Smaller Indian cities, as they grow, have the chance to avoid the pitfalls of the megacities. Early experiments in low-carbon city planning in Mysore, Madurai and Jaipur could offer interesting lessons, writes Hari Pulakkat

A new technology to help boost solar power generation manifoldStarting from sometime in the past century, when human beings became aware that solar energy is non-polluting and abundant, companies and research and development institutions have been spending considerable money and energy to make it cheap as well. Engineers have tried a slew of approaches to harvest solar energy, but with incremental improvements. Now there is a solar energy technology, nantenna, that promises to deliver a magnitude increase in performance — if it goes from a prototype to a commercial version.

Regenerative medicine crossed another milestone this week when scientists at the University of Lund in Sweden demonstrated the direct conversion of skin tissue cells into nerve cells. So far, the standard technique in this field has been to convert adult cells (usually from the skin) into stem cells, and then converting stem cells into tissues or organs that have to be transplanted. This method has several risks and has not worked well in humans so far, although a few recent breakthroughs seem promising.