On 14 October 2010, Dr Pushpa Robin from the Department of Biochemistry, Vadodra gave a talk to interested faculty and students on jathropa - a bio diesel plant. She discussed methods of extracting bio diesel oil from several varieties of jatropa and research work related to increasing the yield of oil by several chemical and biochemical methods. Also mentioned were ways the government encourages farmers to grow the plant and the efforts and difficulties involved to make it into a cash crop.
On 21 October 2010, Professor Milind Watve from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune gave a talk on how nature can be related to maths, chemistry, biology and economics. He elaborated on how simple observations can lead to interesting scientific answers. Examples he used to illustrate this were how plants produce optimum amounts of nectar to attract pollinators and how green bee eater birds have an idea of the triangular relationship between self, predator and home, knowing when it is safe to enter the nest (which is built on the ground).
In all good science-related talks and the audience were delighted to attend these lectures.
Dr Sharada Vakil
HOD Science department
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