2-day seminar on Antarctic Science

Panaji, May 21: A two-day seminar on ''Antarctic Science: India's Contributions in Global Perspectives'' is being held here from May 25 to discuss India's rich contributions during the last 25 expeditions to the icy continent.

Organised under the aegis of the prestigious National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Vasco-da-Gama, the seminar will provide a platform to scientists to exchange ideas and experiences in Antarctic research.

About 75 research bodies, including universities and central institutions, have been engaged in interdisciplinary research under the leadership of the NCAOR which is collaborating with world leaders in the field.

India launched the silver jubilee Antarctic Expedition late last year even as NCAOR had chalked out a programme to set up a third research base station recently.

Notable achievement of the NCAOR has been the opening of a state-of-the-art Ice-Core Laboratory at its Sada facility to study climatic changes, occurring since millions of years, by analysing the tonnes of ice-core the scientists have brought to India after digging from the icy continent, sources told UNI.

The study of the ice-core is expected to help scientists generate significant data that could help evolve a future climatic model for India.

The Indian polar scientists are credited with isolating six of the 28 living microbes found in the continent. They were sent for examination at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad for studying the applications on human beings.

Various other aspects of life sciences such as effect of certain medicines on human physiology in subzero temperatures that could help soldiers posted in the Himalayas besides the people of the region, are also under study, sources said.

Other applications pertain to defence and communications, geology and zoology, study of temperatures vis-a-vis global warming and glaciers.

UNI