Manzoor, U., Mujica Roncery, L., Raabe, D. et al, ‘Sustainable nickel enabled by hydrogen-based reduction’, Nature 641, 365–373 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08901-7 Nickel powers everything, from gadgets to green technologies. But getting it currently involves a far from green, in fact, a dirty process. However, a new study has revealed what its authors have said is a … Read more
The team focused on what the BBX32 gene does in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Representative photo. | Photo Credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, have found that a single protein helps plants time their first step from darkness into light. When a seed sprouts in … Read more
Heeng or asafoetida (Ferula assa-foetida) is an essential ingredient in many Indian cuisines. A pinch of heeng is typically added to hot oil before other constituents when cooking. Despite the great diversity of India’s cuisines, most of them have recipes with heeng. There are mentions of heeng in ancient Indian texts including the Mahabharata and … Read more
As per the earlier plan, the crew was scheduled to dock with the space station on June 11 at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET. Photo: X/@SpaceX The launch of Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has once again been postponed. The Axiom-4 Mission to the ISS, which was scheduled on … Read more
The strawberry supermoon rises behind the village of Imerovigli on Sandorini’s caldera, in Greece’s Cyclades islands, on June 14, 2022. | Photo Credit: Petros Giannakouris The Strawberry Moon, traditionally named after the strawberry harvest season in North America, will peak at 3:44 a.m. EDT on June 11, 2025, equivalent to 1:14 p.m. IST. Although the full phase … Read more
A pair of cryo-electron microscopes at the University of Leeds. | Photo Credit: Hiramano92 (CC BY-SA) Scientists use a powerful technique called cryo-electron microscopy to see the 3D shapes of biological molecules, but it normally needs the molecules to be extremely concentrated in a sample first. But for rare molecules this is hard to achieve. … Read more
The world needs to lower its dependence on fossil fuels. Countries have done so in fits and starts: issues like war, poverty, disease, and inflation have often left climate mitigation on the back burner. Today, greenhouse gas emissions are increasing worldwide. In this situation, some researchers have proposed the use of technologies to directly cool … Read more
Mr. Shukla heaped high praise on his crewmates, describing them as a “fantastic” squad, saying they would be his “friends for life”. File | Photo Credit: AFP Ahead of his historic journey to the International Space Station (ISS), Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla has termed the preparations for the Axiom-4 mission an “amazing journey” and that … Read more
Artificial intelligence (AI) is booming. Various AI algorithms are used in many scientific domains, such as to predict the structure of proteins, search for materials with particular properties, and interpret medical data to provide a diagnosis. People use tools like ChatGPT, Claude, NotebookLM, DALL-E, Gemini, and Midjourney to generate images and videos from text prompts, … Read more
Transmission electron micrograph of multiple bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell wall. | Photo Credit: Graham Beards (CC BY-SA) If one has a urinary tract infection, for instance, the pathology lab will identify the bacterium to be, say, Escherichia coli. It will also determine the pathogen’s sensitivity to over a dozen antibiotics. It is fine … Read more
Bengaluru: Ambient air pollution is responsible for 7.2% of deaths in major Indian cities every year. There’s reason to believe airborne particulate matter can cut the life expectancy of Indians by up to five years. But traffic-related pollution is usually much worse than what urban sensors report. Researchers have estimated commuting takes up only around … Read more
A young traveller, an able administrator The son of a pastor, Christian Goldbach was born on March 18, 1690 in Konigsberg – the historic German and Prussian name of the city we now know as Kaliningrad, Russia. Growing up in that city and attending university there, Goldbach studied some mathematics (don’t raise your eyebrows), but … Read more
This handout photograph taken on September 12, 2024 and released by private aerospace company Axiom Space shows assigned and backup Ax-4 crew members (L to 2nd R) Shubhanshu Shukla, Tibor Kapu, Gyula Cserenyi (partly obscured), Slawosz Uznanski, and Prasanth Nair reviewing materials during emergency fire training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. … Read more
Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Amid complaints from scientists on sub-standard equipment affecting their research, the Finance Ministry has rolled back restrictions imposed on how scientific labs procured equipment, through a circular issued on Thursday (June 5, 2025). The first significant change was allowing affiliated scientific institutions to bypass the Government e-marketplace (GEM), … Read more
Anyone can develop an allergy. And in times like these, when the weather keeps fluctuating unpredictably, it becomes even more crucial to stay informed. Understanding the facts about allergies can help you or your loved ones recognise symptoms early, avoid common triggers, and manage flare-ups better. So, how allergy-aware are you? Here’s a small quiz … Read more
Type specimen of the new wasp species, Losgna occidentalis collected from Chandigarh. At a time when habitat loss and climate change threaten countless species, the discovery of a new species of parasitic wasp – named ‘Losgna Occidentalis’ from Chandigarh has drawn attention to the unexplored richness of India’s biodiversity. A recent study published in Zootaxa, … Read more
When Sharadindu Ghosh* was young, he was taught not to speak about his father’s leprosy. He, like many others, grew up in the lanes of Jamuria Leprosy Colony, in West Bengal, facing stigma and discrimination. Today, years after his father’s passing and an endless struggle through poverty, Ghosh is an electrical supervisor and a mentor … Read more
Data Point: Student Visa Crackdown in US | Video Credit: The Hindu The U.S.’s move to pause all new student visa interviews is just the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration targeting international students and universities. Just a few days ago, the administration tried to stop Harvard from enrolling international students. … Read more
SpaceX chief Elon Musk said he would begin “decommissioning” his company’s Dragon spacecraft. File | Photo Credit: Reuters SpaceX chief Elon Musk said on Thursday (June 5, 2025) he would begin “decommissioning” his company’s Dragon spacecraft — vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station — after U.S. President Donald Trump … Read more
A model of the lunar lander “Resilience”, operated by ‘ispace’, is displayed at a venue where employees of ‘ispace’ monitored its attempted landing on the Moon, in Tokyo, Japan, June 6, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters A private lunar lander from Japan crashed while attempting a touchdown Friday (June 6, 2025), the latest casualty in … Read more
Thirty years after bismuth emitting a proton was detected and measured in 1996, an international collaboration led by researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, detected and measured the half-life of the heaviest proton emitter 188At (astatine) isotope, which decayed by emitting a proton. While isotopes often undergo radioactive decay by emitting alpha, beta, and … Read more
An electron micrograph of a cluster of Escherichia coli bacteria. | Photo Credit: Public domain Nanoplastics are bad news even though each one is only as small as a smoke particle. Research has shown that micro- and nano-plastics are present at the top of the tallest mountains, at the bottom of the deepest trenches, and … Read more
Students from India and China together formed more than 50% of all international students U.S. last year | Photo Credit: TINGSHU WANG The U.S. has paused scheduling of new visa interviews globally and expanded its vetting of accounts of foreign students on social media. This is the latest move in a series of intrusive measures … Read more
On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin launched six women – Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez – on a suborbital journey to the edge of space. The headlines called it a historic moment for women in space. But as a tourism educator, I paused – not because I … Read more
My telescope, set up for astrophotography in my light-polluted San Diego backyard, was pointed at a galaxy unfathomably far from Earth. My wife, Cristina, walked up just as the first space photo streamed to my tablet. It sparkled on the screen in front of us. “That’s the Pinwheel galaxy,” I said. The name is derived … Read more
When you want to move, does your brain know before you’ve decided?
The ring-shaped track that scientists used to study tiny particles called muons at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, 2023. | Photo Credit: AP Final results from a long-running U.S.-based experiment announced Tuesday show a tiny particle continues to act strangely — but that’s still good news for the laws of physics as we … Read more
The Andromeda galaxy, imaged here by a Nikon Z7 camera in 2023, is about 2.5 million lightyears away and moving towards the Milky Way galaxy at around 110 km/s. | Photo Credit: Lviatour (CC BY-SA) It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers reported … Read more
A three-month-old black Labrador puppy with eyes set aglow by a camera flash. | Photo Credit: Jazzjohnn (CC BY-SA) A: Nocturnal animals such as cats are adapted to dim light. Their retina has more rod cells, which aid scotopic vision or vision under dark conditions, than cone cells, which aid photopic vision or vision under … Read more
To live a cozy life on the earth, a temperature of around 25° to 30° C is ideal. But during a heat wave, where temperatures can cross 40° C, the consequences can be deadly. Humans and most complex multicellular organisms are not built to tolerate such heat. That doesn’t mean no living thing can, however. … Read more