from the data deluge by, in effect, learning from Google. In May, Science Careers wrote about some of these “pi-shaped” researchers, who have added computer science techniques to the techniques of their various native fields.

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The aerodynamic feats of insects do not interest most of us in the least — in fact, our first instinct would be to swat at any fly that hovers too close. But researchers from Harvard University have drawn inspiration from the maneuvers of these airborne creatures to design a lightweight flapping-wing robot, capable of controlled flight. They report their findings in this issue of Science.

The team led by Prof. Robert Wood of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences invented an efficient way to fabricate these 80-milligram robotic insects. An origami-like technique lets them rapidly put together this device with its many layers of laser-cut materials and integrated electronics. Previously, these parts had to be assembled painstakingly, by hand, under a microscope.

Getting these robots air-borne was the next step. The prototype has a pair of wings that flap thanks to piezoelectric actuators — ceramic strips that expand and contract in response to an electric field. The flapping frequency of 120 times per second generates enough downward moving air to lift the robot. The robot can also hover and steer on a preset path. Both power and control signals come through thin cables.

Putting a battery onboard would be nice but, like every other component on this robot with the carbon composite frame, it would have to be custom-made, says Sawyer Fuller, co-author of this paper. The post-doctoral researcher in Wood’s group elaborates: “Adding a battery would increase weight, but we think it will still be possible to carry it. Eventually, we will put a small, omnidirectional camera onboard — something like the eyes used by insects — so that the robot can see obstacles and avoid them.”

This robot, incapable as yet of independent flight, may be the first of a swarm of mechanical pollinators. RoboBees is the name of a National Science Foundation-funded project inspired by the Colony Collapse Disorder, an ailment that has struck honeybee colonies in many countries in the last decade. The drastic drop in the population of these insects brought together a team of interdisciplinary scientists – vision experts, biologists, material scientists and electrical engineers – who would collaborate to try and create robotic pollinators.

The larger goal of the RoboBees project is to try and understand the interaction between the body, brain and colony in insect swarms, says Prof. Gu-Yeon Wei, who is on the “brain” contingent. The robots could find practical use wherever larger numbers of these devices need to be deployed — not just in pollination, says Fuller. “It is relatively cheap to make many of them because even though they are made out of aircraft-grade materials, only minimal amounts of material go into the making of these devices.”

What the RoboBee can do presently, of course, is not even a patch on the ability of the real bee that deftly evades a swatting hand or land smoothly on a dandelion swayed by a gust of wind. We would like to understand their biology better and apply it to our own work, says Fuller.

“All science is fast becoming what is called data science,” says Bill Howe of UW’s eScience Institute. Today, there are sensors in gene sequencers, telescopes, forest canopies, roads, bridges, buildings, and point-of-sale terminals. Every ant in a colony can be tagged. The challenge is to extract knowledge from this vast quantity of data and transform it into something of value. Lately, Lazowska says, he has been hearing this refrain from researchers in engineering, the sciences, the social sciences, law, medicine, and even the humanities: “I am drowning in data and need help analyzing and managing it.”

This anthology of essays, now available online,  featuring nearly one hundred Indian women scientists — from the Victorian era to our times — fills a void then. Every chapter is the story of a woman scientist of India. Contemporary women give first-person accounts of what brought them to the field of research and what keeps them going. Amateur writers present the narratives of memorable personalities who are no more. Their stories are compelling even when the writing lacks finesse.

The title is a miniature story in itself. Lilavati was the daughter of the renowned 12th-century mathematician, Bhaskaracharya. In his classical treatise, he addresses problems in algebra, geometry, and discrete mathematics to his playful, doe-eyed daughter. We don’t know if Lilavati became a mathematician herself but the fact that her accomplished father deemed her worthy of solving these complex problems suggests that she must have been brilliant. The women in Lilavati Daughters are all inheritors of her intellectual legacy.

Inspiring example

Nowadays, scores of students go abroad to study science, but imagine the incredible journey of Anandibai Joshi, the first Hindu woman to obtain a medical degree in the United States in 1886. Back then, America was no less distant than the moon. Alone in an alien land, this 19-year-old stuck to her vegetarianism, her saris, and a resolve to qualify herself to serve her female compatriots who would sooner die than allow a male doctor to examine them. But the severe winters took a toll on her health, and like the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, she eventually succumbed to tuberculosis. Her story is presented as a first person narrative.

Readers may know that Sudha Murthy, chairperson of Infosys Foundation, challenged the House of Tatas rule of not employing female engineers at their factory. But if shop floors were not considered fit workplaces for women, in an earlier era, laboratories too were deemed inappropriate spaces for them, we learn. One person who resisted the entry of young women researchers into the prestigious Indian Institute of Science was the director Sir C.V. Raman himself. The essay “The Scientist Lady” tells us of the chemist Kamala Sohonie who staged a Gandhi-style protest outside the Nobel laureate’s office in 1933 till she was admitted as a research student at the institute.

Ridiculous convention

More than one person from the post-independence era mentions years of separation from their spouses because of an inability to find appropriate work in the same city. This seems particularly true of couples in science. Unfortunately, the unwritten rule, which states that spouses should not be appointed in the same division, is faithfully followed in research institutes in our country, says Dr. D. Balasubramanian, President, Indian Academy of Sciences. The essay on the gifted chemist Darshan Ranganathan who was not offered a faculty position at IIT, Kanpur because her husband was a professor there, makes us livid at a callous system.

This timely anthology is a long-overdue acknowledgement of the struggles and triumphs of women scientists in our midst. A wider range of career choices are open to bright young people today but scientists are still vital for any knowledge-based economy. Girls who want that life in science will find many role models here. Every school and college library in India should order copies of the book right away. But readers don’t have to be women, scientists, or someone who is keen on science to enjoy the best of these inspiring real-life stories.

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Back at Tufts, in the lab of Philip Starks, Wilson-Rich was focused not directly on finding the cause of CCD, but on understanding how honey bee immunity works. A starting point was to develop methods to test bees’ immune function. Because the honey bee genome had just been sequenced, many investigators were using microarrays to look at gene-expression patterns in normal and infected bees. “However, if we look only at gene activation, it is possible to miss post-transcriptional or post-translational modifications,” Wilson-Rich says. So he decided to test for the presence of specific compounds in the blood of bees.

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Read the rest of the review here. pdf.

How active is India’s space programme?
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which was founded in 1969, launches rockets, builds and uses satellites extensively for earthly applications and has recently started planetary exploration. It tested its first astronaut capsule for atmospheric re-entry in 2007, and is planning to build a residential astronaut training facility. ISRO is also planning a lunar lander mission for 2014 and will launch a mission to Mars this year.

How does your company, Earth2Orbit, fit in with this programme?
We want to commercialise India’s space capabilities, in particular the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. It is one of the world’s most reliable in its class. I want to make it the rocket of choice for international satellite-makers looking to get to low Earth or sun-synchronous orbits. India could build and launch up to six each year, but currently launches only two. We need to step up to full throttle. The same goes for satellites and ground equipment. Over the next decade or two, I think India should be aiming for at least a quarter of the multibillion-dollar global space market, if not more.

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In the acknowledgements section of NW, her 2012 bestseller, Zadie Smith thanked a computer application called “Freedom” for “creating the time” she needed to finish the book. It may be the highest-profile printed acknowledgment of a computer program in a work of fiction—The New York Times put NW on its list of the ten best books of 2012—and Smith is not alone in her admiration. The Economist called Freedom “the virtual equivalent of retiring to a remote getaway, or going on a writers’ retreat, to get things done.”

Freedom is the creation of Fred Stutzman, an entrepreneur, expert on the intersection of social media and privacy, and visiting professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. Stutzman created Freedom to help him focus as he wrote his dissertation, but its core concept is related to his broader interests. “My research comes from a HCI [human-computer interaction] background,” he says, “and the basis of my work is improving people’s experience with technology.”

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Here is a picture that represents the gestation of Project Prakash. In order to get a first-hand sense of childhood blindness in India, Prof. Pawan Sinha visited a few places in the country, distant from the ambit of urban medical care facilities. Here he is working in a village with a young girl who gained sight in one eye at the age of 7 years. She is 11 years old in this picture.

Also seen in the picture is Dr. Asim Sil, an ophthalmologist who practices in the area and hosted Sinha’s visit. The little girl had a tragic history. Extreme poverty forced her parents to abandon her. Due to this neglect and her blindness, she met with an accident in which she lost both her legs below the knee. At the time the picture was taken, she was living with her grandmother (the woman in the yellow sari) who herself was desperately poor. This visit helped crystallize in the professor’s mind the potential humanitarian and scientific significance of the effort that would eventually become Project Prakash.

Pawan Sinha, whose work among visually impaired children in India received a U. S. Presidential award in 2012, talks to Vijaysree Venkataraman about a mission that seamlessly blends research with a humanitarian cause. Sinha is from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Q. What does your work entail?

A. Most research benefits society long after it’s over. However, in some instances, the research process directly benefits people’s lives. Fortunately, we have been part of one such process: we call it Project Prakash. It grew from the confluence of a humanitarian mission and a fundamental scientific quest. The mission is to bring light into the lives of curably blind children and, in so doing, answer some fundamental scientific questions about how the brain develops and learns to see.

Q. You are based in Boston. But the work is done in India, correct?

A. India is home to one of the world’s largest populations of blind children. Nearly 400,000 children in the country are either blind or severely visually impaired. The visual handicap, coupled with extreme poverty greatly compromises the children’s quality of life; childhood mortality rates are greatly elevated and prospects for education are severely diminished. Project Prakash seeks to identify and treat blind children, and simultaneously, build awareness amidst the rural populace regarding treatable and preventable blindness.

It also provides us an opportunity to study one of the deepest scientific questions: How does the brain learn to extract meaning from sensory information? The researchers have begun following the development of visual skills in these unique children to gain insights into fundamental questions regarding object learning and brain plasticity. This is a unique window into some fundamental mysteries of how the brain learns to extract meaning from the world. The humanitarian initiatives are creating a population of children across a wide age-range setting out to learn how to see.

Q. How do you find children who are candidates for treatment?

A. Outreach is perhaps the most logistically complex and challenging aspect of Project Prakash. We have provided surgical treatments to 448 children, and non-surgical care to 1400. To identify these children, we had to screen over 40,000 children in many states of India.

We realized early on that we simply couldn’t expect children needing treatment to show up on their own at the hospital in New Delhi. Many of them and their parents do not even know that their conditions are treatable. The parents often ascribe their child’s blindness to bad karma – inviolable cosmic justice for bad deeds in a previous life. Faced with these preconceptions, we understood that we had to be proactive. We would need to go out into the villages to find children who were curably blind.

So we organize ophthalmic screening sessions in villages and small towns. A few weeks before our team’s visit, we send word to villages about the ‘eye camp’ and encourage them to bring all children with visual problems for a free check-up. On the day of the session, a team of primary health-care workers and optometrists sets up a simple screening station in the village and does eye check-ups of tens, sometimes hundreds, of children. These sessions allow us to identify curably blind children and also those whom we can help non-surgically (such as children with eye infections than can be dangerous if left untreated, or those with uncorrected refractive errors). The candidates for surgery come to New Delhi for a more thorough ophthalmic examination and, if there are no counter-indications, then the child is given a date for surgery.

All expenses of surgery and transport are borne by Project Prakash.

Q. What are some scientific insights you have gathered thus far?

A. One of the potentially far-reaching results is evidence of recovery even after prolonged congenital blindness. These findings argue for a reconsideration of some long held conceptions regarding brain plasticity and time-lines of learning.

Having followed the post-operative development of several children, my students and I have found that while some aspects of vision, such as acuity, are compromised by a history of deprivation, there is evidence of skill acquisition on a variety of functional vision tasks ranging from simple shape matching to object and face recognition.

The human brain, these findings suggest, retains an ability to launch programmes of visual learning well after the normal period of their deployment has passed. These results have significance for basic neuroscience as well as the practice of paediatric ophthalmology and the implementation of late stage blindness treatment programmes.

Q. What lies ahead for Project Prakash?

A. Sociological aspects of the work guide the evolution of the project. I would never have, for instance, expected that parents might actually prefer to have their child remain blind just so that they can stay enrolled in a school for the blind that gives them free food and clothes. Yet, the level of poverty in some households is so extreme that this happens.

Another surprise for us has been the difficulty Project Prakash children have encountered in entering the educational mainstream despite having sight. But, their age (too old to be enrolled in grade 1) often keeps them from starting their educational journey. This is indeed a tragedy and one that we are working towards addressing. Moving forward, we want to add an educational component to the medical and scientific missions of Project Prakash. We intend to do so by providing a ‘compressed’ educational course to the children to bring them up to an age-appropriate level so that they can then enter the regular educational stream.

The challenge that we have to meet in the coming years is to accomplish a seamless integration between medicine, research and education, at a scale many times that of our current operations. A good way forward is to set up an integrated campus with a pediatric hospital, a school and a research facility.

The key need to realize this dream is funding. Our estimate for the center is $20 million. This seems like a daunting figure, but considering the multifaceted impact it can have on thousands of children, it is a small sum.

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