Officials have confirmed the return of the rare caracal in the Thar Desert near the India-Pakistan border, raising fresh hopes for conservation of the highly elusive, and critically endangered species. The officials spotted two wildcats, a male and female, in the Shahgarh region of Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer, with the help of camera traps and radio-collaring, taking...
Category: Science & Tech
Google team finds radiation glitch that limits quantum computing
What is the world’s next great frontier in technology? There are multiple contenders: artificial general intelligence, programmable biology, sustainable energy, metamaterials, human-machine interfaces, and quantum computing. The future could in fact be more wondrous but also more difficult to predict because of how some of these technologies can work together. But there is still a...
Researchers build synthetic materials that ‘learn’ to change shape
When you exercise, your muscles become stronger. When you sow a plant, its stem will bend so that its leaves get more sunlight. Both these changes are examples of adaptation — when a biological material senses its environment, then reorganises its internal structure to survive better. All life must adapt over time to changing conditions....
Beyond cost: how to know if a medical technology actually adds value
Medicine treats the evaluation of emerging technologies as a technical problem, but it is not. It is fundamentally an economic problem. When does a ₹30,000 genetic test represent excellent value and when does it represent wasted money? The answer depends on a question members of the medical profession almost never discuss: who’s paying?
Wastewater data revealed hidden COVID surges in Bengaluru after testing declined
Wastewater surveillance in Bengaluru closely tracked COVID-19 trends during the first Omicron wave, but later emerged as an important tool in identifying hidden surges that were not fully captured through routine clinical testing, according to researchers studying the city’s sewage-based monitoring network. A study published in PLOS Global Public Health by researchers from the Indian...
J. Craig Venter, who won the race to sequence the human genome, dies at 79
J. Craig Venter, who mapped the first draft of the human genome and helped scientists understand how genes shape our lives, died on Wednesday (April 30, 2026). He was 79. Venter’s death was announced by the J. Craig Venter Institute, a genomics research group with locations in La Jolla, California, and Rockville, Maryland. The institute...
Mexico City is sinking so quickly, it can be seen from space
Mexico City is sinking by nearly 25 cm a year, according to new satellite imagery released this week by NASA, making it one of the world’s fastest-subsiding metropolises. One of the world’s most sprawling and populated urban areas, at 7,800 sq. km and some 22 million people, the Mexican capital and surrounding cities were built...
GalaxEye launches Mission Drishti, India’s largest privately developed Earth observation satellite
Mission Drishti, the world’s first OptoSAR satellite developed by Bengaluru based space startup GalaxEye has been successfully launched on Sunday (May 3, 2026) aboard a Falcon 9 by SpaceX from Vandenberg, California. Weighing 190 kilograms, Mission Drishti is India’s largest privately developed Earth observation satellite. “It is the first satellite globally to integrate Electro-Optical (EO)...
How dual-use satellites are blurring the lines of modern space war
When we imagine space warfare, we picture shattered satellites and orbital debris. The reality is quieter but also more dangerous. The markers of modern orbital conflict are signal loss, deliberate misdirection, and sudden system failures. In the initial hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a cyber-attack crippled Viasat’s KA-SAT network, severing vital communications...
Rich nations might eliminate cervical cancer by 2048, progress slow in poor countries: study
High-income countries are on track to eliminate cervical cancer — preventable through vaccination and screening — by 2048, while low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will see only slight reductions over the next century, according to a study published in The Lancet journal. As a result, the gap between regions will widen dramatically, with women in...
