Voters wait in a queue at a polling station during the final phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, in Jehanabad The recently concluded 2025 Bihar Assembly elections stood out for many things — the NDA’s sweeping win, years of pro-incumbency, cash-for-transfer schemes, and a weakened opposition, among others. Another defining feature of this Election is … Read more
Daily Quiz: On Lunokhod 1 1971 Soviet postage stamp commemorates the spacecraft that delivered the world’s first successful planetary rover to the Moon START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | On which lunar ‘sea’ did Lunokhod 1 land? Answer : Mare Imbrium or Sea of Rains DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER? YES NO SHOW ANSWER 2 … Read more
The International Maritime Organization (IMO), routinely lays down rules that regulate international shipping which carries almost all of the world’s trade. These rules are a result of consensus arrived at carefully, with much expert input, through meetings that are not dramatic. But in October, when the IMO that has 176 member-nations met to vote on … Read more
At first glance, the photograph looks like a scene from a science-fiction film or one of those viral, digitally altered images. A woman lies calm on an operating table under bright white lights, a headset snug over her ears. But it’s real and was taken inside a hospital in New Delhi more than a year … Read more
(1) Delhi Red Fort blast kills 13 A car at the signal near the Red Fort in Delhi exploded, killing 13 people on November 10 (Monday), 2025. Behind the explosion was a terror module with links to foreign handlers in Pakistan, as investigations showed later. At the wheel was a Dr. Umar Nabi, a doctor … Read more
Parrots in small cages sometimes pluck out their feathers, an action linked to long-term stress. Representative image. | Photo Credit: Ojaswi Pratap Singh/Unsplash Many scientists believe at least some animals can have problems that are similar to human mental health disorders. We can’t ask them how they feel, so we look for changes in behaviour, … Read more
A woman buys winter wear from a shop in Sangareddy. | Photo Credit: MOHD ARIF/The Hindu On November 17, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned of a cold wave in parts of Telangana. The nighttime temperatures have fallen into single digits in many locations. Kohir and Yalal districts recorded around 8.1º C while Adilabad, Medak, … Read more
Katherine at the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. | Photo Credit: David C. Bowman, NASA At the age of 10, a young African American girl in Virginia, U.S.A., started high school and then went on to graduate from West Virginia State College at 18, earning degrees in mathematics and French. From a small town … Read more
BJP supporters raise posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar amongst other leaders and offer sweets to celebrate NDA’s massive victory in Bihar assembly elections 2025, in Patna on Sunday. | Photo Credit: ANI Many factors contribute to the landslide victory of a political party or an alliance. This holds true for … Read more
Voters wait in a queue at a polling station during the final phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, in Jehanabad The recently concluded 2025 Bihar Assembly elections stood out for many things — the NDA’s sweeping win, years of pro-incumbency, cash-for-transfer schemes, and a weakened opposition, among others. Another defining feature of this Election is … Read more
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav speaks during a plenary session at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, on November 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. | Photo Credit: AP India will declare its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) as well as issue its Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) by December end, Environment Minister, Bhupender Yadav said in Belem, … Read more
An image of Caenorhabditis elegans worms. | Photo Credit: Megha Rai/Special arrangement Animals often meet the same threats across generations. A central question in biology is whether experience with a threat can be passed from parents to offspring in a way that changes the latter’s behaviour. In the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, one such experience is … Read more
Several medical treatments, particularly for genetic ailments, rely on symptomatic management instead of correcting the causative issue. Precision biotherapeutics bring together genetic science, molecular biology, and data analytics to design therapies that identify and rectify the cause of illness. What are precision biotherapeutics? Precision biotherapeutics refers to medical interventions—drugs, therapies, or biological products—that are designed … Read more
Image for representation. | Photo Credit: Reuters According to the Global Inequality Report, 83% of countries experience high income inequality, representing 90% of the world’s population. A high level of income inequality corresponds to a Gini coefficient above 0.4. A Gini coefficient of 0 indicates perfect equality, while a value of 1 represents perfect inequality. … Read more
Time for us is a constant, relentlessly moving forward. The ticking of a clock on the wall, the steady march of seconds on a digital display — they’re such familiar concepts that we rarely stop to consider the physical processes that underpin them. At its heart, any clock is a physical system that evolves in … Read more
Drilling microscopic holes in brittle materials like glass and ceramics, essential for smartphones, medical devices, and microfluidic chips, has long posed a challenge for manufacturers. Conventional methods often crack the material or fail when debris clogs narrow, deep holes. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have demonstrated how ultrasonic-assisted electrochemical discharge machining (UA-ECDM) … Read more
In 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space. This coronal mass ejection (CME) travelled at over 1,450 km per second. This event is depicted in this representative image. | Photo Credit: NASA Astronomers have said they have detected a powerful storm … Read more
File photo of ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan | Photo Credit: PTI ISRO is gearing up for one of its busiest times with seven more launches planned this financial year, even as India’s first human spaceflight remains scheduled for 2027, its Chairman V. Narayanan said. In an interview with PTI, he said ISRO is preparing for … Read more
Let us begin with a basic truism. Every age wants to believe that it is uniquely doomed. There is narcissistic self-love disguised as loathing, as well as an exaggerated projection of achievement bordering on destruction in that belief. Poets, writers, film-makers, culture-pundits, all invest various vocabularies of panic to creatively design doom stories, the more … Read more
When laughter is shared in a social setting, it becomes louder and more frequent. | Photo Credit: Sabbir Bhuiyan/pexels In a study conducted by the German paediatric surgeon Winfried Barthlen, clowns were asked to interact with hospitalised children awaiting surgery. Not surprisingly, these children showed less anxiety after a happy session with a clown. An … Read more
Argha Manna. Photo: https://csd.iitgn.ac.in/ From cancer to comics, from scientist to artist, from MIT to IIT — it has been an unusual journey for Bengal boy Argha Manna, who spent a chunk of his youth peering into the microscope but who later realised it was more fun spreading science through graphic art. On Saturday (November … Read more
The story so far: On November 10, New Delhi witnessed a massive explosion near the Red Fort complex. An i20 car parked at the signal of the complex exploded, destroying several nearby cars, buses, and the people inside them. As of now, 13 people have been confirmed dead. What do forensic experts do? Experts of … Read more
Space is the vast area beyond the earth’s atmosphere, filled with stars, planets, and galaxies. In this airless environment, one of the most critical differences from life here is the absence of atmospheric pressure. Why is pressure important? The atmosphere is a thick layer of gases held around the earth by its gravity. It protects … Read more
For millions worldwide, waking up with stiff, aching fingers that take hours to loosen is a daily battle — one waged by their own immune system. This is rheumatoid arthritis, a condition where the body’s defences mistakenly attack the joints they’re meant to protect. Currently affecting about 18 million people worldwide, the Global Burden of … Read more
JWST observation of Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. (This article forms a part of the Science for All newsletter that takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Subscribe now!) 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed interstellar object to pass through the Solar System, after 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. It was first … Read more
For many decades now, scientists and biologists have been trying to understand how the mesmerising patterns in animal coats emerge from a group of underdeveloped cells. The British mathematician Alan Turing proposed in the early 1950s that as cells and tissue develop, they produce certain molecules or chemical agents that diffuse into their surroundings, react … Read more
The new species was discovered while surveying an endangered wildflower. [email protected]_performer As if deadly snakes, spiders and sharks were not enough, Australia now has a new creepy critter: a “lucifer” bee with devil-like horns. The species — dubbed Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer — was found in the state of Western Australia, Curtin University announced on Tuesday … Read more
In November 2020, as the world battled the COVID-19 pandemic, a different kind of breakthrough captured global attention. Google DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold model had solved the protein-folding problem, one of biology’s most stubborn puzzles. The announcement was hailed as the scientific equivalent of a moon landing. Newsrooms called it a revolution that could … Read more
Were you able to read this without yawning? | Photo Credit: Sander Sammy/Unsplash A: Yawning may spread because our brains are tuned to mirror others. When we see or hear a yawn, circuits involved in social mirroring and empathy may prime the throat and face muscles to mirror it. This may have helped groups of … Read more
File photo of a Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Three Chinese astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed by space debris hitting their vessel last week will return to their landing site on Friday (November 14, 2025), the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement. The … Read more