Data suggests that cancer care places a disproportionately heavy strain on the resources of the poor. | Photo Credit: Rima Das Mukherjee The most expensive disease just got a little more affordable to treat in India. Cancer treatment costs are three times higher than the hospitalisation expenditure for any average ailment in the country. Its … Read more
For much of the late 20th century, discussions of India’s future were framed by a single anxiety: population growth. The assumption was that rapid fertility would outpace the economy’s ability to generate food, infrastructure, and public services. The infamous “Population Bomb” thesis of Paul and Anne Ehrlich was a key text that informed public policy … Read more
In early 2021, as COVID-19 vaccines were being rolled out across the world, reports began to surface of a rare but alarming complication. Some people who received the shots were developing unusual blood clots. The cases were first identified in Europe and later in the U.S. Notably, they were reported mainly among recipients of the … Read more
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar set to resign, Governors transferred, Iran-U.S. war updates and more: The week in 5 charts
Coronae glow on the tips of spruce needles. These weak electric discharges subtly singe the tips of leaves and needles, and new observations indicate they may occur ubiquitously across treetops under thunderstorms. | Photo Credit: William Brune/AGU Thunderstorms create large amounts of electricity that we see as lightning. Under these storms, scientists believed that electricity … Read more
Dalit voting in State Assembly elections often diverges from national trends. Representative image | Photo Credit: – Hindu Dalit voters have long been an important vote bank in Indian elections, shaping party strategies, coalitions, and welfare policies. Their choices influence the outcomes of both national and State level elections, yet their political alignment remains fluid. … Read more
ISRO says that this event highlights the strength of the long-term cooperation in place since 1978 and subsequent renewal in 2002 between two globally significant space research organisations. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have jointly signed an agreement on ‘ESA-ISRO Arrangement concerning Joint … Read more
Students carrying umbrellas stand on the dry riverbed of the Jialing Rivera, a tributary of the Yangtze, in China’s Chongqing Municipality, August 19, 2022. | Photo Credit: AP A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters has confirmed that global warming has entered a phase of significant acceleration. For decades, the earth’s temperature rose at … Read more
Meet D. Indumathi, a physicist who has spent decades exploring some of the universe’s most elusive particles, neutrinos. Recently retired, she built her career in high-energy physics, asking questions that most of us wouldn’t even know how to frame. Physics is often seen as intimidating — abstract, mathematical, distant. But Indumathi approaches it with clarity … Read more
Rosalind Franklin | Photo Credit: Special arrangement While the death of James Watson on November 6, 2025, closed a famous chapter in the history of DNA, it also opened a necessary conversation about who we choose to remember, how, and why. The discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA remains a scientific triumph … Read more
Healthcare is entering a phase where the boundaries between medicine, technology, and data are rapidly dissolving. Digital health, once confined to electronic medical records and teleconsultations, now underpins diagnostics, drug development, population health management, chronic disease care, and patient engagement. This has not only transformed how care is delivered, but also significantly widened the range … Read more
Girls and women represent half the population of the world yet their participation in scientific research is lagging. In many countries, this disparate contribution starts as early as school. In the U.S., for example, girls are less likely to take advanced calculus, physics, mathematics, and biology at high school level. In many other countries, the … Read more
A transmission electron micrograph of Deinococcus radiodurans. | Photo Credit: Public domain Supertough bug may also survive colliding worlds The bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans is famous for being able to survive extreme radiation and dryness. Researchers have found it can also survive the intense pressures of being blasted off of a planet’s surface: 14,000-24,000 earth atmospheres. … Read more
A radiologist uses a magnifying glass to check mammograms for breast cancer. File | Photo Credit: AP Kolkata Breast cancer cases in India have more than doubled over the past three decades, experts said at an international oncology conference in Kolkata on Friday (March 7, 2026), while warning that gaps in access to treatment continue … Read more
Marilyne Andersen, Director General, GESDA, speaks during an interview at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi on March 6, 2026. | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar Quantum computing is in a nascent stage of development and therefore this is a time that experts in the field and scientists should be engaging with diplomats to be … Read more
Imagine you are given three gumballs of different flavours. You are told that one of them is heavier than the others, and one is lighter. But which is which? Your task is made difficult by the fact that these gumballs weigh nearly nothing. And sometimes they swap flavours. Oh, and when you try to pick … Read more
Marilyne Andersen, Director General, GESDA, speaks during an interview at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi on Friday. March 6, 2026. | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar Quantum computing is in a nascent stage of development and therefore this is a time that experts in the field and scientists should be engaging with diplomats to … Read more
Akatsuki is the Japanese orbiter that captured images of a 9,700-km-long stationary wave in Venus’s upper atmosphere in 2015, revealing a link between the surface and high-altitude weather. Credit: 江戸村のとくぞう (CC BY-SA) Published – March 06, 2026 05:08 pm IST
Welcome back data enthusiasts, Over the last two weeks, as the world saw a war unfold, the Hindu data team has been looking at how big events prop up big confusing numbers and what the underlying story is. While it’s our job on any given day to make sense of numbers and find patterns that … Read more
Of all the irreconcilable splits in science journalism, the one concerned with what we write about and how we go about has been my bugbear. On the one hand there are journalists focused on telling stories through people. On the other are journalists like me who believe there is more to acknowledging the world and … Read more
When pregnant women experience higher ambient temperatures during gestation, fewer males are born, a recent analysis of demographic and health surveys in sub-Saharan Africa and India, showed. A paper titled ‘Temperature and sex ratios at birth’ in the journal Demography, by Jasmin Abdel Ghany et al., concludes after a detailed analysis that experiencing higher ambient temperatures during pregnancy is associated with changes in the natural sex ratio at … Read more
As human populations grow, it is important to find ways to convert wasted biomass into edible products. | Photo Credit: Nick Fewings/Unsplash As the global population increases, the need for more sustainable and nutritious food sources becomes greater. In this context, the book Biomass Conversion and Sustainable Biorefinery edited by Lubis et al. in 2024,highlights … Read more
It isn’t every day someone casually mentions they are heading back to a cabin near the North Pole. Yet, that is exactly what 57-year-old Hilde Fålun Strøm, a citizen scientist based in Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town, told me when we met last year in the frozen archipelago of Svalbard. Norwegian by nationality, Strøm grew … Read more
Abdus Salam | Photo Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 NL Published – March 05, 2026 05:00 pm IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit
The story so far: In its quest for energy security, on March 2, India signed a CAD 2.6 billion deal with Canada’s Cameco. The deal ensures a supply of around 10,000 tonnes of uranium between 2027 and 2035 to India. What uranium ‘stocks’ does India have? India has both domestic reserves and imported stockpiles of … Read more
A relaxation by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the prescribed dosage for the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine and ‘free’ doses may have pushed back the inclusion of an India-made vaccine into the national programme to inoculate children against HPV. This, despite the Health Ministry in 2023 committing to preparing the India-made vaccine for … Read more
The Webb space telescope’s image of the Serpens Nebula. | Photo Credit: NASA A: Most believers of this idea follow an argument made by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. In half a century, video games have gone from dots on a screen to lifelike 3D worlds. Believers argue that in future, we will eventually create simulations … Read more
In India, urban noise is relentless yet it is largely under-recognised as a public health concern. The average Indian urban traffic reportedly routinely reaches 80-100 dB, exceeding the World Health Organization’s recommended 70 dB limit, creating a recognised risk of hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) has long been viewed as an occupational disease of … Read more
Indian passengers reunite with their family members as they arrive safely from a flight via Dubai amid the international tensions in the Gulf region International Airport, in New Delhi on Wednesday | Photo Credit: ANI As tensions escalate following the United States-Israel military strikes on Iran, raising concerns about oil supplies and shipping through the … Read more
