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The model of a Gaganyaan crew module. Under the Gaganyaan programme, ISRO intends to carry out three un-crewed missions and one crewed mission. The first un-crewed mission is scheduled to take place in 2024-25, and the first crewed mission is scheduled in 2025-27. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and…
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Garfield, star of the eponymous comic strip created by Jim Davis in 1978, is, like many of the cats that roam our homes, orange. He is orange in the same way that some people are redheaded, some horses are brown, or some dogs are Irish setters, but there is one important difference. For all other…
Read More “Genetic enigma: two new studies reveal why some cats are orange” »
In Maharashtra’s Jalna district, Dada Rao Ghatode, a farmer from Babultara village, owns eight acres of land where he grows soybean, cotton, and pigeon pea (tur) during the kharif season (July to October). This season, he expected at least ₹80,000 in return from four acres of soybean. However, a single day of heavy rains in…
Read More “Unpredictable rainfall makes farming in Marathwada even harder” »
Sci-Five | The Hindu Science Quiz: On Antarctica This 2020 photo provided by the British Antarctic Survey shows the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica. START THE QUIZ 1 / 5 | What percentage of the world’s freshwater is estimated to be locked in Antarctica’s vast ice sheet? An incredible 60-90% of the world’s freshwater is locked…
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The PSLV-C59/PROBA-3 mission takes off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on December 5, 2024. | Photo Credit: Ragu R The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday (December 5, 2024) announced that it has successfully launched the PSLV-C59 mission with the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 satellites from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The two…
Water is ubiquitous on Earth – about 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by the stuff. Water is in the air, on the surface and inside rocks. Geologic evidence suggests water has been stable on Earth since about 4.3 billion years ago. The history of water on early Mars is less certain. Determining when water first appeared,…
Read More “4-billion-year-old crystal offers oldest evidence of water on Mars” »
Reviewers, who often remain anonymous, go unrewarded and unrecognised, even though their work is an essential part of research communication. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Peer review is a central feature of academic work. It’s the process through which research ends up published in an academic journal: independent experts scrutinise the work of another researcher…
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Microfluidics makes use of tiny channels to speed up analyses of biomolecules such as DNA and proteins. | Photo Credit: Thom Leach/Getty Images When you think of electric fields, you likely think of electricity – the stuff that makes modern life possible by powering everything from household appliances to cellphones. Researchers have been studying the…
Read More “Hand-held ‘electric labs’ can rapidly identify pathogens” »
In May 2024, Google DeepMind released AlphaFold 3, a tool that could predict protein structures. It used an artificial intelligence (AI) model to predict how different proteins were shaped, how they might interact with each other and with DNA, RNA, and other biomolecules of merit. Nobel laureates John Jumper and Demis Hassabis built the new…
Read More “When for-profit companies fund research, how is science affected?” »
The symposium was attended by over 60 participants including members from several notable institutions. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL AARANGEMENT Astronomers from across the country, along with scientists, researchers from ISRO and industry discussed the possibilities of studying the cosmos from the moon, as ISRO accounted yet another lunar mission in the future. In the first…