Camera trapping and genetic sampling are big cat monitoring techniques that can estimate population size, density and identify individuals. But they often provide limited information about an animal’s age, sex, reproductive status or health. A new study now suggests that the animal’s urine and scat could reveal more than its presence in a forest. Researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Ahmedabad University and the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences tested whether volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in urine and scat could provide a non-invasive way of collecting information about Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. “The goal was to see whether you could ‘read’ biologically meaningful information — species, age, sex, even reproductive state — directly from the odours the animals leave behind, without ever having to catch, dart, or physically handle the animal,” says B.V. Aditi Prasad, the corresponding author of the study and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Testing the method The researchers collected urine and scat from nine captive tigers and 15 captive leopards at three zoos — Bannerghatta Biological Park in Bengaluru, Kamala Nehru Zoological Park in Ahmedabad and Sayajibaug Zoo in Vadodara. The ages and...

🧠 Public Book Talk | Bacteria to Buddha: How Connection May Have Shaped Consciousness and Makes Us Human Join us for a public talk by Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, President, One Health Trust, Bengaluru, and Senior Research Scholar, Princeton University. Drawing from his book Bacteria to Buddha: How Cooperation Shaped Consciousness and Makes Us Human, Dr. Laxminarayan will explore how cooperation and connection may have shaped the evolution of consciousness, from the earliest forms of life to human societies, and what this means in an age increasingly mediated by AI and machines. 📅 Tuesday, September 29, 2026 🕓 4:00 PM 📍 NCBS Dasheri We invite you to join us for a conversation at the intersection of biology, neuroscience, evolution, and human connection.

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Research from West Bengal shows that physical proximity to wild species may not produce detailed ecological knowledge when a species is solitary, nocturnal and rarely encountered.

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Mumbai, July 30 (SocialNews.XYZ) Calling it a recipe to chaos in the criminal justice administration, the Bombay High Court on Thursday questioned the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for proceeding against its own investigating officer Sameer Wankhede merely on the basis of allegations of an accused and anonymous complaints. A division bench comprising Justice A.S. Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata expressed concern over the manner in which the NCB initiated multiple inquiries against its former Zonal Director involved in the Aryan Khan case of 2021, noting that such a course of action would demoralise honest officers.

A new study led by researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and other institutions has compiled InvenTree-meta, the largest meta-dataset of tree inventory studies from India. The database brings together information from 465 published studies conducted between 1991 and 2023, spanning more than 4,650 hectares of forests across all of India’s biomes. Contributing to global databases Scientists around the world use vast forest datasets to understand how trees store carbon, support biodiversity, and respond to climate change. Despite being home to some of the world’s most diverse and human-influenced forests, South Asia, especially India, contributes little to global forest databases. By harmonising datasets of tree inventory studies from India into a common framework, the researchers say, Indian forests could become a much stronger part of global ecological analyses. “We wanted to see whether data availability (limited sampling) or data accessibility might be a larger contributor to the India-gap in global studies. What we found indicates that there has been extensive sampling, but accessibility might be the bottleneck,” said Krishna Anujan, Post-doctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute & Lead, Network Building, India Tree Inventory Network. Identifying gaps Most tree inventory studies in India are relatively small, with a...

In January of 2025, at the ICTP ICTS winter school at NCBS, Priyanga Amarasekare offered to take me and a few other students out for my birthday. She didn't have to do that.

Researcher Spotlight | Researchers reveal how copper signaling regulates gene expression, plant architecture, and yield traits that shaped rice domestication.

The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Olatunji Rilwan Disu, has advocated for a unified West African approach to combat criminal activities in the region. He made this appeal on Monday while chairing the 11th Meeting of Heads of INTERPOL National Central Bureaus, NCBs, for West Africa in Abuja. According to DAILY POST, the assembly convened NCB leaders from sixteen West African countries, along with senior officials from the INTERPOL General Secretariat and regional security organisations.