Category: Science & Tech

Footprints are among the most common kind of dinosaur fossils. Sometimes scientists find a single, lonely footprint. ‍Sometimes they come across a chaotic jumble of tracks resembling a dance floor, sort of a dinosaur discotheque. But identifying which ​dinosaur left which track has been notoriously difficult. Researchers have now developed a method harnessing artificial intelligence...

On January 20, 2026, Rev. Dr. Leo D’Souza, a Jesuit scientist based in Mangaluru, died aged 93. Dr. D’Souza, fondly known as Fr Leo, trained in the 1960s at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, working alongside stalwarts in the field such as Ingo Potrykus, Joseph Straub, and Sudhir Kumar Sopory....

SpaceX is putting its longstanding focus of sending humans to Mars on the back burner to prioritise establishing a settlement on the Moon, founder Elon Musk said Sunday (February 8, 2026). The South Africa-born billionaire’s space company has found massive success as a NASA contractor, but critics have for years panned Mr. Musk’s Mars colonisation...

One puff of a cigarette, within seconds, infuses the human bloodstream (via the lungs) with nicotine, the acutely addictive and carcinogenic chemical in tobacco. Nicotine binds to the brain’s cellular receptors, sparking the dopaminergic reward system to keep smokers hooked. And then there are additives in cigarettes, such as menthol, which gets nicotine to linger...

In a new study in Nature, scientists from IIT-Delhi and Germany have demonstrated a device to separate electrons based on their ‘handedness’ without powerful magnetic fields, taking a step towards chiral electronics, which could in future enable low-power devices. The human left hand is a mirror image of the right; the two can’t be perfectly...

The budget has brought some cheer to India’s research community, particularly for those involved in astronomy and space research, as it has earmarked ₹13,416.20 crore for the Department of Space for 2026-27. A large chunk of the allocation has been set aside for deep-space exploration and astrophysics, including to build two advanced telescope facilities: the...

Charles Darwin’s central insight wasn’t just that species evolve but that they can’t but adapt in the presence of selection pressures. In practical terms, organisms don’t choose to change: they respond to the environments in which they’re trying to live. This insight should trouble us when we consider antimicrobial resistance (AMR): because resistance isn’t an...

Drug-resistant pneumonia remains a serious complication in intensive care units, where treatment options are limited. Pseudomonas aeruginosa in particular causes about one in five hospital pneumonias and often resists multiple drugs. A research team at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, has reported that a gas already used in neonatal care...

The budget has brought some cheer to India’s research community, particularly for those involved in astronomy and space research, as it has earmarked ₹13,416.20 crore for the Department of Space for 2026-27. A large chunk of the allocation has been set aside for deep-space exploration and astrophysics, including to build two advanced telescope facilities: the...