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
A high-powered committee of experts, chaired by Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) Ajay Sood, has recommended that India do away with a decade-long policy of mandating equipment, called Flu Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) units, in all coal-fired thermal power plants (TPPs), according to documents perused by The Hindu. These FGD units are required to be retro-fitted in … Read more
Women carry fodder for their cattle through a mustard field on the outskirts of Srinagar. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Rapeseed-mustard oil (hereafter ‘mustard oil’) is the third-largest edible oil consumed in India. Two executive and judicial decisions on mustard oil — one from 2021 and another from 2024 — have major public health implications, … Read more
A high-powered committee of experts, chaired by Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) Ajay Sood, has recommended that India do away with a decade-long policy of mandating equipment, called Flu Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) units, in all coal-fired thermal power plants (TPPs), according to documents perused by The Hindu. These FGD units are required to be retro-fitted in … Read more
Axiom Space’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS), carrying Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three others, has been postponed to June 10 at 5:52 pm IST, onboard SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. File. Axiom Space’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS), carrying Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three … Read more
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru | Photo Credit: File photo Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) have developed an artificial metal-based nanozyme that can potentially be used to clamp down on abnormal blood clotting caused by conditions like pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE). According to IISc., under normal circumstances, when a blood vessel is injured, … Read more
Smoke rises from wildfire LWF090, the Caribou Lake Wildfire, in an aerial photograph northwest of Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada on May 28, 2025 | Photo Credit: Reuters Exposure to wildfire smoke may increase lung cancer patients’ risk of dying from their disease, particularly among non-smokers, but the effect may be mitigated by certain cancer treatments, … Read more
The explosive eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines on June 12, 1991. | Photo Credit: USGS Deep beneath the earth’s surface, temperature and pressure are high enough to melt parts of the mantle and crust to form molten rock called magma. Because magma is less dense than solid rock, it tends to rise and … Read more
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently projected that India will edge past Japan to become the world’s fourth largest economy in 2025. While this marks a notable milestone, comparisons based solely on absolute Gross Domestic Product (GDP) offer limited insight into the lived realities of people. Absolute GDP figures are useful for understanding the size … Read more
Life on the earth depends on plants. Microscopic aquatic plants and algae make most of the oxygen on the planet. The land plants are the primary producers of human and animal food. This is why it’s important to understand how they grow and reproduce. In the last 450 million years, as plants slowly evolved from … Read more
Daily Quiz | On movies pegged on health Netflix series called The Sandman showed Encephalitis lethargica in a dramatic way to explain the sleeping sickness of the early 1900s START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | The highly successful and entertaining movie Patch Adams starring Robin Williams in the eponymous character, and had its own … Read more
(1) Plastic nurdles wash up on Kerala coast after container ship sinks Several containers washed ashore along Kerala’s lower coast after a container vessel – MSC ELSA 3 – sunk over 30 nautical miles away from Kochi port on Monday (May 26, 2025). The vessel had 643 containers, 13 of which had hazardous cargo. The … Read more
(This article forms a part of the Science for All newsletter that takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Subscribe now!) When you press on a toothpaste tube in the morning, you’re sure some paste is going to spurt out if you’re squeezing hard enough. But how much is enough? Toothpaste … Read more
Every summer, a familiar question surfaces across India, echoing from homes to newsrooms: is it genuinely hotter, or have we simply become more sensitive? This isn’t just some nostalgic lament or biological quirk. The evidence is clear and uncompromising: India’s heat is intensifying, creeping in earlier, stretching longer, and striking deeper than ever before. What’s … Read more
Jared Isaacman, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters President Donald Trump announced late Saturday that he is withdrawing the nomination of … Read more
Elon Musk | Photo Credit: Reuters Two days after the latest in a string of test-flight setbacks for his big new Mars spacecraft, Starship, Elon Musk said on May 29 he foresees the futuristic vehicle making its first uncrewed voyage to the red planet at the end of next year. Musk presented a detailed Starship … Read more
The Mediterranean Diet, much lauded by health researchers as an ideal one, uses plant-based foods and avoids red meat. Representative image. | Photo Credit: Odiseo Castrejon/Unsplash Across the world, the population of older adults has increased over time. And over 80% of them suffer from at least one chronic health disorder. The U.S. Centre for … Read more
Bats are important animals that help maintain ecosystem balance and human well-being. They play key roles like pollinating plants, dispersing seeds, and controlling insect populations. But of late they have become popular for a different reason: their unique ability to harbour viruses without succumbing to disease. SARS, MERS, Ebola, COVID-19 — some of the most … Read more
A path to pursue Born on August 30, 1884 at Flerang in the parish of Valbo near Gavle, Sweden, Theodor (The) Svedberg was the only child of Elias Svedberg and Augusta Alstermark. The fact that his father was a works manager at different ironworks in Sweden and Norway meant that the family lived at a … Read more
Gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, envy, lust and anger are traditionally seen as the root of all evil. But can these undesirable behaviours actually stem from the biology of our brains? Neurologist Guy Leschziner believes so. Last November, when he launched his book Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human, and delved into the neuroscientific … Read more
Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Levels of black carbon — ultra-fine particles of carbon that come from vehicles, stoves and wood-fire — in the Himalayas have been rising for most of the past two decades, according to a study by the think-tank Climate Trends. This is contributing to warmer snow, increasing the risk … Read more
Children of mothers suffering from domestic violence in India are significantly associated with mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression in teenagers, a study has found. The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, underscore the need for school programs sensitive to trauma and improved prevention of domestic violence in India. Researchers from the cVEDA … Read more
Daily Quiz | On the monsoons Edmond Halley was an astronomer and mathematician who edited the work of Isaac Newton. A comet and a research station in Antarctica are named after him, who published a treatise on the Indian monsoon. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | In which State does the south-west monsoon arrive … Read more