Category: Science

Dark clouds loom over the catchment area of the Cauvery. July 14, 2018. | Photo Credit: E. Lakshmi Narayanan/The Hindu An international research team has found a systemic drop in land elevation across India’s river deltas driven mostly by human activities. The researchers were motivated by the lack of high-resolution data of river deltas’ subsidence…

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NASA astronaut (Retd.) Sunita Williams. | Photo Credit: PTI National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Sunita Williams — one of two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station — has retired. The space agency announced the news on Tuesday (January 20, 2026), saying her retirement took effect at the end of December. Williams’…

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After four decades of government-led space exploration, the new millennium has ushered in a commercial revolution where private companies now lead and fund the industry’s most significant breakthroughs. Space is now a fast-growing industry, expected to exceed $1 trillion in value by 2030. The application of innovative technologies, notably partial reusability of rockets by these…

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Rice is a C3 plant, and C3 photosynthesis is less water-efficient in hot or dry conditions than C4 plants, e.g. maize. | Photo Credit: Steve Douglas/Unsplash A: Many rice-growing systems deliberately flood the fields and most of the water is lost to the air or to the ground. Farmers often maintain shallow flooding to stabilise…

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“Solving mathematical problems gave me a unique sensation of freedom that did not depend on what happened around me,” confessed Irina Kmit, a Ukrainian mathematician, now a professor in the mathematics department at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research topics include hyperbolic differential equations and boundary value problems. And she described maths as a…

Read More “Narrating stories of the world’s women mathematicians, in portraits” »

One of the strongest materials on the earth isn’t made in a factory or synthesised in a laboratory but spun by a creature barely two inches long. The Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini), found in the forests of Madagascar, weaves silk that outperforms steel and most human-made fibres in both strength and toughness. Larger webs,…

Read More “Why only female Darwin’s bark spiders weave the toughest webs” »

Since the end of World War II, the US has established a global military network consisting of around 750 bases in roughly 80 countries. While the US government has characterised this presence as a stabilising force, the local populations have often paid for the military’s presence with displacement and long-term exposure to hazardous industrial waste….

Read More “As Trump floats buying Greenland, Arctic island still holds toxic US waste” »

Since the end of World War II, the US has established a global military network consisting of around 750 bases in roughly 80 countries. While the US government has characterised this presence as a stabilising force, the local populations have often paid for the military’s presence with displacement and long-term exposure to hazardous industrial waste….

Read More “As Trump floats buying Greenland, Arctic island still holds toxic US waste” »

This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on January 14 14, 2026. | Photo Credit: NASA/AP A: On January 15 morning, Crew-11 to the International Space Station (ISS) performed a rapid evacuation, with NASA getting…

Read More “What happens if you have a medical emergency onboard the ISS?” »