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
A team of international researchers recently discovered a galaxy with nine rings. They called it a “serendipitous discovery” because previous ringed galaxies have only displayed two or three rings at best. Using the Hubble space telescope, the team confirmed the presence of eight rings, while data from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed the … Read more
Undocking of the two satellites on March 13, 2025. The first docking took place on January 16, 2025. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully executed the second docking of the two satellites, which are part of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission. On April 21, Union Minister of … Read more
Using solar energy may be better for the environment than burning through fossil fuels, but the process still isn’t exactly perfect. Making silicon-based solar panels is energetically expensive and we still don’t know what to do with the silicon once the panels are done being used. There is a cheaper way to make solar panels, … Read more
Theoretical physicist and teacher A.P. Balachandran, known for his work in understanding the physics of fundamental particles, passed away on April 18 in Coimbatore. He was the Joel Dorman Steele emeritus professor at Syracuse University and an internationally recognised theoretical physicist. After completing his bachelor’s degree at the Madras Christian College, he received his Ph.D … Read more
There’s a harmless addiction that many people share: knuckle-cracking. That ‘pop’, better than the one from squeezing bubble wrap, results from the synovial fluid between your joints releasing a small bubble of nitrogen when you twist or compress your fingers or toes. It’s also a reminder of the centrality of nitrogen to life. The fifth-most … 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. File (Image used for representation purpose only) | Photo Credit: Reuters A two-year-old girl from Narasaraopeta in Palnadu district, Andhra Pradesh, who was infected with H5N1 died on March 16, 2025; … Read more
Image used for representatin purpose only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock Photo Two independent clinical trials demonstrate the safety of stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease. The papers, published in Nature, investigate the use of cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells and human embryonic stem cells, respectively. Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by the progressive loss of neurons that … Read more
An artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. | Photo Credit: REUTERS The story so far: On April 16, an international research team uploaded a paper in which it reported that the distant exoplanet K2-18b may be habitable. The claim was met with cautious excitement by astronomers. While … Read more
Two independent clinical trials demonstrate the safety of stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease. The papers, published in Nature, investigate the use of cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells and human embryonic stem cells, respectively. Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by the progressive loss of neurons that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter. Cell therapy, specifically replenishing dopamine-producing neurons (dopaminergic) in the … Read more
CoQ9 is rich in wheat, rice, oats, barley, corn, rye, and millet. | Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA Enzymes are proteins that catalyse reactions in a cell, making metabolism efficient. For efficient functioning, many enzymes require some molecules as cofactors. These helper molecules are called coenzymes. Coenzymes are naturally occurring organic molecules that bind to and … Read more
For the first time in Finland, researchers have isolated a giant virus — 200 nanometres in diameter, about twice the size of influenza or coronavirus — which was named Jyvaskylavirus. The discovery shows that giant viruses are more common in northern regions than researchers have thought. It also illustrates that there are still many structures whose origins and functions … Read more
All three cats that tested positive for H5N1 clade 2.3.2.1a died one-three days after sampling | Photo Credit: REUTERS A two-year-old girl from Narasaraopeta in Palnadu district, Andhra Pradesh, who was infected with H5N1 died on March 16, 2025; she was admitted to AIIMS-Mangalagiri on March 4. ICMR’s Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) identified … Read more
What is Aryabhata? Named after an ancient Indian mathematician and astronomer (5th Century), Aryabhata was India’s first satellite. Launched from Kapustin Yar with the help of the Soviets on April 19, 1975, the launch of this indigenously-built satellite marked the beginning of India’s space age. The successful launch meant that India became just the 11th … Read more
Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is set to travel to the International Space Station next month as part of an Axiom-4 mission, four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s iconic spaceflight onboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday (April 18, 2025). Mr. Singh … Read more
Allergies, whether spring sneezes due to pollen or trouble breathing triggered by a certain food, are caused by a combination of someone’s genes and the environment they live in. The more things two people share, the higher their chances of being allergic to the same things. Twins are more likely to share allergies because of … Read more
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said. Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden … Read more
Genetically modified ‘dire wolf’ pups Romulus and Remus. | Photo Credit: REUTERS The story so far: On April 7, a biotechnology company in Texas, U.S., named Colossal Biosciences announced that it had “resurrected” a dire wolf, a large predator that went extinct more than 12,000 years ago. The company’s claim that it had facilitated the … Read more
Smoke rises from a coal-powered steel plant at Hehal village near Ranchi. File | Photo Credit: AP The Union Environment Ministry should roll back its 2015 policy mandating all of India’s 537 coal-fired plants to install a class of equipment called Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) in order to reduce sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Instead, it … Read more
The Union Environment Ministry should roll back its 2015 policy mandating all of India’s 537 coal-fired plants to install a class of equipment called Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) in order to reduce sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Instead, it should only apply to those plants using imported coal or high (>0.5%) sulphur coal, a study commissioned … Read more