HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation, as imaged by ALMA. | Photo Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al. When rocky worlds like the earth began to form, dust in the young Solar System was first heated until it vaporised and then cooled so that the very … Read more
The U.S. Trump administration is expanding its search for partners to build the Golden Dome missile defense system, courting Amazon.com’s Project Kuiper and big defence contractors as tensions with Elon Musk threaten SpaceX’s dominance in the program, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The shift marks a strategic pivot away from reliance on … Read more
School girl of Indian ethnicity seating at corridor with laptop . Coronavirus Outbreak. Lockdown and school closures. Indian school small girl watching online education classes at home. COVID-19 pandemic forces children online learning. | Photo Credit: Umesh Negi Over the past decade, the share of private schools and the proportion of boys and girls enrolled … Read more
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data collected from September 3, 2003, to January 16, 2004. | Photo Credit: NASA, ESA A:The universe has no top, bottom or middle and no centre either. Scientists know today that the … Read more
Rubber plantations in Kerala have been under threat since a beetle-fungus alliance has been attacking trees, causing severe leaf fall and rapid drying. Researchers at the Kerala Forest Research Institute in Thrissur recently identified the parasite to be the ambrosia beetle (Euplatypus parallelus). In their new study, published in Current Science, the beetle has been … Read more
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and Axiom-4 crew assisted out of the Dragon Spacecraft onto the recovery vehicle, after their return to earth from the International Space Station 18 days later, on Tuesday. Photo: Axiom Space/ YouTube Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who is undergoing a week-long rehabilitation programme to mitigate any adverse effect of … Read more
After a few months of a hectic summer, the rains are here. The IIT Kanpur campus is green and nature’s colours abound once more. With monsoon, however, comes alive the age-old tradition as well: Sunday evenings of guilt-free laziness, together with the music of the rain’s patter, a Bollywood classic on the TV, and some … Read more
Earthquakes are usually natural — but not always. Sometimes some natural factors can combine with human activities to lead to earthquakes as well. Quakes induced by human activities are called human-induced earthquakes. According to one estimate researchers discussed in Seismological Research Letters in 2017, more than 700 human-induced earthquakes have been recorded around the world … Read more
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), the first joint satellite of the Indian and U.S. space agencies, will be launched by Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) on July 30 at 5.40 p.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. | Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN SR The … Read more
(1) At least 72 people killed and over 470 roads closed as torrential rains ravage Himachal Since the onset of the monsoon on June 20, 72 people have died and 34 have gone missing in rain-related incidents across Himachal Pradesh. Of the 471 affected roads, the maximum (310) were in disaster-hit Mandi district, while 1,199 … Read more
Daily Quiz | On the first moon landing ‘Armalcolite’, a portmanteau word made from the names of Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, is a moon rock brought back by the Apollo XI crew. Photo: Wikimedia Commons START THE QUIZ 1 / 7 | Easy one to begin with. What was the mission called, and what … Read more
After two weeks of negotiations, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is still far from finalising rules for extracting coveted metals on the high seas despite heightened pressure triggered by US efforts to fast-track the controversial practice. Following a meeting in March and the current session in Jamaica, the 36 members of the ISA’s executive council … Read more
ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan taking part in the convocation of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing in Kurnool on Sunday. | Photo Credit: U SUBRAMANYAM Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V. Narayanan has announced that India will establish its own space station by 2035 and will send an astronaut to the moon … Read more
After a long day at work, it’s easier to flop on the couch than hit the gym. Scrolling over social media wins over reading a book. Our exhausted brains favour easier tasks, even if — according to a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience — those tasks offer fewer benefits. Even sedentary work can … Read more
In a significant breakthrough in the study of limbless locomotion, an international team of scientists has documented and modelled a previously unrecorded escape movement used by newborn yellow anacondas. Dubbed the ‘S-start’, the motion represents a novel, non-planar locomotion that the snakes employ briefly to flee from perceived threats. The discovery opens new avenues in … Read more
Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu India will be able to address the apprehensions of the private sector globally about investments in the civil nuclear sector, which was opened up to achieve the ambitious target of producing 100 GW of atomic power by 2047, Union Minister Jitendra Singh … Read more
An aircraft passes in front of the moon, with a red glow attributable to smoke particles in the upper atmosphere from North American wildfires, a day ahead of the full super moon, August 18, 2024. | Photo Credit: Reuters A: International Moon Day is celebrated every year on July 20 to commemorate humankind’s first landing … Read more
Proteins aren’t rigid sculptures. They twist, flex, and sometimes unravel — movements essential to understanding their function. Some proteins, like enzymes, open like clamshells to grab molecules. Others such as signalling proteins shift shape to control cell processes. Still others briefly reveal hidden gaps where drugs can bind. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools like AlphaFold have … Read more
Dr Aviru Basu’s research group. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement Scientists from the Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST) in Mohali, IIT-Dharwad, and IIT-Kharagpur have designed a cheap, reusable water filter. Industrial plants release dyes such as Congo Red and Methylene Blue into rivers and groundwater, from where they can cause stomach, skin, and … Read more
Microscopic image of cross-sectional calf muscle from a person with Duchenne muscular dystrophy showing extensive replacement of muscle fibres by fat cells. | Photo Credit: US CDC About 10,000 rare diseases have thus far been identified in the world, and new ones are discovered every now and then. Some 80% of these conditions are genetic … Read more
Up, up, and away! The question of whether Mars supports life, or if it has in any point of its history, has been on the minds of people – both scientists and common folk – for a very long time. Flyby explorations of the red planet in the 1960s ended hopes of an inhabited world. … Read more
Image used for representative purpose only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto In a first, starting this year, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) will award negative scores to higher educational institutions for papers that have been retracted from journals in the last three calendar years and their corresponding citations. “This year, we will award some … Read more
The complex pattern of gravitational waves emitted by a pair of black holes circling each other before merging. | Photo Credit: Henze/NASA Scientists working with a network of observatories located around the world recently reported that they had detected a powerful and unusual burst of gravitational waves, which they called GW231123. The signal was traced … Read more
For years now, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) — the country’s nodal adoption agency — has struggled to effectively manage adoptions. While a significant number of parents are willing to adopt, only a limited number of children are legally cleared for adoption. This imbalance has not gone unnoticed. In 2022, a Parliamentary panel called … Read more
An artist’s impression of the emissions from the protostar. The circular polarisation is shown in the schematic image as a twisted light beam. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement An international team led by astronomers from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) here has discovered radio emission with a special property known as … Read more
This article forms a part of the Data Point newsletter curated by The Hindu’s Data team. To get the newsletter in your inbox, subscribe here Welcome back, data enthusiasts! Your experience of a 36°C day may not be the same as everyone’s. We at The Hindu Data Team have explored this concept in our latest interactive … Read more
The story so far: On July 16, an international collaboration of scientists based in Europe reported that they had, for the first time, observed that the matter and antimatter versions of a type of subatomic particle called a baryon decay at different rates. The result revealed a new difference in their behavior that may help … Read more
In this image posted by @gagan.shux via Instagram on July 16, 2025, astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla meets his wife Kamna, a day after his successful return to the Earth from the International Space Station (ISS), at Houston, Texas. | Photo Credit: PTI Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla who returned to earth on July 15 after … Read more
A study of 141 cities in India from 2003 to 2020 using satellite-retrieved aerosol data reveals a surprise — aerosol levels were significantly high in 57% of cities compared with the surrounding areas outside the city in south and southeast India, while the converse was true in the case of 43% of cities in northwest … Read more
Last month, residents across southern Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, protested against “overtourism”. They held placards that read ‘tourists go home’, ‘your holidays, my misery’, and ‘mass tourism kills the city’, making clear their disapproval of unregulated tourism. This month, hoteliers in Mallorca, Spain hit back by putting up posters welcoming tourists. This … Read more