Category: Science & Tech

The story so far: In 1999, California-based Nvidia Corp. marketed a chip called GeForce 256 as “the world’s first GPU”. Its purpose was to make videogames run better and look better. In the 2.5 decades since, GPUs have moved from the discretionary world of games and visual effects to becoming part of the core infrastructure...

The Science Quiz: The science hidden in proverbs and idioms 1 / 6 | Name this hydrocarbon. It’s the reason “one bad apple spoils the bunch”: as an apple ripens, it releases more of this compound, which causes nearby fruit to ripen faster.

The linear no-threshold (LNT) model and the ALARA principle have served as the conceptual and operational foundations of the global radiation protection framework for many decades. The LNT model is a risk estimation framework that says any amount of ionising radiation, no matter how small, carries some risk of causing harm, especially cancer. In other...

– Gayatri Chandrashekar Shrubs and trees often flower and fruit more on the sunlit side because the planet’s energy budget on that side is different. Sunlit leaves capture more usable light so they photosynthesise more and make more sugars and starch. Buds and young fruits need that carbon supply to form and grow. On the...

When a sufficiently massive star runs out of fuel, its core collapses and triggers a supernova, a dramatic explosion that scatters the star’s outer layers into space. But scientists have long suspected that sometimes, the explosion fails and instead of a supernova, the star just… disappears. In a recent paper in Science, astronomers have reported...

A: In the Cryogenian Period (720-635 million years ago), some scientists believe the earth went through through episodes when ice covered even the tropical latitudes, and the world was called ‘snowball earth’. If the oceans were mostly frozen, it was also believed that the usual interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, sunlight, and climate patterns would...