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A long-exposure photograph of stars over the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve in Ladakh. | Photo Credit: Akash Anandh The temperatures were subzero and freezing. The conditions were unforgiving. We were elated and thrilled being outdoors all night. At 4,300 metres above sea level, we felt it could have been the Everest Base Camp. In reality,…
An illustration shows how a landscape the size of Belgium located in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, would appear if the thick ice sheet covering it were lifted away. | Photo Credit: Stewart Jamieson, Durham University/Reuters Antarctica has not always been a desolate land of ice and snow. Earth’s southernmost continent once was home to rivers…
Read More “Ancient landscape cut by rivers found deep under Antarctic ice” »
This artist’s impression, not to scale, illustrates the path of a fast radio burst from the distant galaxy where it originated all the way to Earth, in one of the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arms, in this handout picture obtained on October 20, 2023. | Photo Credit: Reuters Every day and night, hundreds of thousands…
Read More “Scientists trace powerful radio signal to most distant galaxy yet” »
In 2021, there were more than 14 billion cellular devices in the world even though there were only 7 billion people. The ubiquity of these devices – but especially smartphones – has come to define the contemporary era together with climate change, antimicrobial resistance, and war. But for smartphones’ outsize mark on history, one essential…
Many tiny organisms including bacteria, fungi and viruses normally live on our bodies, and even inside us. These are called the microbiome. The large number of these organisms living in the gastrointestinal tract are collectively known as the gut microbiome. Increasingly the gut microbiome is recognised as playing a large part in health and disease, particularly relating…
Read More “Could gut fungi be linked to severe COVID? What to make of new research findings” »
Allegations of fraud hit the behavioural sciences recently when a team of independent investigators published a series of articles detailing apparent data manipulation in more than four prominent papers in the field. Ironically, the papers described studies of morality and honesty, and so far, the accusations have landed at the feet of one author common…
Read More “The Gino data scandal in behavioural science and research misconduct” »
The crew module onboard an Indian Navy vessel at the end of the TV-D1 test. | Photo Credit: ISRO/Twitter There were two important forerunners to the success of the Test Vehicle Abort Mission (TV-D1) flight that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) conducted on October 21. During the test, an uncrewed crew module was brought…
Read More “Two forerunners that set the stage for ISRO’s Gaganyaan test” »
October 22, 2023 03:48 pm | Updated October 23, 2023 09:35 pm IST – Thiruvananthapuram ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its Gaganyaan mission, the space agency chief S. Somanath said. File | Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its much-awaited human…
ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its Gaganyaan mission, the space agency chief S. Somanath said. File | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its much-awaited human space flight programme Gaganyaan mission and it is possible to send them in the future,…
Bats are extraordinary organisms in many ways. They are the only mammals on the earth that can maintain sustained flight. They also have relatively long life-spans and are relatively more protected from a variety of diseases, including cancer. They also have a unique ability in echolocation, whereby they use sound to navigate and locate objects,…
Read More “How bat genomes provide insights into immunity and cancer” »