Science In Action

India is at the centre of much of the discussion on this week’s episode of Science In Action. We hear about how a proposal to scrap Darwinian evolution from Indian secondary schools has led to signatures from thousands of scientists. Dr Vineeta Bal, Researcher at the National University of Immunology, is one of the signatories on a petition against the proposed changes. We spoke to her about why she is against them.Also in India, a new Sars-Cov-2 variant, named XBBX.16 is being studied by epidemiologists in the country. Dr Rajesh Karyakarte, professor of microbiology at BJ Government Medical College, Pune, India, is behind the study. Further study of the variant has been looked into by Kei Sato, professor of Systems Virology at the University of Tokyo. Kei has been mapping how new variants could cause us problems, ahead of them doing so. This kind of forward planning is something praised by Paul Bienaisz, Professor of Virology at The Rockefeller university. We talk to him about how vital this kind of work st