by Rahul Kumar Imagine you are at a crowded wedding reception where many people are talking at the same time. There are loud noises all around and you are trying to listen to just one person, a situation designated by scientists as the “cocktail party problem.” To deal with this acoustic chaos, your brain ignores the background noise and focuses on one voice.   Also, you start speaking louder, a response called as the Lombard effect, named after its discoverer, E. Lombard.   The field...

by Chethankumar M Dr. Shashank P.R. is a Senior Scientist in Entomology at ICAR–Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Trained as an agricultural entomologist with gold-medal degrees in both M.Sc. and Ph.D., he has built his career at the interface of classical insect systematics and cutting-edge molecular diagnostics, with a particular emphasis on Lepidoptera and invasive pest detection.​ Over the past decade, Dr. Shashank has led and contributed to multiple national and...

by Arindam Kumar Dr. Basana Gowda G., currently serves as Senior Scientist (Entomology) at ICAR–National Research Centre on Pomegranate, Solapur, Maharashtra. Hailing from Nidigol village in Sindhanur Taluk, Raichur district of Karnataka, his journey exemplifies how dedication and scientific curiosity can lead to national recognition. An alumnus of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, Dr. Gowda completed his postgraduate and doctoral studies at UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru, where...