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Hiccups | Photo Credit: Freepik Hiccups are essentially involuntary contractions (or spasms) of the diaphragm, the muscle that aids us in breathing. Each contraction comes with a sudden closing of the vocal cords, creating that familiar sound we all know. There are multiple causes of hiccups. Some include eating too fast, drinking something too hot…
China’s government has long made efforts to tempt top scientists from abroad, but researchers say its institutions themselves are increasingly attracting talent thanks to their generous funding and growing prestige. State-backed initiatives like the Thousand Talents Plan have dangled fast-tracked hiring and bountiful grants to lure overseas experts in strategically important fields, as China and…
Read More “Overseas scholars drawn to China’s scientific clout, funding” »
File picture of Indian Space Research Organisation launching the PSLV-C61 mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota | Photo Credit: ANI The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is scheduled to launch the PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 Mission on January 12. The launch of the Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-N1) satellite along with other payloads will take…
Read More “ISRO to launch PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 Mission on January 12” »
Imagine a diamond. You probably thought of a clear and flawless gemstone used in jewellery. But to a physicist, a perfect diamond might actually be quite boring. Something magical happens when the diamond is just a little broken. For decades, scientists have been fascinated by a specific type of defect in the diamond crystal lattice…
Read More “The perfect flaw: how a diamond defect is changing quantum physics” »
Science quiz: A millennia-old calendar system Visual: Identify this Roman deity associated with gates and transitions, and identified as the tutelary deity of January. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Identify this Roman deity associated with gates and transitions, and identified as the tutelary deity of January. 2 / 6 | While the Julian…
A schematic illustration of the experimental technique. | Photo Credit: Cai et al., Photo Science, 2025 To understand how materials work, whether a metal in a car’s catalytic converter or the substances in a battery, scientists need to look at their surfaces at the atomic level. One of the best tools for this is X-ray…
Read More “New way to study surfaces brings ‘real world’ pressure to the lab” »
The United Nations has declared 2026 to be the ‘International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists’. In 2022, a group of scientists from institutions in Tanzania, Zambia, the U.K., the U.S., Germany and Canada wrote an open letter urging the parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) to broaden their goals to be…
Read More “Not just forests: why grasslands also belong in national climate plans” »
The record of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) over the last decade has been remarkably broad for an agency of its size and budget. Its rockets, especially the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), have sustained reliable access to orbit, rendering operations with multiple satellite classes almost a matter of routine today. And ISRO is…
Read More “Why ISRO’s next big challenge is to succeed on an industrial scale” »
ISRO to launch Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun. File | Photo Credit: ANI On the second anniversary of India’s maiden solar mission, Aditya-L1 reaching the Lagrangian point (L1), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday (January 6, 2026) made the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) soliciting proposals for the first…
Read More “ISRO invites proposals from Indian scientists to analyse data from Aditya-L1 mission” »
The 2019 draft version of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 made two sweeping assertions in seven words: “teaching is strengthened through research and vice-versa.” Are these assertions supported by evidence, however? This article restricts itself to the first part of the assertion — that teaching is strengthened through research — because of its direct…
Read More “Does research strengthen teaching? – The Hindu” »