Back to school | Photo Credit: Si-Gal A school bus approaches, and even from far away, its bright yellow coat catches your eye, gleaming in the sunlight. There’s a reason you rarely see school buses in red, blue, or green. And it’s all yellow In the VIBGYOR spectrum, yellow falls in the mid-to-long wavelength range … Read more
Bar headed goose (Anser indicus) in a V formation. | Photo Credit: K.V.S. Giri The V-formation we have all seen growing up is commonly seen in migratory birds like cranes, pelicans, and ducks. It consists of a bird leader up front and the others trailing behind. Each one keeps a precise position relative to the … Read more
Bar headed goose (Anser indicus) in a V formation. | Photo Credit: GIRI KVS/The Hindu The V-formation we have all seen growing up is commonly seen in migratory birds like cranes, pelicans, and ducks. It consists of a bird leader up front and the others trailing behind. Each one keeps a precise position relative to … Read more
A new study has found that genes related to heart function, the nervous system, and the senses of vision and smell became overactive during spaceflight. Representative image of a NASA astronaut working outside the International Space Station. | Photo Credit: NASA As humans prepare for longer missions to the moon and eventually Mars, scientists need … Read more
Q: This ‘infographic’ from an 18th century work explains the famous rule of ________, by which heralds may be designed. Fill in the blank. A: Tincture Q: The half or edge of the flag nearest to the flagpole is called the hoist. In vexillography, this is considered to be the leading edge. The fly is … Read more
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, right, with Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair. File | Photo Credit: ANI Space is for everybody, and space is going to epitomise what deep tech is going to be, said Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Indian Air Force Group Captain who is one of the astronauts selected for India’s first crewed spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan. He was speaking at the third edition of Deep Science Forum, a … Read more
Why does the idea of eating insects provoke discomfort, even before taste or nutrition enters the conversation? At an edible insects stall during a food mela at the Science Gallery, Bengaluru, this question surfaced repeatedly as visitors negotiated curiosity, disgust and the boundaries of what they considered “normal” food. Many assumed they were encountering a … Read more
(From left) Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch greet the crowd at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, April 3, 2023. | Photo Credit: NASA A: Artemis II is the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis programme. It will be the first time humans will travel to the vicinity of … Read more
(1) Supreme Court denies bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam The Supreme Court on January 5 declined to grant bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, notwithstanding their incarceration for nearly six years without the commencement of trial. A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria, however, granted … Read more
Many think the idea of ‘dumping’ in global trade is a red herring. The reason is obvious: if country A is able to dump certain goods in country B, it’s not because A has smuggled them in. It’s because someone in country B was interested in receiving those goods, and B’s laws allowed for them … Read more
While number of active loan accounts have decreased, there’s a steep rise in outstanding amount | Photo Credit: Andrii Yalanskyi Although students from Tamil Nadu remain the leading recipients of educational loans across India, there has been a significant decline in the number of active loans they hold. Given that this student group has been … Read more
Scientists at a nuclear fusion reactor in China recently surmounted an important obstacle in operating reactor vessels at high density. They pushed plasma density 65% beyond a special threshold, entering a stable state that overcomes a long-standing barrier to achieving burning plasma, the stage where a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining. Fusion power mimics what happens … Read more
On January 12, as the PSLV-C62 mission rose from Sriharikota into the morning sky and its third stage kicked on, the live telecast abruptly stopped showing the rocket’s performance and trajectory. As it became evident that its third stage had suffered an anomaly, putting paid to the C62 mission in a manner similar to the … Read more
On May 18, 2025, the PSLV-C61 mission was a rare launch failure for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The rocket has a reputation as a ‘workhorse’ because ISRO had had a string of successes with it and each of those launches had been thoroughly as intended. Today, however, ISRO faces two PSLV mission failures … Read more
DRDO’s Defence Research & Development Laboratory, Hyderabad, successfully flight-tests Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile with top attack capability against a moving target, in KK Ranges in Ahilyanagar on Monday. | Photo Credit: ANI The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Sunday (January 11, 2026) successfully flight-tested the indigenously developed third-generation fire-and-forget Man Portable Anti-Tank … Read more
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams | Photo Credit: AP The organisers of the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) have announced the participation of NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, one of the world’s most accomplished explorers and a global icon of space science, at its 2026 edition to be held on the Kozhikode beach. The festival will be held … Read more
Von Daeniken addresses a press conference in Bern, Switzerland, in October 1999. | Photo Credit: REUTERS Best-selling Swiss author Erich von Daeniken, who built a lucrative career on his argument, rubbished by scientists and archaeologists, that humanity owes much of its development to the intervention of extraterrestrial beings, has died aged 90. Chariots of the … Read more
On May 18, 2025, the PSLV-C61 mission was a rare launch failure for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The rocket has a reputation as a ‘workhorse’ because ISRO had had a string of successes with it and each of those launches had been thoroughly as intended. Today, however, ISRO faces two PSLV mission failures … Read more
PSLV-C62 will carry EOS-N1 and 15 co-passenger satellites. Photo: YouTube/ISRO Official The PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 Mission encountered an anomaly during end of the PS3 stage, following lift-off on Monday (January 12, 2026). A detailed analysis has been initiated, ISRO said “Today we attempted the PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 Mission. The PSLV is a four stage vehicle with two solid stages … Read more
Astronaut and Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla speaks at Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue, in New Delhi on January 11, 2026. | Photo Credit: ANI Describing them as future makers of the nation, astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla urged youths to start owning dreams, whether in human spaceflight missions or other spheres, and work collectively towards realising them. … Read more
AI models don’t read words; instead they read chunks of characters called tokens. | Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa/Unsplash A: In the context of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs) like GPT-5 and Claude, the context window is the maximum amount of text the model can consider at any one time while generating a … Read more
Exactly 20 years ago, forest rangers in Chitwan National Park in Nepal nabbed a farmer, Shikharam Chaudhary, who they believed helped his son bury, in his own backyard, a stolen rhino horn. The rangers interrogated him and waterboarded him in prison. Days later, Chaudhary died. No horn was found. But the large and wealthy global … Read more
The launch of the PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 mission will be the 105th launch from Sriharikota. File image for representational purposes only. | Photo Credit: PTI The 22.5 hour countdown for the launch of the PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 Mission commenced at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Sunday (January 11, 2026). The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is … Read more
What is diabetes? Ask around in your circle, and chances are that there is someone you know who has diabetes. A chronic disease, diabetes is closely related to insulin, a hormone that regulates blood glucose. Diabetes occurs either when enough insulin is not produced by the pancreas, or when the insulin produced cannot be effectively … Read more
An image released by ISRO showing the Sun as captured by Aditya-L1 during a solar storm in 2024. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday (January 10, 2026) said its Aditya-L1 solar mission has provided new insights into how a powerful solar storm can impact Earth’s magnetic shield. “The … Read more
The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoS&PI) captures spending pattern of Indian households across various consumption categories. Conducted every five years, the HCES provides granular estimates of Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE) for both rural and urban populations, covering a wide range of goods and services. The … Read more
The Taj Mahal in Agra covered by fog as people visit the iconic structure during the holiday season on December 28, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI Winter fog is a familiar hazard across the Indo-Gangetic Plain, reducing visibility for hours at once. The fog often forms inside polluted air near the ground and polluted events … Read more
A long-duration ground test of ‘Actively Cooled Scramjet Full Scale Combustor’ conducted by the Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL) at its Scramjet Connect Pipe Test (SCPT) Facility, in Hyderabad. | Photo Credit: PTI Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL), the Hyderabad-based laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has achieved a milestone … Read more
GUWAHATI A team of scientists led by researchers from Assam’s Tezpur University has identified distinct chemical signatures in blood, offering fresh hope in the early detection of one of the deadliest and often undetected cancers in India. The scientists who studied patients from Assam, a part of the Northeastern region with one of the highest … Read more
‘Do you play music to your plants?’. This was asked of the famous plant biologist James Wong of Kew Gardens in London. He said that it is the vibrations that open the plant’s epidermis. So did the physicist J.C. Bose of Kolkata. What has the latest research into this evergreen question shown? First, the obvious: … Read more