Category: Science

The world’s population is growing and more people need more food. But indiscriminately expanding agricultural land and practice is not desirable. Cutting forests to plant more crops will only push already-fragile ecosystems over the edge. Dousing fields with pesticides is similarly toxic and depletes soils and groundwater. The genetically modified (GM) crops provide a way…

Read More “GM crops can help fight hunger — depending on how they are farmed” »

Rescuers assist residents on a boat as they wade through a flooded road following heavy rains brought by Typhoon Gaemi, Marikina City, Philippines, July 24, 2024. | Photo Credit: Reuters An unusual cluster of typhoons in the West Pacific and a series of powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic are raising questions about the impact that…

Read More “Is climate change making tropical storms more frequent? Scientists say it’s unclear” »

The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. Indian Institute of Science researchers have devised a new language that encodes the shape and structure of nanopores in the form of a sequence of characters. This language devised by Ananth Govind Rajan’s lab and the study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society can be used…

Read More “IISc researchers devise a new language for ML models” »

“Can I get a pencil?” “Yes of course,” and the lady at the counter hands me a cigarette. I awkwardly resist and say “I actually do need a pencil.” She judges me a bit and hands me one, probably wondering why an adult might need this. As it turns out, ‘pencil’ is one of many…

Read More “If diamonds and pencils are made out of carbon, how is it that pencils can write?” »

Last week, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University’s Binar Space Program burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar means “fireball” in the Noongar language of the First Nations people of Perth. When a satellite is in low Earth orbit (2,000 km or less), it experiences orbital decay…

Read More “As sun nears peak of solar cycle, small satellites are paying the price” »