Mepco bill

Scientists from Centre for Cellular and Mole4cular Biology (CCMB) conducting tests at a dairy farm. | Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT What began as an effort to prevent tigresses in captivity from killing their own cubs has turned into an unexpected boon for Indian farmers. Scientists at the CSIR–Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in … Read more

India stands at a pivotal crossroads in its journey in space. The era of state-led exploration has given way to the “Second Space Age”—a competitive frontier defined by commercial interests, private enterprise, and new geopolitical ambitions. This collection of articles from The Hindu provides an essential record of how a nation, once celebrated for its … Read more

(1) Commercial LPG prices hiked Commercial LPG prices (19kg cylinders) were hiked on April 1, amidst an increase in international crude oil prices due to the Iran-U.S. war in West Asia. State-owned oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation revised refill costs by more than ₹200 in most cities. The … Read more

Cosmic highlights

A tagged sanderling is spotted at a beach at Narcondam Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. | Photo Credit: PTI “A tagged shorebird that flew more than 7,400 km from South Australia has been spotted on the remote Narcondam Island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago,” an expert said on Tuesday (April 7, 2026). … Read more

A conceptual illustration of a satellite collecting solar energy in earth orbit and beaming it down as microwaves. | Photo Credit: NASA A: The Shimizu Corporation in Japan has proposed a belt of power plants sitting along the moon’s equator, which is 11,000 km long, called the “Lunar Ring”. According to the company’s plans, robots … Read more

A file image of fast-breeder reactor in Tamil Nadu‘s Kalpakkam | Photo Credit: The Hindu India’s first prototype fast-breeder reactor (PFBR) in Tamil Nadu‘s Kalpakkam on Monday (April 6, 2026) came another step forward in its civil nuclear journey as it attained criticality. First criticality in a fast breeder reactor is the moment when the nuclear … Read more

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump talk during an event on the South Lawn of the White House, on April 6, 2026 | Photo Credit: AP U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday (April 6, 2026) called and congratulated the Artemis astronauts circling the Moon for making “history,” telling them they’ve “made all America … Read more

After traveling deeper into space than any other humans, the Artemis II astronauts pointed their moonship toward home on Monday (April 6, 2026) night, wrapping up a lunar cruise that revealed views of the far side never beheld by eyes until now. Their flyby of the moon even included some celestial sightseeing besides yielding rich … Read more

Many people have reported moments when the sense of being a distinct self ‘loosens’. Among astronauts, it is called the overview effect while deep-sea explorers report a similar shift sometimes called the underview effect. Both involve sudden changes in perspective in which the usual boundary of ‘me’ briefly softens, as if the vastness they encounter … Read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. | Photo Credit: PTI Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (April 6, 2026) said India has taken a defining step in its civil nuclear journey as the indigenously built Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam attained criticality. In a post on X, Mr. Modi said this is a proud moment for … Read more

This image provided by NASA Monday, April 6, 2026, shows the Moon, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth) visible at the right side of the disk, identifiable by the dark splotches. At lower left is Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the Moon’s near and far sides. Everything to the … Read more

The four astronauts embarking on NASA’s lunar flyby became on Monday (April 6, 2026) the humans to travel furthest from our planet, as they get set to view areas of the Moon never before seen by the naked eye. The Artemis II team broke the previous record set by 1970’s Apollo 13 mission, which they … Read more

A view of the Moon taken by an Artemis II crew member through the window of the Orion spacecraft on day five of the mission, April 6, 2026. | Photo Credit: Reuters The ​four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission entered the moon’s gravitational sphere ⁠of influence early on Monday (April 6, 2026) morning as … Read more

Climate change is emerging as a major public health threat in India, reshaping disease patterns, straining healthcare systems, and placing nearly 40% of districts at high risk from extreme weather events, according to a new report.  The report, Under the Weather: India’s Climate-Health Intersections and Pathways to Resilience, by Dasra, a philanthropy fund organisation, highlights … Read more

The main regulator in PCOS and endometriosis are microRNAs (miRNAs), which are small molecules that act like a bridge between the two conditions, but on a molecular level. Image used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Two disorders caused by the dysfunction of the reproductive and endocrine system are PCOS (polycystic ovary … Read more

The Artemis astronauts entered the final phase of their run-up to a lunar loop on Monday (April 6, 2026), a tipping point of sorts that means the Moon’s gravity is now having a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s. The Orion capsule will now whip around the Moon, setting the crew up to travel … Read more

Cry to an onion. | Photo Credit: Getty Images It is an ordinary day. Somehow tears pool at the bottom of your eyes, threatening to spill out the canthus any moment. How did it turn out to be like this? Your eyes sting. The more you move your hands at the chopping board, the sting … Read more

Migration is the movement of birds across long distances, from temperate to tropical regions during winters, and vice versa. The birds move to areas with more or increasing resources and to stay within the climate niche to which they are adapted. They also migrate short distances up and down mountains around the world. And a … Read more

‘Challenges for replicability extend across social-behavioural sciences, illustrating the importance of identifying conditions that promote or inhibit replicability’ | Photo Credit: Hal Gatewood/Unsplash A seven-year-long project in the US that analysed 3,900 claims from research papers in social sciences has revealed that results from about half the papers examined for reproducibility were precisely reproducible as … Read more

Petrographic thin-section image an Ammonia sp. microfossil in the Gaj formation of the Dwarka Basin. | Photo Credit: DOI: 10.1017/jpa.2025.10198 In February, researchers from IIT-Bombay, the Indian Statistical Institute, and IISER-Kolkata reported that fossil beds in the Dwarka Basin date back to the early Miocene epoch. They identified 42 species of snails, including four new … Read more

Researchers have found that male octopuses have a specialised arm, known as the hectocotylus, as a sophisticated sensory organ to identify females. | Photo Credit: H. Zell (CC BY-SA) A: Octopuses often live solitary lives and rarely encounter mates, which means they need to be very good at recognising other octopuses if they are to … Read more

More than 50 years after humans first flew around the Moon, Artemis astronauts will repeat the feat on Monday (April 6, 2026) and use the most basic instrument to study it: their eyes. Despite the technological advancements since the Apollo missions, NASA still relies on the eyesight of its astronauts to learn more about the Moon. … Read more

Known as the Mission MITRA (Mapping of Interoperable Traits and Response Assessment), the study will be conducted until April 9. File image used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: PTI@NASA The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced the launch of a mission in Ladakh to examine the physiological, psychological and operational dynamics of … Read more

This photo provided by NASA shows the moon seen from a window on the Orion spacecraft Integrity during the Artemis II mission on April 3, 2026 | Photo Credit: AP The Artemis astronauts were gearing up Saturday (April 4, 2026) for their long-anticipated lunar flyby, including reviewing the surface features they must analyze and photograph … Read more

People stand in a flooded area in Bundi village, Rajasthan, following heavy rains. August 23, 2025 | Photo Credit: @ombirlakota/X.com/ANI Scientists find one reason why northwest India floods more Scientists have reported evidence of two subseasonal weather patterns turning northwestern South Asia, including northwest India, from a semiarid region into a flood-prone one. First, the … Read more

Does Jupiter have a “voice”? When we say discovery of Jupiter’s “voice”, it corresponds to the discovery that the planet Jupiter is a strong source of radio waves. This discovery was made in the 1950s by two scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C. – Bernard F. Burke and Kenneth Linn Franklin – when … Read more

NASA’s Artemis II mission to fly by the moon, comprising the Space Launch System rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. | Photo Credit: Reuters An irony hides in the context of the NASA Artemis II launch on April 2. The U.S. has both … Read more