Mepco bill

Does the sight, or even the thought, of blood scare you? In that case, this one might not be for you. If it doesn’t or if you wish to brave on, you’ll find out more about blood and the means to handle it by the end of this one. Components of blood Human blood takes … Read more

ISRO completed the Drogue Parachute Deployment Qualification Tests for the Gaganyaan Crew Module at the RTRS facility of TBRL, Chandigarh, during 18–19 December 2025. Photo: Screengrab via X/@DrJitendraSingh A series of qualification tests for drogue parachutes, which have been carried out to develop a deceleration system for ISRO’s Gaganyaan crew module, were successful, the space … Read more

The communication satellite developed by the U.S.-based AST SpaceMobile will be launched as part of the LVM3-M6 mission. Photo: X/@isro via ANI The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch the 6,500 kg BlueBird communications satellite on December 24 from Sriharikota. The national space agency on Friday (December 19, 2025) announced that the communication satellite … Read more

The company said the satellite, one of nearly 10,000 in space for its broadband internet network, quickly fell four kilometers in altitude, suggesting some ​kind of explosion occurred on board [File] | Photo Credit: REUTERS SpaceX’s Starlink said one of its ​satellites experienced an anomaly in space on Wednesday that created a “small ‌number” of … Read more

Thebacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB) also infect macrophages, the very immune cells meant to capture and destroy them. Once inside, the bacteria create a niche where they can persist for months or even years, tolerating even powerful antibiotics. This resilience is a major reason TB treatment requires long, intensive drug regimens lasting six to nine … Read more

India’s trade data for November reveals continued resilience in exports despite mounting U.S. tariffs on several key products. This is particularly significant given that the U.S. remains India’s largest export partner by a substantial margin. Interestingly, overall exports have not only grown, but shipments specifically to the U.S. have also rebounded. This resilience is driven … Read more

Science quiz: The discovery of Epimetheus Visual: The moon is named for a titan in Greek mythology who is the brother of Y. Together, Epimetheus and Y stand for Hindsight and Foresight. Name Y, the image depicts him performing a legendary action. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Visual: The moon is named for … Read more

Once upon a time, the thunder of footsteps from lakhs of mighty rhinoceroses echoed across the savannahs, grasslands, and tropical forests of Africa and Asia — but things have gotten pretty quiet lately. As of 2024, fewer than 28,000 rhinos remain on the planet, all five species combined. Relentless poaching has been a major threat … Read more

India ranks a respectable 20th globally for living donors (10.8 living donors per million) among 77 countries | Photo Credit: Getty Images India belongs to a small cluster of nations where living organ donations vastly outnumber deceased organ donations. Ironically, this is not due to a lack of intent; data indicate that posthumous organ donation … Read more

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday, December 17, 2025, confirmed billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become President Donald Trump’s NASA administrator. | Photo Credit: Mark Schiefelbein The U.S. Senate on Wednesday (December 17, 2025) confirmed billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become President Donald Trump’s NASA administrator, making an advocate of Mars missions and a … Read more

Is it a false alarm or a discovery that solves one of the greatest mysteries in cosmology? This is the question weighing on astronomers as they examine a study published recently in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, which claims to have finally detected the elusive ‘dark matter’. Dark matter is believed to have … Read more

The story so far: On December 15, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) announced the launch of DHRUV64, an indigenous microprocessor that it said would strengthen the national indigenous processor pipeline. Its purported applications span the breadth of consumer electronics to industrial automation. What is DHRUV64? The DHRUV64 chip is a fully indigenous … Read more

Dressed in an orange puffer jacket, Japanese scientist Yoshinori Iizuka stepped into a storage freezer to retrieve an ice core he hopes will help experts protect the world’s disappearing glaciers. The fist-sized sample drilled from a mountaintop is part of an ambitious international effort to understand why glaciers in Tajikistan have resisted the rapid melting … Read more

A sample of thorium. | Photo Credit: Alchemist-hp Atomic clocks keep time by counting the ‘ticks’ of electrons moving between two energy levels. Physicists have long wanted to count a nuclear tick instead. A nucleus is more shielded than an atom’s outer electrons, so its energy levels are expected to be less sensitive to disturbances. … Read more

Blame neurogenic inflammation. | Photo Credit: Jack Newing/Unsplash When we eat spicy food containing chillies, a substance in them called capsaicin binds to receptors on the nerve endings in our mouth and nose. These receptors work like sensors. When a specific molecule attaches to them, they send a signal that triggers a response. Capsaicin attaches … Read more

Electrocution is the primary reason followed by lightning and electrical fire  | Photo Credit: lvcandy Electricity-related accidents killed over 18,000 people in India in 2023. Electrocution is the primary reason followed by lightning and electrical fire (Chart 1). Over the years, electrical fatality rate — the number of deaths per lakh population — has risen (Chart 2). In … Read more

Dr Harsh K Gupta remembers the sequence of events that led to the establishment of Dakshin Gangotri, India’s first permanent research station in Antarctica, as if it happened yesterday. A year after he had moved to Thiruvananthapuram as director of the Centre for Earth Science Studies in 1982, a call for proposals to carry out … Read more

Watch: Explained: All about India’s new nuclear energy bill

Today’s Cache | Demand heats up for Nvidia’s H200 chips | Photo Credit: REUTERS Demand heats up for Nvidia’s H200 chips Nvidia is looking into the possibility of increasing its production capacity due to rising demand for its H200 AI chips, according to unnamed sources. The news comes after U.S. President Donald Trump gave permission … Read more

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others during the University of Liverpool United Kingdom’s event to announce Bengaluru’s first foreign university campus. | Photo Credit: The Hindu The University of Liverpool has begun work on its proposed Bengaluru campus with a ground-breaking ceremony held at Alembic City on Monday.  The campus, which is scheduled to begin operations … Read more

Wasps have a great potential to be beneficial insects and can play a larger ecological role in controlling pests, said Raghavendra Gadagkar, professor and National Science Chair, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc. | Photo Credit: file photo Wasps have a great potential to be beneficial insects and can play a larger ecological role in controlling … Read more

Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO in Paris, Vishal V. Sharma during his visit to INCOIS on Monday. Seen here are INCOIS director T. M. Balakrishnan Nair and senior scientist E. Pattabhi Ramarao. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO in Paris, Vishal V. Sharma visited the … Read more

A: The wisdom teeth are the third molars that sit at the very back of the jaw. They usually start forming in the teens and try to erupt in the late teens to the mid-20s, hence the name ‘wisdom’. We have wisdom teeth because of our ancestors, whose lives demanded more chewing to get through. … Read more

On successive weekends in November, hundreds of Delhi residents gathered at India Gate holding placards saying “I miss breathing” and “right to live, not just survive”. Winter’s onset once again plunged the National Capital Region into a dense smog, with the air quality index refusing to exit the ‘severe’ (301-400) or ‘very poor’ (201-300) levels. … Read more

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar addresses a conference on ’50 Years of the Biological Weapons Convention: Strengthening Bio-security for the Global South’, in New Delhi on December 1. | Photo Credit: PTI The story so far: New age biotechnologies endow powers to understand biology better and, consequently, harness biological agents to target humans. Thus, biosecurity … Read more

On December 8, economic historian Joel Mokyr delivered his lecture in Stockholm as part of the ceremony in which he received his share of the special Nobel Prize for economics, for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”. His talk recapitulated his long-standing argument that a self-reinforcing relationship between science and technology … Read more

What fuels landfill fires and is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period? The answer is methane. While it is an excellent fuel for kitchen stoves, CNG vehicles, and power plants, it is also busy burning the planet. Methane is generated naturally by decomposing organic matter. The same prehistoric processes that … Read more