Category: Science & Tech

As Tamil Nadu approaches its Assembly elections, its ambition to become a $1-trillion economy and its position as one of India’s leading industrial and knowledge hubs means it’s worth examining how the State has invested in science and environmental issues in the last five years. First, the State’s strategy on environment and climate action has...

The earth’s magnetic field aids navigation but also protects the planet from high-energy radiation from the sun. For decades, geologists believed that when this field periodically flipped, swapping the north and south poles, the process happened relatively quickly, on the order of 10,000 years. However, a new study in Communications Earth & Environment has reported...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday (January 10, 2026) said its Aditya-L1 solar mission has provided new insights into how a powerful solar storm can impact Earth’s magnetic shield. “The most severe effects occurred during the impact of the turbulent region of the solar storm,” the space agency said in a statement. In...

As hotels, hostels, and community kitchens grapple with the unexpected shortage of LPG, those with electric cooking equipment feel they are in a safer position. Achal Sridharan, founder of CovaiCare retirement communities in Coimbatore, says if the situation turns worse, there will be no option but to go for electrical cooking. “It is a question...

– Sai Karthikeya Duggirala Albert Einstein’s equation E = mc2 says energy and mass are linked. If you push an object to go faster, you add energy to it. At everyday speeds, this just increases the object’s velocity. But as you approach the speed of light, the extra energy starts adding up to the object’s...

Test disfavours acrylonitrile cells in Titan lakes Computer models have suggested that acrylonitrile, an organic compound present on Saturn’s moon Titan, can self-assemble into cell-like structures. When scientists mixed it with liquid methane and ethane in cryogenic conditions like those on Titan, and observed no signs of membrane formation. Instead, acrylonitrile interacted with ethane to...

Researchers have found a way to hijack the natural protein-making facilities of bacteria to manufacture specific proteins of interest. They did this by turning a ‘nutrient gate’ on a bacterial cell into a Trojan horse that could ferry artificial amino acids into cells to make these proteins. The study, conducted by teams at ETH Zurich...

If the idea of lunar hummus seems far-fetched, think again. Scientists working to cultivate the field of extraterrestrial agriculture have grown chickpeas in dirt made mostly of simulated lunar soil, a step toward enabling astronauts on ‌long-term moon missions to produce their own food. Researchers said harvestable chickpeas were grown in soil mixtures composed primarily...