The COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on India’s early-career researchers. From funding delays to missing institutional support, the researchers faced unprecedented challenges and their mental health declined as a result. Read the full report.
Science
What’s behind the recent surge in philanthropic contributions to science in India? And do contributions to science rank as high as in other fields such as health and education?
This moth supplements its diet with bird tears
In the forests of Brazil lives a moth that drinks tears of birds. It perches quietly at the back of an antbird at night – when the bird’s not very active – and uses its long, flexible proboscis to lap up its tears. Don’t believe me? See for yourself!
*I’m not crying; there’s something in my eye*
You can read the story behind the video over at Science magazine.
Multimedia credits: Leandro Moraes
Little auks slurp like fish
The little auk is a small seabird that would fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. At only about 150 grams, this featherweight bird eats 20% of its body weight in prey each day. And this takes some underwater hunting skills. Diving up to depths of 27 meters, the bird spots and slurps its prey, much as fishes do. Read more about the world’s only slurping seabird here in my first piece for Hakai magazine.
Photo credit: Manfred Enstipp
When predator becomes prey
IN an encounter between a hungry frog and its insect food, at first it appears the frog is chasing after the insect but the frog’s been played by the insect all along. Find out how in my first piece for ‘Nature inFocus’.
Photo credit: Kaka Bhise
Richa Malhotra 