Behind The Pages

The newest InScight issue, a few tens of MBs in your laptop, other than being jam-packed with the latest updates of the science world, holds something way more profound in the fact that every bit of information, a PDF or the lyrics of a song, when deleted or forgotten, releases a very tiny amount of heat to the surroundings – a tussle of debt which we cranial beings are stuck in with the universe. Information is physical : As Tanmoy Pandit, reflects on Landauer in this very issue, a few pages later.

That science is harmonious is emblazoned by the fact that Marie Curie, the famous physicist’s, birthday coincides with the day of National Cancer Awareness (November 7th) in the country. Madame Curie’s pursuits shaped modern day radio-therapy, a boon to millions, heightening the fact that science transcends territories, time and systems.

From a cheek cell to a nuclear bomb, we play by the rules, bending some, making new ones.

Brought forth in contrasting taste is a walk back in time to the Carboniferous era when tiny dragonflies you trap in your palm were massive creatures whose survival had integral connections with contemporary temperatures and oxygen saturation, elucidated by Atri Majumdar.

iGEM Team 2025 brings forth A touch of Cancer (a phrase by John Green’s protagonist Augustus Waters, trying at hilarity), and a new onco-weapon : the probiotics on your bedside table wherein bacteria engineered to protect, reheat immune-suppressed ‘cold tumors’ and facilitate the immune system.

A strive to study the rarest diseases of all, brings forth Apurba Das and her insights on neural manifestation of MPS VII, a lysosomal storage disease (LSD), arising from the dysfunctional lysosomes, the terminators of the cell as we call them.

Leading on the front, we have IISER-K’s researchers listening to the Rhythm of Rivers for climate management and water-harvesting to ‘memory’ hunting in magnetic and phase-change systems.

The fact that ‘life’ and its very possibility is both a ‘wonder’ and a ‘courtroom’ of rules, is elucidated by the fact that the gross rules for the existence of life, from the lowest energy to stay alive to the speed of replication of a cell, are pre-determined by the physical quantities : InScight’s final insight.

Mankind hunts evolution, and physics is an old friend.

With this InScight’s newest issue, celebrates and unites minds across miles and time dimensions. True to our cause, we plead curiosity, patience and just a tiny home for your crazy ideas.

Happy Sciencing!

Sharanya Chatterjee
Editor, InScight