Every year, farmers battle an invisible, relentless, formidable enemy: plant viruses. Unlike bacteria or fungi, which can be controlled with pesticides or fungicides, there is no straightforward way to cure crops of viral infections. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), plant pests and diseases destroy nearly 40% of the world’s annual crop, … Read more
According tothe World Organisation for Animal Health, as of February 20, 2025, H5N1 has been found in 99 cats and has killed 18 cats. | Photo Credit: Reuters The Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) has shared the H5N1 genome sequence data with the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), a public database, … Read more
Employees stand next to Heat Shield of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark II inside a manufacturing facility of the Larsen & Toubro Precision Manufacturing and Systems Complex on the outskirts of Coimbatore, India, February 26, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted a short duration hot test … Read more
A newfound species of carnivorous caterpillar, left, uses a protective case made with insect parts, near a spider in Oahi, Hawaii. | Photo Credit: AP A new carnivorous caterpillar that wears the remains of its prey has been dubbed the “bone collector”. The odd insect is only found on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It … Read more
The urban heat island effect contributes to an increase in human heat exposure and subsequent death globally during hotter seasons. | Photo Credit: AP Cities having higher ambient temperatures than rural surroundings (known as the urban heat island effect) could offset some of the negative effects of increased heat-related mortality by reducing the number of … Read more
DBT has completed the proposal call without disclosing what phenotype data are available. | Photo Credit: istockphoto On January 9, 2025, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) called for proposals on ‘Translational research using genomeIndia data’ from scientists based in India. On February 20, eight days before the February 28 deadline for submitting proposals, DBT extended … Read more
A study found that preventable Caesarean sections or C-sections constitute between 3.1% and 8.4% of all deliveries in the southern States of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. Among the 21,499 women studied, the percentage of preventable C-sections was 6.2%, and the percentage of C-sections was 44.3%. The percentage of preventable C-sections among … Read more
What is a scientific zoo? Also called zoological gardens, scientific zoos are park-like areas housing animals primarily for the purpose of scientific study, conservation, and public education. Research and conservation efforts are often a priority for such scientific zoos, and they play a pivotal role in studying animal behaviour and genetics, and nurturing breeding programmes. … Read more
The Science Quiz: Entities that lie at the edge of physics 1 / 6 | Name the man in the picture. The mass of a subatomic particle named for him is very close to a figure that, if that had been the actual mass, could have destroyed the universe as we know it. Credit: Bengt … Read more
Former ISRO chairman Dr. K Kasturirangan passed away in Bengaluru on April 25, 2025. File | Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman Dr. K. Kasturirangan passed away in Bengaluru on April 25, 2025. He was 84 years old. The former space scientist’s health had been deteriorating for a week … Read more
China was able to make up for the fall by finding newer markets or selling more to other trade partners. Trade data shows that despite facing tariff headwinds from the U.S., the world’s largest importer, China, the world’s largest exporter, has managed to increase its overall exports, till at least 2023. A series of tariff … Read more
K. Kasturirangan, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who passed away in Bengaluru, was once known as the “Chairman with golden fingers” in the ISRO community, G. Madhavan Nair, who had succeeded him to the top post in 2003, recalled on Friday. Dr. Kasturirangan was a “very meticulous person” who did … Read more
DRDO demonstrated long-duration Active Cooled Scramjet Subscale Combustor ground testing for more than 1,000 seconds. Photo: PIB The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Friday (April 25, 2025) announced a significant milestone in the field of hypersonic weapon technology with the demonstration of long-duration Active Cooled Scramjet Subscale Combustor ground testing for more than … Read more
Museum specimens, the Zoological Survey of India used to unlock morphological mysteries of the South Asian treeshrews. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT GUWAHATI Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have resolved longstanding taxonomic ambiguities surrounding South Asian treeshrews – small, insectivorous mammals often misidentified due to their superficial resemblance to squirrels. Drawing upon … Read more
A file photo of Dr. K. Kasturirangan (centre) visiting Gundya in Sakaleshpur taluk of Hassan district in Karnataka. He was the author of the Kasturirangan Committee report on Western Ghats, which in 2013, identified an area of 59,940 sq. km of natural landscape of Western Ghats, spread across 6 States as ecologically sensitive. | Photo … Read more
April 25 has been recognised globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) as World Malaria Day (previously African Malaria Day), since 2006, to highlight the need for continued investment and innovation. The “butterfly effect” from chaos theory might result in a tornado, but the “mosquito effect” (through the parasite it carries) has fundamentally altered human … Read more
This year, India might receive an ‘above normal’ monsoon for the second year in a row, according to the first monsoon forecast for 2025 by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The country is likely to receive about 105% of the long period average (LPA) rainfall this year with an error margin of ± 5%. The … Read more
Can insulin-dependent diabetics stay in space? This will be one of the areas of research by astronauts who will fly to the International Space Station (ISS), probably this May, as part of the Axiom 4 mission. Indian Air Force pilot, Shubhanshu Shukla, will be among the four astronauts part of the space-flight – the first … Read more
Our bodies are made of cells. Each cell is a soup of smaller components, all working together to execute the body’s various functions. Perhaps the most well-known of these components are proteins — long chains of amino acids that cells make with instructions from the DNA. When the DNA changes, the cell is able to … Read more
V. Naryanan, ISRO chairman (fourth from left), and other dignitaries at the commissioning of O-ARM in Chennai on Wednesday. | Photo Credit: R. Ravindran By 2040, India will be among the developed nations in the field of space and would have its own space station, V. Narayanan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), … Read more
A Chinese national flag and pins showing the Tiangong space station are displayed on a uniform of Chinese astronaut for the upcoming Shenzhou-20 mission during a meeting with media at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, April 23, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP China is set to launch its Shenzhou-20 mission that will … Read more
Science Quiz | The places where things stay the same 1 / 6 | This map shows radiation leftover from the Big Bang right after it happened. It depicts how the temperature of the radiation is anisotropic: different at different distances. What’s this radiation called? Credit: NASA 2 / 6 | If the contour lines … Read more
Like it or not, it’s clear: every year, India must face down intense heat waves and erratic but also often intense bursts of rainfall. In a bid to find as many ways out of the consequences — or at least their ability to surprise governments — as possible, the country has turned to artificial intelligence … Read more
India, with its high population density, prevalence of infectious diseases, and over-the-counter availability of antibiotics, has a long and winding road to travel in order to counter AMR. Photograph used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: istock.com/Dr_Microbe Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), often labelled as a silent pandemic, is one of the most pressing global health … Read more
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses at the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament House, in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: ANI The Joint Action Committee, formed by the southern States, has demanded that delimitation be deferred by another 25 years or delinked from population. Though the Centre remains tight-lipped about the delimitation formula and timeline, … Read more
International Space Station (ISS) crew member and NASA astronaut Don Pettit is carried to a medical tent shortly after landing in the Soyuz MS-26 space capsule with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 20, 2025. | Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via Reuters Cake, gifts and a … Read more
Earlier this year, scientists discovered a peculiar term appearing in published papers: “vegetative electron microscopy”. This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a “digital fossil” – an error preserved and reinforced in artificial intelligence (AI) systems that is nearly impossible to remove from our knowledge repositories. Like biological fossils trapped in … Read more
People walk on a dusty road in the town of Byrnihat, Meghalaya, March 29, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters Two-year-old Sumaiya Ansari, a resident of India’s Byrnihat town, ranked the world’s most polluted metropolitan area by Swiss Group IQAir, was battling breathing problems for several days before she was hospitalised in March and given oxygen … Read more
In 2023 and 2024, over half a million students were denied visas. In February 2025, the first month of the second Donald Trump administration, the number of student visas issued to Indians by the U.S. dropped by 30% compared to the same month the previous year. This decline was notably higher than the overall 4.75% … Read more
Representative illustration. A traditional temporary pacemaker requires invasive open heart or endovascular surgical methods to both implant and remove. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Scientists at Northwestern University in the US have engineered a pacemaker smaller than a grain of rice. The makers of the device say it can be implanted in a non-invasive procedure … Read more