Category: Science

Representative image. Research showed that a tree’s leaf density had a major effect on where pollen ended up. | Photo Credit: Alex Jones/Unsplash Every spring, lakhs of people suffering from allergies brace for sneezing fits and itchy eyes as trees release pollen into the air. Now, a team of researchers from France and the U.S….

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Mice that had exercised had higher cognitive performance compared to their fellow mice that hadn’t received a running wheel. | Photo Credit: George Shuklin (CC BY-SA) “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” goes the proverb. Now, it seems no working out can also make Jack a dull boy — especially if…

Read More “Aerobic exercise creates a muscle protein that boosts mouse memory” »

The fundamental challenge in surgery is not precision but adaptability. | Photo Credit: César Badilla Miranda Elon Musk recently claimed that in three years, there will be more expert surgical robots than surgeons on the earth. The statement generated considerable excitement, speculation, and outrage in equal measure. While medicine is a deeply personal enterprise, it…

Read More “Sorry, Musk: autonomous surgery is decades away, not three years” »

Representative image. In the absence of ethnicity, religion, or political ideologies, social networks can divide, and new group boundaries can emerge, leading to collective violence, according to research. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto They were once a convivial, unified group that lived, fed, groomed, and patrolled together, with may be the odd scuffle. But then…

Read More “‘Civil war’ among chimpanzees recorded for the first time” »

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field image taken in 2012. | Photo Credit: NASA A: There is a major disagreement among physicists about how fast the universe is expanding. Astronomers use a value called the Hubble constant to measure it. However, the two main ways to calculate this number have produced different results. In the first…

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Representative image. A new international study suggests that this long-neglected condition may finally be biologically treatable. | Photo Credit: Yue Wu/Unsplash In many Indian homes, ageing unfolds quietly. A grandfather who once walked to the local market now pauses every few steps. A grandmother takes days to recover from a minor fall. Such changes are…

Read More “New cell therapy shows promise to treat frailty among elderly” »

The green pill millipede (Arthrosphaera lutescens). Photo: Special Arrangement A recent study has revealed the self-cleaning mechanism of green pill millipede (Arthrosphaera lutescens), a species endemic to the Western Ghats. Researchers found that these millipedes, primarily located in the Munnar region of Idukki and Nelliampathy in Palakkad, utilise a biological mechanism similar to the famous…

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