The Golden 80s

It did rattle all of us on a hot afternoon on May 20. There was a loud sound, like a thunder, and the doors rattled. I was waiting it to repeat, but nothing happened after the first boom. On checking, there were messages galore on Twitter. I was sceptical of posting a tweet, but then I retweeted one of them that reported the mysterious boom 16-20 km away. It was later confirmed by IAF that there was a sonic boom. It was caused by a routine IAF Test Flight involving a supersonic aircarft, said NDTV . "The sonic boom was probably heard while the aircraft was decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speed between 36,000 and 40000 feet altitude", said the NDTV report. After months of political row, Kerala government cancelled the agreement with US-based firm Sprinklr for collection and analytics of Covid-19 patient data, including those quarantined in the state. According to a report , the state government, through an affidavit submitted to the Kerala high court, sai...

Pangolins tolerate and survive a coronavirs infection, as they lack two key genes that detect the entry of viruses and then activate a series of immune responses to such an attack. According to a recent study,  published in Frontiers in Immunology ,  Pangolins lack (IFIH1), also known as MDA5, which is a intracellular RNA sensor. It also lacks Z-DNA-binding protein (ZBP1), This essentially means mammals like Pangolins can tolerate viral infections, instead of resisting or mounting a hyper immune response to such infections. At times. such responses affect the host's survival. The way Pangolins can tolerate viral infections can also explain why mammals like bats can carry or host a number of viruses without themselves getting affected seriously. But these animals can pass on the infections to human beings. The study concludes that "...pharmaceutical suppression of IFIH1/MDA5 and ZBP1-dependent signaling may be beneficial for human patients with overreactions to vir...