Mepco bill

The elephant named Suvarna engages with her calf ‘Sudha’ at Bannerghatta National Park, 2020. | Photo Credit: File photo All living beings communicate. In honeybees, communicative signals in the form of a wiggle dance transmit information on the location of flowers. Recipient bees decode this information and use it to guide their behaviour. Human language … Read more

Quantum systems like atoms or electrons can exist in superpositions: a particle can be in two states at once until it is measured. Causality itself can be the same way. | Photo Credit: Valeria Saggio/University of Vienna In everyday life, cause always comes before effect. A window won’t break before you throw a ball at … Read more

ISRO’s NavIC constellation, for which it has launched 11 satellites since 2013, is in operational distress. Only three satellites remain capable of providing position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services, leaving the constellation unable to fulfil its purpose of replacing the U.S.’s GPS system over the Indian subcontinent. A PNT constellation requires at least four PNT-capable … Read more

This image is from an 1837 publication. | Source: First Notebook on Transmutation of Species. Published – March 19, 2026 05:00 pm IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit

Policemen stand near the wreckage of a car that caught fire, subsequently engulfing a house nearby, in Indore, March 18, 2026. | Photo Credit: PTI The story so far: A fire tore through a house in Indore on March 18, killing eight people including two children. An electric vehicle (EV) charging point outside the house … Read more

The call woke me from a dead sleep. The ER physician uttered the words STEMI, short for ST elevation myocardial infarction. She didn’t need to say more: I was out of bed as she narrated the rest. A STEMI occurs when a ruptured cholesterol plaque triggers a cascade of clot formations, sealing the artery shut. … Read more

Published – March 18, 2026 05:00 pm IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit

World Frog Day on March 20 celebrates the role of frogs, the world’s most numerous amphibians. They live at the interface between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, eat insects and in turn get eaten by other vertebrates, and are thus crucial in converting insect biomass into vertebrate biomass. Losing them can mean a boom in insects … Read more

The mind is more than just a bunch of cells. | Photo Credit: cdd20/Unsplash Evidence points to the human mind not being a physical object you can touch but a process the brain creates. Scientists generally agree the mind arises from the complex activity of the physical brain. The foundation of the mind consists of … Read more

The ongoing war in West Asia has plunged the world into a deep energy crisis. In India, the availability of domestic fuel, LPG, has been hit due by the disruption in supplies from the Persian Gulf. The global energy crisis is reminiscent of the Oil Shock of 1973 when members of the Organisation of Petroleum … Read more

On the morning of February 28th, as hundreds of young girls were attending their classes in Minab’s Shajareh Tayyebeh school, the building was struck by a missile. Residents and rescuers, who rushed seeing black smoke rising in place of the school, found blood-stained backpacks, severed arms, and dead children buried under piles of rubble.  Their … Read more

A file picture taken on July 19, 2013 shows a scientist walking in a tunnel inside the A view of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during maintenance works on July 19, 2013, in Meyrin, near Geneva, July 2013. | Photo Credit: AFP The Large Hadron Collider has discovered a new particle, the 80th identified so … Read more

According to the researchers, the sun vibrates constantly with acoustic waves generated by turbulent motions beneath its surface. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto GUWAHATI Researchers from Tezpur University in North-central Assam have found that the subtle vibrations on the sun’s surface could be transporting enormous amounts of energy into its outer atmosphere. The research, conducted … Read more

Sex bias: key to a DNA puzzle

Melanoma is one of the most dangerous common skin cancers. It starts in melanocytes, the skin cells that make melanin, the pigment that gives skin its colour. Cancer doesn’t appear overnight. A normal cell becomes cancerous in steps, as its DNA and its gene-control systems pick up changes over time. These changes push the cell … Read more

The BRICS grouping, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is a globally significant collective defined by its substantial contributions to global GDP, scientific and technological capacity, natural resources, and total population. Since its formation, the group has evolved into a prominent international voice, representing countries that seek to challenge and provide an alternative … Read more

A young girl was born in the early 1900s in Kolkata, an era when girls were barely given an education and were often pushed into marriages at a very young age. She, however, stood out and went on to become one of the first Indian women to obtain a postgraduate degree in physics. This is … Read more

A young girl was born in the early 1900s in Kolkata, an era when girls were barely given an education and were often pushed into marriages at a very young age. She, however, stood out and went on to become one of the first Indian women to obtain a postgraduate degree in physics. This is … Read more

In 1823, English geologist William Buckland discovered a skeleton in a limestone cave in Paviland, southern Wales, which he identified as a prostitute from the Roman era, as the bones were coated in red ochre. Nearly a hundred years later, further studies, including that of grave goods, also painted in red, proved that the skeleton, … Read more

National Quantum Mission logo. Photo: dst.gov.in/national-quantum-mission-nqm Twenty-three academic institutions across India have been approved for setting up quantum teaching laboratories under the National Quantum Mission (NQM), with another 100 proposals currently being evaluated, according to details that emerged from the joint monthly meeting of Secretaries of the Science Ministries held in New Delhi on Monday … Read more

Image for representative purposes only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Twenty-three academic institutions across India have been approved for setting up quantum teaching laboratories under the National Quantum Mission (NQM), with another 100 proposals currently being evaluated, according to details that emerged from the joint monthly meeting of Secretaries of the Science Ministries held in … Read more

(1) LPG shortage in India due to the on-going war in West Asia Last week, the LPG shortage in the country, triggered by the ongoing West Asia crisis, acutely affected the non-domestic/commercial sector rendering hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in the sector unable to carry on their daily activities. Reports of hotels and eateries either … Read more

Fire and plumes of smoke rise from an oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, on March 14, 2026. | Photo Credit: AP From the jet fuel used in bombing raids to acrid smoke from burning oil depots, the conflict in West Asia is inflicting a significant toll on nature and the climate. US and … Read more

A new study by scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), published in NPJ Natural Hazards, examines the August 5, 2025 flash flood that destroyed Dharali village in Uttarakhand and killed six people. It sheds light on how warming temperatures affect glaciers, especially exposed ice patches on retreating glaciers, and highlights the need to … Read more

For a discipline so wedded to reason and fact as science is, it has fiendishly guarded its gender bias. Over centuries, pioneering women in science have been ignored, their achievements overlooked or usurped by male colleagues, their names left out of scientific publications; they have been underpaid and undervalued, denied promotions and advancements in careers, … Read more

The NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) and GPS (Global Positioning System) logos, along with a satellite model, are shown on the map in this illustration. File | Photo Credit: Reuters The last atomic clock aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)-1F satellite has failed, ISRO has said in a … Read more

Why do ripening bananas produce such a unique aroma? | Photo Credit: Alistair Smailes/Unsplash Test disfavours acrylonitrile cells in Titan lakes Computer models have suggested that acrylonitrile, an organic compound present on Saturn’s moon Titan, can self-assemble into cell-like structures. When scientists mixed it with liquid methane and ethane in cryogenic conditions like those on … Read more