New Delhi, (IANS) A team of bioengineers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has developed new smart platforms --BrainProt and DrugProtAI -- that unify data on scattered brain diseases to help researchers find markers, explore treatments, and pinpoint druggable targets.
BrainProt v3.0 is a database that combines various types of biological data -- from genes to proteins -- into a single platform to enable systematic insights into human brain function in both healthy and diseased states.
It is the first system to integrate multi-disease data from genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and biomarker research and multi-database information into one portal.
“BrainProt also includes resources to identify and understand protein expression differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain across 20 neuroanatomical regions. This is the first resource of its kind,” said Prof. Sanjeeva Srivastava from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay.
BrainProt includes data on 56 human brain diseases and 52 multi-omics datasets derived from more than 1,800 patient samples. These datasets include transcriptomic data for 11 diseases and proteomic data for six diseases.
For each disease, users can examine genes and proteins frequently associated with the disease, assess how strongly these genes and proteins are already supported by existing medical and scientific databases, and how their activity levels change in patient samples.
DrugProtAI was developed to understand whether a protein can be druggable (has the biological and physical characteristics needed to be a useful drug target) before doing costly experiments.
This is crucial because only about 10 per cent of human proteins currently have an FDA-approved drug, with another 3-4 per cent under investigation.
“Before investing years of work in a protein target, DrugProtAI predicts whether the protein is druggable by looking beyond the protein’s sequence, such as cellular location, structural attributes, and other unique characteristics it has,” said Dr. Ankit Halder, co-author of the study.
The tool generates a “druggability index” -- a probability score indicating how likely a protein is to be druggable. A higher score suggests that the protein shares many properties with proteins that already have approved drugs, while a lower score indicates that drug development would be more challenging.“By integrating DrugProtAI directly into BrainProt, we created a pipeline where researchers can move from identifying a disease marker to examining its expression patterns to evaluating its druggability and exploring existing compounds or clinical trials, all within an hour,” Halder said. IIT Bombay’s new smart platform to help researchers decode brain diseases | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
This photo provided by the family shows, from left, Kaila, Suze, Ryu and Andrew Lopez at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in August 2025 – family photo
A Los Angeles woman recently celebrated the first Christmas with her baby boy, Ryu, born to truly remarkable circumstances.
Ryu developed outside his mother’s womb, and remained hidden for months behind an ovarian cyst that grew to be the size of a basketball. It was so unbelievable, the surgical/OBGYN team that delivered Ryu documented it for a case study in a medical journal.
The manner in which Ryu came into being represents a circumstance that’s “far, far less than 1 in a million,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where Ryu was born. “I mean, this is really insane.”
Now 41, Suze Lopez has always had an irregular cycle, so missed periods—even consecutive ones—are a normal occurrence. It was almost 20 years ago that she was diagnoses with a pair of ovarian cysts, one of which was removed immediately, and one of which was not.
So in early 2025 when Lopez noted her abdomen swelling, her first thought was the cyst. She never felt kicking, and never had morning sickness—and indeed her instinct was at least partly correct.
The pressure and pain in her abdomen grew as days passed, and she was certain that, even if it risked her ability to conceive again, it was time to remove the other cyst which unbeknownst to her had grown to weigh a mind-boggling 22 pounds.
She needed a CT scan to prepare for surgery, which required a pregnancy test for the radiation, and to her utter surprise the test came back positive. Lopez was delighted, but the pain and discomfort grew and soon she had to be hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai where her medical team found a near fully-developed fetus in an amniotic sack lodged against her pelvis.
The term for where the fetus develops is “implants” and the term for a fetus that implants outside of the womb is an “ectopic pregnancy.” Almost all of these go on to rupture and hemorrhage. As such, fetal mortality can be as high as 90% in such cases and birth defects are seen in about 1 in 5 surviving babies, SF Gate reports.
However, because fetal Ryu implanted against the pelvic wall and not against the liver, it was far more manageable, and the reason why Lopez didn’t have more pain earlier.
Lopez and her boy beat the odds, despite a mammoth surgical procedure that both delivered Ryu at 8 pounds and removed the ovarian cyst—together weighing as much as an adult bobcat. During the procedure, Lopez lost half her blood, and had to be continually given transfusions.
“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” Andrew Lopez, Suze’s husband, told SF Gate. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”Instead, they both survived without any maleffects. Ryu “completes” their family, said his mother, and recently celebrated his first Christmas alongside his older sister Kaila. Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies
When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured – four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment.
The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involved – which, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs.
Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and trapped four bears. DNA comparisons to evidence from the attack cleared each of the trapped bears, and they were released back to the wild. After more than three weeks without finding the bear responsible for the attack, officials called off the search.
Recent advances in computer vision and other types of artificial intelligence offer a possible alternative: facial recognition for bears.
As a cultural anthropologist, I study how scientists produce knowledge and technologies, and how new technology is transforming ecological science and conservation practices. Some of my research has looked at the work of computer scientists and ecologists making facial recognition for animals. These tools, which reflect both technological advances and broader popular interest in wildlife, can reshape how scientists and the general public understand animals by getting to know formerly anonymous creatures as individuals.
New ways to identify animals
A facial recognition tool for bears called BearID is under development by computer scientists Ed Miller and Mary Nguyen, working with Melanie Clapham, a behavioral ecologist working for the Nanwakolas Council of First Nations, conducting applied research on grizzly bears in British Columbia.
It uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that makes use of artificial neural networks, to analyze images of bears and identify individual animals. The photos are drawn from a collection of images taken by naturalists at Knight Inlet, British Columbia, and by National Park Service staff and independent photographers at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
BearID uses an algorithm to locate bear faces in pictures and make measurements between those key features. Each animal has a unique set of measurements, so a photograph of one taken yesterday can be matched with an image taken some time ago.
In addition to helping identify bears that have attacked humans or are otherwise causing trouble for people, identifying bears can help ecologists and wildlife managers more accurately estimate bear population sizes. And it can help scientific research, like the behavioral ecology projects Clapham works on, by allowing individual tracking of animals and thus better understanding of bear behavior.
Miller has built a web tool to automatically detect bears in the webcams from Brooks River that originally inspired the project. The BearID team has also been working with Rebecca Zug, a professor and director of the carnivore lab at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, to develop a bear identification model for Andean bears to use in bear ecology and conservation research in Ecuador.
Animal faces are less controversial
Human facial recognition is extremely controversial. In 2021, Meta ended the use of its face recognition system, which automatically identified people in photographs and videos uploaded to Facebook. The company described it as a powerful technology that, while potentially beneficial, was currently not suitable for widespread use on its platform.
When used on humans, critics have called facial recognition technology the “plutonium of AI” and a dangerous tool with few legitimate uses. Even as facial recognition has become more widespread, researchers remain convinced of its dangers. Researchers at the American Civil Liberties Union highlight the continued threat to Americans’ constitutional rights posed by facial recognition and the harms caused by inaccurate identifications.
For wildlife, the ethical controversies are perhaps less pressing, although there is still potential for animals to be harmed by people who are using AI systems. And facial recognition could help wildlife managers identify and euthanize or relocate bears that are causing significant problems for people.
A focus on specific animals
Wildlife ecologists sometimes find focusing on individual animals problematic. Naming animals may make them “seem less wild.” Names that carry cultural meaning can also frame people’s interpretations of animal behavior. As the Katmai rangers note, humans may interpret the behaviors of a bear named Killer differently than one named Fluffy.
Wildlife management decisions are meant to be made about groups of animals and areas of territory. When people become connected to individual animals, including by naming them, decisions become more complicated, whether in the wild or in captivity.
When people connect with particular animals, they may object to management decisions that harm individuals for the sake of the health of the population as a whole. For example, wildlife managers may need to move or euthanize animals for the health of the broader population or ecosystem.
But knowing and understanding bears as individual animals can also deepen the fascination and connections people already have with bears.
For example, Fat Bear Week, an annual competition hosted by explore.org and Katmai National Park, drew over a million votes in 2025 as people campaigned and voted for their favorite bear. The winner was Bear 32, also known as “Chunk.” Chunk was identified in photographs and videos the old-fashioned way, based on human observations of distinguishing characteristics – such as a large scar across his muzzle and a broken jaw.
In addition to identifying problematic animals, I believe algorithmic tools like facial recognition could help an even broader audience of humans deepen their understanding of bears as a whole by connecting with one or two specific animals.
The five initial selections for end user experiments at Idaho National Laboratory's Microreactor Application Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) reactor include projects related to data centres, technology application in commercial and advanced reactors, and applications for nuclear-generated process heat.
MARVEL is a sodium-potassium-cooled microreactor being developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). It will generate 85 kilowatts of thermal energy and up to 20 kilowatts of electricity. It is to be located at the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and will serve as a nuclear test bed to demonstrate microreactor operations and end-use applications, providing a platform for the private sector to access to an operational microreactor to demonstrate innovative new use cases for the technology. The reactor will be connected to INL's microgrid, and is expected to be operational by late 2027.
The projects selected in a competitive process as the first potential end-users for Marvel are:
- Amazon Web Services Inc, which proposes coupling the MARVEL reactor with a modular data centre, which could potentially provide a simple and cost-effective way for government agencies to build data centres anywhere in the world by enabling the creation of a self-sustaining, rapidly deployable system that can operate independently of traditional power infrastructure;
- DCX USA and Arizona State University, with a proposal to use MARVEL to demonstrate the feasibility of a microreactor to power a data centre for artificial intelligence to yield valuable data on how to provide a stable, continuous power supply capable of handling the unique demands of AI processing;
- General Electric Vernova, which proposes to use MARVEL to demonstrate remote and autonomous reactor operations and establish controls standards for broader application of the technology with commercial reactors;
- Radiation Detection Technologies Inc, proposing to use MARVEL to test advanced high-performance sensor technologies that could help monitor the performance of advanced reactors;
- Shepherd Power, NOV and ConocoPhillips with a proposal to leverage MARVEL for a pilot-scale desalination project using nuclear-generated process heat to demonstrate the viability of advanced nuclear energy for addressing produced water challenges in oil and gas operations.
"Nowhere else in the world will you find this level of support for public sector innovation in nuclear energy," said John Jackson, national technical director for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy's Microreactor Program. "With access to MARVEL, companies can explore how microreactors will potentially help us win the global AI race, solve water challenges and so much more."The selectees will now work with DOE and national laboratory staff to create implementation plans and to determine the feasibility of their proposed application using MARVEL. Final agreements for proposed projects are expected to be announced in 2026. First projects selected for INL reactor experiments
A mock-up design of Samsung SDI’s solid-state battery – credit, Samsung, released
In late October, Samsung announced that it was preparing to take its long-anticipated solid-state batteries to market with a trilateral agreement between itself, BMW, and American battery expert Solid Power.
It was January of last year that industry outlets began to get some of the promises that all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) developed by Samsung SDI would bring. With an energy density of 500 watt-hours per kilogram, they’re twice as dense as conventional lithium-ion batteries.
Samsung claimed they were smaller, lighter, and safer, capable of driving 600 miles, and charging with
in 9 minutes. Typically, a lithium-ion battery pack in a modern EV charges from 10% to 80% in around 45 minutes, and has a limit of around 300 miles of range.
“Samsung SDI’s preparations for mass-producing next-generation products of various form factors such as an all-solid-state battery are well underway as we are set to lead the global battery market with our unrivaled ‘super-gap’ technology,” said Samsung SDI CEO Yoon-ho Choi.
ASSB cells use solid electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte found in a lithium-ion battery. They offer superior safety, as they aren’t flammable, and last for 20 years, or 2,000 charge-discharges, equating to 1.2 million miles.
Under the trilateral agreement, Samsung will supply ASSB cells featuring the solid electrolyte developed by Solid Power to the German automotive group BMW, which will then develop modules and packs for ASSB cells to fit into their next-generation evaluation vehicles, expected in late 2026.
Metal Tech News reported in January that ASSBs will also debut in some smaller Samsung devices during 2026, including the Galaxy Ring fitness tracker, as a way of testing the new power supplies in the real world before incorporating them into smartphones, laptops, and other devices.Samsung’s ASSBs use a silver-carbon layer as the anode and a nickel-manganese-cobalt material for the cathode. Silver is not only the most electrically conductive metal available, it’s also substantially more plentiful in the Earth’s crust than lithium. Samsung's 600-Mile-Range Batteries That Charge in 9 Minutes Ready for Production/Sale Next Year
The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Underwater coral reefs are filled with thumps, pops, and snaps from shrimp and fish, and ecologists often use underwater microphones to monitor the health of marine environments.
But until now, ecologists have largely been unable to interpret these sounds because reefs are crowded with hundreds of different species—very few of which have had sounds accurately attributed to them.
A new tool from the FishEye Collaborative combines underwater sound recordings and a camera equipped with a 360° view to pinpoint the sounds made by individual fish.
The collaboration between bioacoustic researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Aalto University have already identified 46 fish species from the coral reefs of Curaçao in the Caribbean—more than half of them were never known to make sound.
The findings culled from their eavesdropping along with a description of their invention, the Omnidirectional Underwater Passive Acoustic Camera (UPAC-360), were published recently in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
“The diversity of fish sounds on a coral reef rivals that of birds in a rainforest,” explained Marc Dantzker, lead author and the Director of FishEye Collaborative. “In the Caribbean alone we estimate that over 700 fish species produce sounds. The same biodiversity we aim to protect is also our greatest challenge, when it comes to identifying sounds.”
The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology
“Spatial Audio lets you hear the direction from which sounds arrive at the camera,” explained Dantzker. “When we visualize that sound and lay the picture on top of the 360° image, the result is a video that can reveal which sound came from which fish.”
Now the most extensive collection of fish sounds ever published—and the growing library—is available to everyone at fisheyecollaborative.org/library.
The researchers say that identified sounds from the library can be used to automatically train machine learning systems to detect fish species in underwater recordings.
The technology is similar to smartphone apps like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin Bird ID that automatically identifies bird species by song or call, but no one needs to be on site. The UPAC-360 can be placed in reefs and left to collect data without the need for a diver or boat to be present.
The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology
“We are a long way from being able to build ‘Merlin’ for the oceans, but the sounds are useful for scientists and conservationists right away,” says Aaron Rice, a senior author of the study and principal ecologist at the Cornell Lab.
Dantzker adds, “We’re making it possible to decode reef soundscapes, transforming acoustic monitoring into a powerful tool for ocean conservation.”
“By discovering the identity of these hidden voices, acoustics will become a powerful indicator of reef health and a strategy to monitor wider and deeper,” said Matt Duggan, co-author and PhD candidate at Cornell.
“The fact that our recording system is put out in nature and can record for long periods of time means that we’re able to capture species’ behaviors and sounds that have never before been witnessed,” said Rice.
The researchers are expanding the research, growing the library for the Caribbean, and broadening their efforts to other reefs around the world, including Hawai’i and Indonesia, in the coming months.
LISTEN to 5 fish sounds below… [NOTES: It’s loud at first. Also, be sure to read the text.]
The first successful human implant of a 3D-printed cornea made from human eye cells cultured in a laboratory has restored a patient’s sight.
The North Carolina-based company that developed the cornea described the procedure as a ‘world first’—and a major milestone toward its goal of alleviating the lack of available donor tissue and long wait-times for people seeking transplants.
According to Precise Bio, its robotic bio-fabrication approach could potentially turn a single donated cornea into hundreds of lab-grown grafts, at a time when there’s currently only one available for an estimated 70 patients who need one to see.
“This achievement marks a turning point for regenerative ophthalmology—a moment of real hope for millions living with corneal blindness,” Aryeh Batt, Precise Bio’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
“For the first time, a corneal implant manufactured entirely in the lab from cultured human corneal cells, rather than direct donor tissue, has been successfully implanted in a patient.”
The company said the transplant was performed Oct. 29 in one eye of a patient who was considered legally blind.
“This is a game changer. We’ve witnessed a cornea created in the lab, from living human cells, bring sight back to a human being,” said Dr. Michael Mimouni, director of the cornea unit at Rambam Medical Center in Israel, who performed the procedure.
“It was an unforgettable moment—a glimpse into a future where no one will have to live in darkness because of a shortage of donor tissue.”
Dubbed PB-001, the implant is designed to match the optical clarity, transparency and bio-mechanical properties of a native cornea. Previously tested in animal models, the company said its graft is capable of integrating with a patient’s own tissue.
The outer layer of the eye—covering the iris and pupil—can end up clouding a person’s vision following injuries, infections, scarring and other conditions. PB-001 is currently being tested in a single-arm phase 1 trial in Israel, which aims to enroll between 10 and 15 participants with excess fluid buildups in the cornea due to dysfunction within its inner cell layers.
Precise Bio said it plans to announce top-line results from the study in the second half of 2026, tracking six-month efficacy outcomes.
The corneas are designed to be compatible with current surgery hardware and workflows. Shipped under long-term cryopreservation, it is delivered preloaded on standard delivery devices and unrolls during implantation to form a natural corneal shape.
“PB-001 has the potential to offer a new, standardized solution to one of ophthalmology’s most urgent needs—reliable, safe, and effective corneal replacement,” said Anthony Atala, M.D., co-founder of Precise Bio and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
New Delhi, (IANS) A massive ash cloud from the Hayli Gubbi volcanic eruption in northern Ethiopia that drifted across the Arabian Sea and reached India on Monday night is now moving over parts of north India, prompting aviation authorities to issue safety guidelines for airlines. However, it is not expected to impact the air quality as the ash cloud is primarily at mid-levels of the atmosphere, experts said on Tuesday.
The eruption, which occurred on Sunday after the long-dormant volcano suddenly became active, released a thick plume that travelled across the Red Sea toward Yemen and Oman before advancing toward the Indian subcontinent.
By 11 p.m. on Monday, the ash plume had entered Indian airspace and was observed over Delhi, with movement expected towards Punjab and Haryana through the night and well into Tuesday.
The unusual atmospheric event led the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue a detailed advisory to airlines, urging them to strictly avoid designated volcanic ash–affected areas and flight levels.
Airlines have been asked to modify flight planning, routing, altitude selection, and fuel calculations in accordance with the latest Volcanic Ash Advisories (VAAs).
The DGCA’s guidance comes amid reports of rerouted and delayed flights as aircraft operators attempt to navigate safely around the affected zones.
Volcanic ash poses a serious risk to aviation, especially jet engines, as ash particles can melt inside engines and cause severe damage.
IndiaMetSky Weather posted an explanation of the phenomenon on X, noting that the plume currently contains sulphur dioxide (SO₂) with low to moderate concentrations of volcanic ash.
In its post, IndiaMetSky Weather wrote: “The Ash plume mostly consists of Sulphur Dioxide with low to moderate concentrations of Volcanic Ash. It’s now stretching from Oman–Arabian Sea region into plains of North & Central India. It will not impact AQI levels but it will impact SO₂ levels at #Hills of #Nepal, #Himalayas and adjoining Terai belt of #UttarPradesh as some of the material will bump into the hills and later move into China."
"Low chances of Ashfall over plains but some places may see something. NO IMPACT ON AQI LEVEL AT SURFACE LEVEL AT ANY PLACE IS EXPECTED," the post mentioned.
"Plume will slowly continue to drift over Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan region. Once again this is at middle levels of the atmosphere so there will not be any impact on the surface apart from some delays & changes in flight routes and some particles might fall to the surface (low chances),” it added.
Meteorologists emphasise that the ash cloud is primarily at mid-levels of the atmosphere, meaning it is unlikely to affect surface air quality for most regions in India. However, hills across Nepal, the Himalayas, and Uttar Pradesh’s Terai belt may see higher sulphur dioxide levels as the plume interacts with mountainous terrain.The plume is expected to gradually drift westward and weaken, but authorities continue to monitor its movement closely. Passengers have been advised to check with airlines for updated flight schedules as temporary disruptions may continue until the plume disperses. Volcanic ash plume from Ethiopia moving over North India will not impact AQI: Experts | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay | For Representational Purpose Only
Tanveer Singh: As the planet struggles under the weight of 40+ billion metric tons of CO₂ emissions in 2024 alone, and an ever-rising energy demand, the search for smarter, leaner solutions has never been more urgent. There enters the TinyML, where the power of AI meets ultra-low energy computing to drive sustainability at scale.
It may be shocking, but as you are reading this, billions of sensors are tracking the planet’s health – from the air we breathe to the energy we consume. Already, more than 14 billion IoT devices are being used to monitor climate change and are projected to reach a whopping 30 billion by the end of 2030. But the concerning part is that the energy consumed by these devices is around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is roughly equivalent to the entire energy consumption of countries like Thailand. To meet this demand, energy is produced through the traditional method of burning fuel, which further emits millions of Carbon footprints annually, that is even more than the lifetime emissions of 4 cars, just to monitor climate change. And therein lies the irony.
Furthermore, the constant transmission of data through these sensors requires millions of dollars for their deployment and maintenance. Like a large-scale smart city as big as New York, IoT networks can cost over $10–15 million per year to operate. This is exactly where TinyML comes as the solution, offering a path that enables IoT devices to process data locally, reducing energy consumption by up to 90% and significantly lowering costs.
Tiny ML bridges the gap between artificial intelligence and embedded systems, allowing machine learning activities even in sensors as small as a grain of sand. It is based on the idea of machine learning that is focused on building machine learning models on low-power devices like microcontrollers, enabling the device to process data instantly and anywhere, without depending on external internet storage to compute it. One clear example is Alexa, which uses TinyML models to send instant responses to the device for processing instead of sending through the cloud (external storage ), which will take a longer time.
Additionally, TinyML improves privacy and data security by running locally and reduces overall operational cost by 50-60% as compared to large ML models working on external storage. Take the example of Google's TinyML image classification that runs directly on devices, keeping images private while cutting storage and cloud costs by over 50%. TinyML can be best understood as having a mini robot in your pocket that can solve problems instantly, instead of always asking a big computer far away for help. It is faster, saves energy, and keeps your information private. When this field is applied to the climate, its efficiency becomes a distinguished factor.
Besides being cost-effective and having higher efficiency, it also helps in tracking air quality to predict natural disasters and, hence, supports the fight against climate change. Tiny ML sensors enable the quick detection of forest fires through heat or smoke detection, and aid in local air and water quality checks, eliminating the need for cloud computing dependency. For instance, Arduino-based air quality sensors are used to measure air quality and provide data on the temperature and humidity of an area. These models can also be used in solar or wind farms to check the performance of the solar cells and windmills through the consumption of energy, which can further help in increasing the efficiency of the farms. For example, Google’s DeepMind AI was successfully used with wind farms in the U.S. to predict wind power output 36 hours in advance, boosting the value of wind energy by around 20%. Interestingly, these sensors can also aid in monitoring birds' and whales' calls or other animals to track migration patterns and population health, as well as because of their small size and working on low power, and hence, they can help researchers to get valuable data on ecosystems without disturbing the wildlife. Moreover, TinyML sensors used in smart grids help in improving energy utilization by constantly monitoring and managing the transport of electricity so that energy is not wasted. Besides this, these devices can help in measuring the water pressure, tidal patterns, and ground movement of an area, and the data from this can be used to detect disasters earlier. For instance, in Japan, Tiny ML sensors placed along coastlines measure tidal waves and ground vibration in real time, which helps authorities to issue faster tsunami and earthquake warnings.
However, while these applications highlight the transformative impact of Tiny ML in tackling climate related problems, the integration also brings forth several challenges that need to be addressed to ensure reliability and scalability. First and foremost is the limitation of hardware, which is that there is limited storage, approximately in kilobytes or 1 to 5 megabytes, to store data compared to traditional models that have memory in gigabytes and terabytes. As a result, small models in TinyML will be less precise than the traditional models, which can be a huge challenge in models that work on reliability, for example, disaster management models. Furthermore, the harsh conditions like weather or wildlife can damage these devices, leading to malfunctioning and increasing the cost of maintenance.
Additionally, even though these devices are cost-effective, deploying billions of devices will still require huge funding, which can limit their production and scalability.
Despite these challenges, the future of TinyML is being shaped by the integration of emerging technologies, large-scale adoption, and the expanding market of AI. The combination of TinyML with the 5 G network, which provides 100 times faster speed than 4 G and the ability to connect over one million devices per square kilometer, can enable the creation of massive, interconnected sensors all over the cities that can provide faster and reliable data. Additionally, integrating it with federated learning- an ML technique that enables multiple devices to train a model together without sharing the raw data - can help in ensuring data privacy and increasing the accuracy of the models. Furthermore, Government and Research institutes are likely to adopt TinyML models in various tasks as they provide a scalable and cost-effective solution, especially in environments with limited resources. For instance, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has explored TinyML to process sensor data directly on satellites, reducing the need for constant communication with Earth.
It won’t be an exaggeration to say that the Tiny ML models have the potential to shape the future of the world. By offering scalable as well as energy-efficient solutions, Tiny ML stands out as the best alternative to tackle the climate change problems. From reducing the CO2 emissions to providing faster processing of data and strengthening the privacy and accuracy of the data, the Tiny ML model can be a changemaker catalyst not only in the world of climate change but in other fields, too. Undoubtedly, Tiny ML paves the way for a future where artificial intelligence works in harmony with the planet.Tanveer Singh, a first-year student at Plaksha University, has been passionate about writing articles and poems since high school. From raising public awareness of new technologies to highlighting environmental and societal issues, he has explored a wide range of themes through his work and aspires to continue making an impact in this space for the long run. TinyML: The Small Technology Tackling the Biggest Climate Challenge | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
New Delhi, (IANS): Led by artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and neuro-technology, India witnessed 83,000 patents being filed by deep-tech startups in FY2023, marking an annual growth rate of 24.6 per cent which is highest since the last two decades, a Nasscom report showed on Friday.
The number of patents granted also witnessed significant growth, rising over 2 times between FY2019-FY2023.
This trend is expected to increase significantly with over 100K patents granted between March 15, 2023 and March 14 this year.
"The surge in patent filings within the last few years is a clear indication of India’s growing innovation prowess, particularly in areas like AI," said Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom.
To further enhance domestic patent activity, collaborations among key stakeholders are essential for fostering and increasing awareness of intellectual property rights, she added.
Over the past decade, the proportion of patents filed by residents (primary filers based in India) has doubled, climbing from 33.6 per cent of total filings in fiscal year 2019 to more than 50 per cent in fiscal year 2023.
"The filing of over 900 patents since 2008 by leading Indian deep-tech startups coupled with the submission of 32,000 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in India by other countries stood as a testament to this increasing focus," the report noted.
Amongst the top application areas, healthcare related patents primarily around medical imaging, diagnosing, report generation and testing saw the maximum applications, followed by automation/software development and retail/ecommerce.AI saw maximum patents filed in areas of image processing, NLP, and predictive modelling, while Gen AI, medical data processing and cognitive computing are the key emerging areas. Indian startups file 83,000 patents in FY23; AI, neurotechnology lead | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND
As the planet warms, it risks crossing catastrophic tipping points: thresholds where Earth systems, such as ice sheets and rain forests, change irreversibly over human lifetimes.
Scientists have long warned that if global temperatures warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with before the Industrial Revolution, and stayed high, they would increase the risk of passing multiple tipping points. For each of these elements, like the Amazon rain forest or the Greenland ice sheet, hotter temperatures lead to melting ice or drier forests that leave the system more vulnerable to further changes.
Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND
The term “tipping point” is often used to illustrate these problems, but apocalyptic messages can leave people feeling helpless, wondering if it’s pointless to slam the brakes. As a geoscientist who has studied the ocean and climate for over a decade and recently spent a year on Capitol Hill working on bipartisan climate policy, I still see room for optimism.
It helps to understand what a tipping point is – and what’s known about when each might be reached.
Tipping points are not precise
A tipping point is a metaphor for runaway change. Small changes can push a system out of balance. Once past a threshold, the changes reinforce themselves, amplifying until the system transforms into something new.
The scientific reality of tipping points is more complicated than crossing a temperature line. Instead, different elements in the climate system have risks of tipping that increase with each fraction of a degree of warming.
For example, the beginning of a slow collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which could raise global sea level by about 24 feet (7.4 meters), is one of the most likely tipping elements in a world more than 1.5 C warmer than preindustrial times. Some models place the critical threshold at 1.6 C (2.9 F). More recent simulations estimate runaway conditions at 2.7 C (4.9 F) of warming. Both simulations consider when summer melt will outpace winter snow, but predicting the future is not an exact science.
Gradients show science-based estimates from the Global Tipping Points Report of when some key global or regional climate tipping points are increasingly likely to be reached. Every fraction of a degree increases the likeliness, reflected in the warming color. Global Tipping Points Report 2025, CC BY-ND
Forecasts like these are generated using powerful climate models that simulate how air, oceans, land and ice interact. These virtual laboratories allow scientists to run experiments, increasing the temperature bit by bit to see when each element might tip.
Their nine core tipping elements include large-scale components of Earth’s climate, such as ice sheets, rain forests and ocean currents. They also simulated thresholds for smaller tipping elements that pack a large punch, including die-offs of coral reefs and widespread thawing of permafrost.
The world may have already passed one tipping point, according to the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report: Corals reefs are dying as marine temperatures rise. Healthy reefs are essential fish nurseries and habitat and also help protect coastlines from storm erosion. Once they die, their structures begin to disintegrate. Vardhan Patankar/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Some tipping elements, such as the East Antarctic ice sheet, aren’t in immediate danger. The ice sheet’s stability is due to its massive size – nearly six times that of the Greenland ice sheet – making it much harder to push out of equilibrium. Model results vary, but they generally place its tipping threshold between 5 C (9 F) and 10 C (18 F) of warming.
Other elements, however, are closer to the edge.
Alarm bells sounding in forests and oceans
In the Amazon, self-perpetuating feedback loops threaten the stability of the Earth’s largest rain forest, an ecosystem that influences global climate. As temperatures rise, drought and wildfire activity increase, killing trees and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, which in turn makes the forest hotter and drier still.
Rising temperatures also threaten biodiversity underwater.
The second Global Tipping Points Report, released Oct. 12, 2025, by a team of 160 scientists including Lenton, suggests tropical reefs may have passed a tipping point that will wipe out all but isolated patches.
Coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef. Australian Institute of Marine Science.
Corals rely on algae called zooxanthellae to thrive. Under heat stress, the algae leave their coral homes, draining reefs of nutrition and color. These mass bleaching events can kill corals, stripping the ecosystem of vital biodiversity that millions of people rely on for food and tourism.
Low-latitude reefs have the highest risk of tipping, with the upper threshold at just 1.5 C, the report found. Above this amount of warming, there is a 99% chance that these coral reefs tip past their breaking point.
Similar alarms are ringing for ocean currents, where freshwater ice melt is slowing down a major marine highway that circulates heat, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC.
The AMOC carries warm water northward from the tropics. In the North Atlantic, as sea ice forms, the surface gets colder and saltier, and this dense water sinks. The sinking action drives the return flow of cold, salty water southward, completing the circulation’s loop. But melting land ice from Greenland threatens the density-driven motor of this ocean conveyor belt by dilution: Fresher water doesn’t sink as easily.
The Amazon forest has been losing tree cover to logging, farming, ranching, wildfires and a changing climate. Pink shows areas with greater than 75% tree canopy loss from 2001 to 2024. Blue is tree cover gain from 2000 to 2020. Global Forest Watch, CC BY
Other changes driven by rising global temperatures, like melting permafrost, could be reversed. Permafrost, for example, could refreeze if temperatures drop again.
Risks are too high to ignore
Despite the uncertainty, tipping points are too risky to ignore. Rising temperatures put people and economies around the world at greater risk of dangerous conditions.
But there is still room for preventive actions – every fraction of a degree in warming that humans prevent reduces the risk of runaway climate conditions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions slows warming and tipping point risks.
Tipping points highlight the stakes, but they also underscore the climate choices humanity can still make to stop the damage.
This article was updated to clarify permafrost discussion.
Tramping through coastal marshlands in eastern China, a strange looking deer roams freely in herds of hundreds; a remarkable recovery from where they had been just a few decades ago.
Described in ancient China as a beast with the antlers of a deer, hooves of an ox, face of a horse, and tail of a donkey, Père David’s deer was at one time the rarest of its kind on Earth.
Hunted to extinction in the wild 125 years ago, captive animals clung to life in a far away land, until in 1985, their descendants could return to a wiser China where a more eco-conscious population welcomed them home to the quiet marshlands.
In the early 20th century, the British nobleman and politician Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, acquired a few Père David’s deer from the Berlin Zoo and built up a large herd on his estate at Woburn Abbey.
In 1985 the duke’s great-grandson Robin Russell, 14th Duke of Bedford, donated 39 Père David’s deer to the Chinese government for a reintroduction program. They were placed in a park/reserve that once belonged exclusively for canned hunts conducted by the emperors in Beijing—the killing field had become a sanctuary.
A second re-introduction into China was conducted in 1986 where 36 Père David’s deer were chosen from five UK zoological gardens. From less than 100, these original animals have multiplied into 8,200 and seem—as if by a miracle—not be be suffering from low genetic diversity. They enjoy a 17% annual growth rate in the population.
Today, all of the deer that roam China are descended from Russel’s herd, and across China’s many elk sanctuaries like Tianezhou and Dafeng, dozens of square miles of pristine habitat are protected for this incredible animal. Plans are underway to reintroduce the deer to much more wild areas, where they will have to learn to avoid predators and battle the elements once again.
A Chinese-language moniker for the Père David’s deer translates to “the four dislikes” referring to the component appearance mentioned above. As is so often the case in Chinese society, this strangeness is paired with a legend.
The following was taken from Wikipedia,
According to Chinese legend, when the tyrant King Zhou of Shang ruled the land more than 3,000 years ago, a horse, a donkey, an ox and a deer went into a cave in the forest to meditate and on the day the King executed his minister Bigan, the animals awoke from their meditation and turned into humans.
They entered society, learned of the King’s heinous acts and wanted to take recourse against the King, who was powerful. So they transformed themselves into one creature that combined the speed of the horse, the strength of the ox, the donkey’s keen sense of direction and the nimble agility of the deer.
This new animal then galloped to the Kunlun Mountains to seek the advice of the Primeval Lord of Heaven. The Lord was astonished at the sight of a creature that had antlers of a deer, hooves of an ox, face of a horse and tail of a donkey.“It’s unlike any of four creatures!” he exclaimed. Upon learning of the animal’s quest, Lord gave his blessing and dispatched the creature to his disciple the sage Jiang Ziya, who was battling the King. Jiang Ziya rode the creature to victory over the King and helped found the Zhou dynasty. Miracle Recovery for World’s Rarest and Strangest Deer – Just 39 Became 8,200
New Delhi, (IANS): Qualcomm India is taking a leading role in shaping India’s digital future, emphasising its commitment to inclusive, sustainable, and globally competitive technology solutions, the tech giant said on Thursday.
At the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2025, the company showcased a wide range of innovations, from Edge AI and 6G to smart homes, connected devices, and advanced compute platforms -- highlighting how its technologies are driving India’s digital transformation.
The company presented its vision for an intelligent and connected India through three pillars -- Personal AI, Physical AI, and Industrial AI -- reflecting Qualcomm’s focus on providing scalable, secure, and India-first solutions across consumer, enterprise, and infrastructure domains.
Qualcomm has been a long-time partner in India’s technology journey, supporting the country from 3G to 5G, while actively preparing for 6G through early-stage research, strategic partnerships, and local R&D investments.
At IMC 2025, Qualcomm highlighted the power of Edge AI combined with 5G as the twin pillars of India’s digital future.
Its platforms are enabling real-time, low-latency intelligence across industries, including automotive, industrial IoT, mobile devices, and compute solutions.
Demonstrations included on-device generative AI for smartphones and industrial devices, AI-powered surveillance, intelligent wearables like smartwatches and earbuds, and connected vehicles, all delivering seamless, multimodal experiences.
Savi Soin, Senior Vice President and President of Qualcomm India, said, “IMC 2025 reflects India’s strong digital momentum. Qualcomm is proud to lead with technologies that are cutting-edge and India-first, from Edge AI and 6G to smart homes and secure video solutions.”
The company also announced key collaborations with Indian partners to expand its ecosystem.
To nurture the next generation of AI talent in India, Qualcomm launched the Qualcomm AI Upskilling Programme: Technical Foundation, aimed at students, developers, and professionals. The program covers AI and ML fundamentals, Edge AI, generative AI, and practical experience with Qualcomm’s AI Hub, helping participants build on-device AI applications.
Through these initiatives, Qualcomm India is reinforcing its role as a digital transformation partner for the nation.By supporting Make in India, advancing 6G, enabling AI upskilling, and working closely with partners and policymakers, Qualcomm is contributing to an inclusive, innovative, and globally competitive digital future for India. Qualcomm drives digital future with AI, 6G and 'Make in India' initiatives | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
New Delhi, (IANS) Canadian researchers have found that scanning the tiny blood vessels in the eyes may help predict a person's risk of developing heart disease and how fast they're biologically ageing.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, suggests that retinal scans could one day serve as a noninvasive window into the body's overall vascular health and biological ageing status, offering new opportunities for early detection and intervention.
"By connecting retinal scans, genetics, and blood biomarkers, we have uncovered molecular pathways that help explain how aging affects the vascular system," said Marie Pigeyre, Associate Professor at McMaster University’s Department of Medicine in Canada.
"The eye provides a unique, noninvasive view into the body's circulatory system. Changes in the retinal blood vessels often mirror changes occurring throughout the body's small vessels," added Pigeyre.
To conduct the study, the team combined retinal scans, genetic data, and blood sample analyses from over 74,000 participants.
People with simpler, less branched blood vessels were found to be at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and showed signs of biological ageing, such as higher inflammation and shorter lifespan.
Currently, assessing age-related diseases like heart disease, stroke, and dementia requires multiple tests. The hope is that retinal scans alone could eventually be used as a quick, accessible way to assess ageing and cardiovascular risk. However, more research is needed.
The team also reviewed blood biomarkers and genetic data and identified potential biological causes behind changes in the eye's blood vessels. This helped them identify specific proteins that may drive ageing and disease -- MMP12 and IgG-Fc receptor IIb.
A plug-in carbon monoxide detector – credit Fastily CC 4.0. BY-SA
It’s invisible, it’s lethal, and it’s been with us for decades, but carbon monoxide poisoning can now be fought with the first-ever antidote that rapidly removes the toxic molecule from the bloodstream.
Carbon monoxide or CO, poisoning accounts for 50,000 emergency room visits in the US each year and causes about 1,500 deaths, each one being lamented as a shameful waste and tragic oversight.
Currently, the only treatments for CO poisoning are oxygen-based therapies, which help the body eliminate the toxic gas. However, even with treatment, nearly half of survivors suffer long-term heart and brain damage. This has created an urgent need for faster, more effective interventions.
In a study published by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) in PNAS, the research team developed a new engineered protein-based therapy called RcoM-HBD-CCC, which acts like a sponge to soak up carbon monoxide from the blood.
RcoM (short for “regulator of metabolism”) is a natural protein isolated from the bacterium Paraburkholderia xenovorans which uses it to sense minute levels of carbon monoxide in its environment.
The researchers engineered a version that is highly selective, grabbing CO without interfering with oxygen or other important molecules in the bloodstream like nitric oxide, which is vital for the regulation of blood pressure.
In tests on mice, the new therapy worked quickly to remove CO from red blood cells and was safely flushed out of the body through urine.
CO is known commonly as the “silent killer,” because this odorless, invisible gas, typically released from combustion sources, including stovetops, propane heaters, car exhausts, and firewood, poisons in a gradual manner that isn’t immediately obvious to the victim.
In healthy bodies, oxygen inhaled from the air binds to the protein hemoglobin on the surface of red blood cells, which then ferry the oxygen to all the tissues of the body. CO however, competes with oxygen for hemoglobin. It enters the bloodstream and binds to hemoglobin with a 200 to 400-fold greater affinity than oxygen. That means CO hogs most of the hemoglobin seats, so not enough oxygen molecules can get a ride to the tissues that need them.
Currently, the only available treatments for carbon monoxide poisoning involve giving 100% pure oxygen, sometimes under pressure in a hyperbaric chamber.
All too often, patients are not transported, diagnosed, and treated in time to reverse the effects of CO poisoning, which can cause lasting cardiac and neurological injuries or even death.
Infused in the bloodstream, scavenger hemoproteins like RcoM-HBD-CCC rapidly bind to carbon monoxide molecules, reducing the time it takes to clear half of the carbon monoxide in the blood to less than a minute, compared to more than hour with pure oxygen therapy and five hours without any treatment.
A potential drawback the researchers were aware of is that so-called “scavengers” like RcoM also have an affinity for oxygen, and so may uptake the nitric oxide mentioned earlier. This can cause wild and potentially unsafe changes in blood pressure, but RcoM-HBD-CCC caused no such side effects.
“Unlike other protein-based treatments, we found the compound caused only minimal changes in blood pressure, which was an exciting finding and raised the potential for this new molecule to have clinical applications,” said study corresponding author Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Dean of UMSOM.
“This has the potential to become a rapid, intravenous antidote for carbon monoxide that could be given in the emergency department or even in the field by first-responders.”Future studies will likely include more pre-clinical research to determine the safe and effective dosage range for RcoM-HBD-CCC in treating carbon monoxide poisoning. It could also form the basis for new research in other fields, including as an oxygen delivery therapy or blood substitute. This could include hemorrhagic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), severe anemias, and the preservation of organs for transplantation. First Antidote for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning 'Cleans' Blood in Minutes
Language enables us to connect with each other and coordinate to achieve incredible feats. Our ability to communicate abstract concepts is often seen as a defining feature of our species, and one that separates us from the rest of life on Earth.
This is because while the ability to pair an arbitrary sound with a specific meaning is widespread in human language, it is rarely seen in other animal communication systems. Several recent studies have shown that birds, chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants also do it. But how such a capacity emerges remains a mystery.
While language is characterised by the widespread use of sounds that have a learned association with the item they refer to, humans and animals also produce instinctive sounds. For example, a scream made in response to pain. Over 150 years ago, naturalist Charles Darwin suggested the use of these instinctive sounds in a new context could be an important step in the development of language-like communication.
In our new study, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, we describe the first example of an animal vocalisation that contains both instinctive and learned features – similar to the stepping stone Darwin envisioned.
A unique call towards a unique threat
Birds have a variety of enemies, but brood parasites are unique.
Brood parasites, such as cuckoos, are birds that reproduce by laying their egg in the nest of another species and manipulating the unsuspecting host to incubate their egg and raise their offspring. The first thing a baby cuckoo does after it hatches is heave the other baby birds out of the nest, claiming the effort of its unsuspecting foster parents all to itself.
The high cost of brood parasitism makes it an excellent study system to explore how evolution works in the wild.
For example, our past work has shown that in Australia, the superb fairy-wren has evolved a unique call it makes when it sees a cuckoo. When other fairy-wrens hear this alarm call, they quickly come in and attack the cuckoo.
During these earlier experiments, we couldn’t help but notice other species were responding to this call and making a very similar call themselves. What’s more, discussions with collaborators who were working in countries as far away as China, India and Sweden suggested the birds there were also making a very similar call – and also only towards cuckoos.
Birds from around the world use the same call
First, we explored online wildlife media databases to see if there were other examples of this call towards brood parasites. We found 21 species that produce this call towards their brood parasites, including cuckoos and parasitic finches. Some of these birds were closely related and lived nearby each other, but others shared a last common ancestor over 50 million years ago and live on different continents.
For example, this is a superb fairy-wren responding to a shining bronze-cuckoo in Australia.
Superb fairy-wren responding to a shining bronze-cuckoo.
William Feeney, CC BY169 KB(download)
And this is a tawny-flanked prinia responding to a cuckoo finch in Zambia.
Tawny-flanked prinia responding to a cuckoo finch.
William Feeney, CC BY160 KB(download)
As vocalisations exist to communicate information, we suspected this call either functioned to attract the attention of their own or other species.
To compare these possibilities, we used a known database of the world’s brood parasites and hosts. If this call exists to communicate information within a species, we expected the species that produce it should be more cooperative, because more birds are better at defending their nest.
We did not find this. Instead, we found that species that produce this call exist in areas with more brood parasites and hosts, suggesting it exists to enable cooperation across different species that are targeted by brood parasites.
Communicating across species to defend against a common threat
To test whether these calls were produced uniquely towards cuckoos in multiple species, we conducted experiments in Australia.
When we presented superb fairy-wrens or white-browed scrubwrens with a taxidermied cuckoo, they made this call and tried to attack it. By contrast, when they were presented with other taxidermied models, such as a predator, this call was very rarely produced.
When we presented the fairy-wrens and scrubwrens with recordings of the call, they responded strongly. This suggests both species produce the call almost exclusively towards cuckoos, and when they hear it they respond predictably.
If this call is something like a “universal word” for a brood parasite across birds, we should expect different species to respond equally to hearing it – even when it is produced by a species they have never seen before. We found exactly this: when we played calls from Australia to birds in China (and vice-versa) they responded the same.
This suggests different species from all around the world use this call because it provides specific information about the presence of a brood parasite.
Superb fairy-wrens attacking a taxidermied shining bronze-cuckoo. William Feeney, CC BY
Insights into the origins of language
Our study suggests that over 20 species of birds from all around the world that are separated by over 50 million years of evolution use the same call when they see their respective brood parasite species.
This is fascinating in and of itself. But while these birds know how to respond to the call, our past work has shown that birds that have never seen a cuckoo do not produce this call, but they do after watching others produce it when there is a cuckoo nearby.
In other words, while the response to the call is instinctive, producing the call itself is learned.
Whereas vocalisations are normally either instinctive or learned, this is the first example of an animal vocalisation across species that has both instinctive and learned components. This is important, because it appears to represent a midpoint between the types of vocalisations that are common in animal communication systems and human language.
So, Darwin may have been right about language all along.
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(Image: INL)
Pere David’s deer at the Jiangsu Dafeng Elk National Nature Reserve – credit, 
