Even as the Calcutta High Court is set to hear challenges to the Centre’s Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project over allegations that the Forest Rights Act was violated while obtaining locals’ consent for it, the tribal council in Nicobar has now flagged further violations of the law in the government’s notification of three wildlife sanctuaries...
Category: Science & Tech
Home
Science & Tech
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Environment, Science & Tech
What has the IMD announced ahead of this year’s monsoon? | Explained
The story so far: The India Meteorological Department on Tuesday unveiled a new forecast system that, for the first time, will generate block-level forecasts of the monsoon’s arrival. The system covers 15 States and one Union Territory, taking in 3,196 blocks — roughly half of India’s 7,200-odd blocks. Until now, monsoon onset estimates have been...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Science & Tech
How new fossils and modern technology are tracing the origins of snakes
Back when dinosaurs stomped the Earth, mammals scurried about in their shadows. Those furballs, hiding in underground burrows, provided a fresh niche for a novel reptile: the snake. Skinny snakes could squeeze into mammals’ holes and gobble them up. At least, that’s how the dawn of snakes is imagined by Marc Tollis, an evolutionary biologist...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Science & Tech
Using ultrasound to restore vision
A normal human hears sound in the frequency range 20 hertz (Hz) to 20 kilohertz, and the normal loudness, measured in decibels (dB), is between 30 and 70 db. Higher volumes, e.g. 85 dB and above, can lead to hearing damage. Ultrasound is defined as sound frequencies far beyond the audible range, and are expressed...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Science & Tech
Small study hints that revving up immune cells might help fight HIV
Scientists are tweaking a powerful cancer therapy in hopes it could fight HIV instead, by supercharging patients’ own immune cells. On May 12, researchers said a single dose of those revved-up cells strongly suppressed HIV in two people — one for nearly a year and the other for nearly two years — without requiring their...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Science & Tech
Keep a dustbin or face action: Cyberabad civic body’s ‘No Bin, No Trade’ approach to hold businesses accountable
From discarded tea cups outside kiosks to food packets piling up beside commercial complexes, roadside garbage generated around shops and eateries in several localities of western Hyderabad may invite action from enforcement agencies, with the Cyberabad Municipal Corporation (CMC) preparing to tighten waste management rules for businesses under a “No bin, no trade” approach. The...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Health, Science & Tech
India’s genetic mosaic: how understanding our genes can help improve our health
India is home to more than 1.4 billion people, thousands of communities, hundreds of languages, and five major language families. Many communities have historically practised endogamy and in some regions, consanguineous marriage. This is both a social and a biological fact with medical consequences. India is not one genetic population. Indians carry a layered inheritance...
Post
May 13, 2026May 13, 2026Science & Tech
How do volcanoes affect the earth’s atmosphere?
Volcanoes change the earth’s atmosphere by releasing gases and particles in large quantities. When a volcano erupts, it blasts sulphur dioxide high into the sky, which reacts with water to form aerosols. Since aerosols scatter sunlight, a powerful eruption can end up cooling the earth’s surface for many years. Large eruptions also spew clouds of...
Post
May 12, 2026May 12, 2026Science & Tech
IMD unveils weather model to provide ‘block level’ forecast of monsoon journey
Ahead of the monsoon this year, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday unveiled a new forecast system that will, for the first time ever, generate ‘block’ level forecasts of the monsoon’s arrival over 15 States and comprising about half of India’s roughly 7,200-odd blocks. Historically such estimates are available, at best, over States or...
Post
May 12, 2026May 12, 2026Science & Tech
Cancer immunotherapy may reshape brain’s barrier to metastasis
Drugs that enhance the body’s immune response against cancer may also be altering one of its most tightly guarded boundaries: the blood-brain barrier (BBB). A recent study published by Yuval Shaked at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and his team, in Cancer Discovery, finds that PD-1 inhibitors, a widely used class of cancer immunotherapy, can...
