Figure 1 in the 2009 study showing a map of India with the origins of the 25 groups examined. | Photo Credit: DOI:10.1038/nature08365 How and from where did we, the people of India, come from? Based on genetic analysis of 25 diverse groups in India, a paper in 2009 titled ‘Reconstructing Indian Population History’, jointly … Read more
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder and a form of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behaviour. As symptoms become more severe, the disease can seriously affect a person’s ability to perform tasks that would otherwise be deemed routine, like brushing teeth, making a meal or even recognising family members. For many years, the … Read more
Getting there The Galileo Jupiter atmospheric probe was part of NASA’s Galileo mission – among the agency’s most ambitious deep space missions up until then. Before the probe could become Earth’s first ever emissary to penetrate the atmosphere of any of the outer gas giant planets, there was the task of getting the Galileo spacecraft … Read more
Axiom-4 crew, including Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, scheduled to undock from ISS on July 14. It is stated that Shubhanshu Shukla will be undergoing seven-day rehabilitation after returning to Earth. Photo: YouTube/Axiom Space/ANI Photo Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will undergo a seven-day rehabilitation programme after his splashdown off the California coast on July 15 as he … Read more
A ram air turbine deployed in an Airbus A320. | Photo Credit: Curimedia (CC BY) A preliminary investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has said the Air India Boeing 787-8 crash near Ahmedabad on June 12 followed fuel to the vehicle’s two engines being cut off. The engines on the 787-8 are the main … Read more
A fire officer stands next to the crashed Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft in Ahmedabad, June 13, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters The fuel control switches on a Boeing 787-8 aircraft are critical cockpit controls that regulate the flow of fuel to each of the two engines. Their primary purposes are to start or … Read more
Why does a haircut not take away the hairs’ pattern?
Members of the Rajyaguru lab at IISc with Stephan Vagner of Institut Curie. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement When ultraviolet light, certain chemical compounds or even normal copying mistakes harm our DNA, cells rush to fix the damage. Doing so means making the right repair proteins — but also not too many. Using baker’s yeast … Read more
The developer of the device was guided virtually by experts from KSOU, who selected and validated the appropriate biomarkers for cardiovascular health monitoring. | Photo Credit: M.A. SRIRAM The faculty of Department of Studies in Microbiology in the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) in Mysuru has played a key role in the development of an … Read more
The Independence Day weekend starting from July 4 to 6 and including July 7, was a particularly disturbing time in Pennsylvania’s most populated city, Philadelphia. Videos of several shootings across the city went viral, and news reports confirmed that there had been at least 15 shootings recorded, as shown in the map below. Data from … Read more
On her first dedicated scientific voyage to Antarctica in March, the Australian icebreaker RSV Nuyina found the area sea-ice free. Scientists were able to reach places never sampled before. Over the past four summers, Antarctic sea ice extent has hit new lows. I’m part of a large group of scientists who set out to explore … Read more
James McCully was in the lab extracting tiny structures called mitochondria from cells when researchers on his team rushed in. They’d been operating on a pig heart and couldn’t get it pumping normally again. McCully studies heart damage prevention at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was keenly interested in mitochondria. These power-producing … Read more
A notice announcing the fuel ban on overage vehicles displayed at a fuel station in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: ARUN SANKAR On July 1, 2025, Delhi launched a policy: petrol vehicles older than 15 years and diesel vehicles older than 10 years were no longer allowed to refuel at city petrol stations. Over 500 … Read more
NITI Aayog vice-chairperson Suman Bery with member V.K. Saraswat and Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh during release of a report on ‘A Roadmap for Strengthening State S&T Councils’ in New Delhi on July 10, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI The NITI Aayog has recommended that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) cut its … Read more
In this screenshot via @Axiom_Space on X on June 7, 2025, Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and others aboard the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space. | Photo Credit: @Axiom_Space via PTI Photo Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three other crew members of the Axiom-4 mission are set to return to … Read more
Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is aboard the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space. Photo: Axiom Space via PTI. In the final leg of his space sojourn, Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla turned into a farmer, taking photos of ‘moong’ and ‘methi’ seeds sprouting in petri dishes and inserting … Read more
Animesh Kujur celebrates after winning the men’s 100m gold at the 38th National Games in Dehradun on 08 February 2025 | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR Last Saturday, Animesh Kujur became India’s fastest man by breaking the national record in the men’s 100 metres. He clocked 10.18 seconds in Greece, becoming the first Indian to … Read more
Researchers from around the world have completed the world’s largest, most demanding head-to-head comparison of clocks in history to build confidence for the upcoming redefinition of the second. The duration of a single second is currently defined by caesium (Cs) atomic clocks. Lasers ‘count’ the radiation emitted by Cs atoms in these devices to measure … Read more
If obtaining sequences from ancient proteins found in fossils was previously limited to samples no older than four million years, two studies published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (July 9, 2025) have pushed back this timescale to more than 20 million years. The enamel proteins from extinct mammals are a staggering ten-fold older compared with the … Read more
According to ISRO, the Gaganyaan programme aims to demonstrate India’s capability to launch a crewed spacecraft into low Earth orbit. File. | Photo Credit: Reuters ISRO has successfully conducted two hot tests of the Gaganyaan Service Module Propulsion System (SMPS) at the space agency’s Propulsion Complex in Mahendragiri on July 3. The short-duration tests, lasting … Read more
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have become instrumental in shaping India’s generating employment, creating revenue, and in global outreach. In 2024, MSMEs contributed nearly 30% to the GDP. The aim is to raise this to 35% in the current year. This vast sector also provides opportunities for many women-led enterprises. The government has implemented … Read more
Richard Feynman, a famous theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize, said that if he could pass on only one piece of scientific information to future generations, it would be that all things are made of atoms. Understanding how atoms form is a fundamental and important question, since they make up everything with mass. The … Read more
“They’re going to deliver rare earths to us,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview on June 27. “And once they do that, we’ll take down our countermeasures.” Mr. Lutnick’s remarks came just a day after a White House official confirmed that the U.S. and China had reached “an additional understanding” to implement … Read more
“Robotics and AI are integral to our mission. We use robotic arms for many internal and external tasks, making our work safer and more efficient on the Space Station,” Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, who is aboard the International Space Station, said. File | Photo Credit: DPR PMO via ANI Photo “Many of you can become future … Read more
Wading through water up to his knees, Hassan Kargbo points to the vast ocean before him, which is eroding the land and imperilling residents’ survival on his island off Sierra Leone. “Where we are now, it used to be my house, and we used to have a big football field,” Kargbo said, but “the water … Read more
Scientists at the Delhi-based National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) have used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to increase phosphate uptake and transport in japonica rice varieties. The resulting rice lines had higher seed and panicle numbers, thereby increasing the yield without compromising seed quality. The studies were carried out in a greenhouse. Phosphorus is … Read more
From golden citadels to divine shields, rulers across time have dreamt of impregnable security. But in every age, these ambitions have either collapsed under their own weight or have provoked greater instability. In 2025, this ancient dream went to orbit. In May, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a bold new national defence initiative called the … Read more
As the world braces for another climate summit in November this year, the Subsidiary Bodies meeting in Bonn, Germany, brought together negotiators, scientists, policymakers, and civil society actors to tackle the complex, behind-the-scenes work that shapes the outcome of the Conference of the Parties (COP) summit. Held annually in Bonn, this mid-year gathering sets the … Read more
After the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut died around 1458 BC, many statues of her were destroyed. Archaeologists believed that they were targeted in an act of revenge by Thutmose III, her successor. Yet the condition of the statues recovered in the vicinity of her mortuary temple varies and many survive with their faces virtually intact. Now … Read more
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla poses for a photo with a stunning panoramic view of Earth in the background, in the 7-window Cupola Module of International Space Station (ISS). | Photo Credit: ISRO Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 mission, had a telephonic conversation … Read more