Category: Science & Tech

The US recently announced plans under its Lunar Fission Surface Power Project to deploy a small nuclear reactor on the moon by the early 2030s. It could be the first attempt to establish a permanent nuclear power source beyond earth orbit, signalling the start of a new era in space. While solar energy can power...

On November 30, Australian cricketer Steven Smith was spotted wearing eye-black strips while training for the forthcoming pink-ball Ashes Test match in Brisbane. These strips are pasted over the cheekbone and reduce the glare created by light reflected off the skin by more than half. They were popularised in the previous decade by West Indies...

How does the human mind process climate change? Is the apathy reflected in people’s disengagement from inequality, disruption, and social change? Midway through his PhD, Rachit Dubey, now an assistant professor at the department of communication, University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), “shifted away from traditional cognitive science topics to tackle broader, interdisciplinary challenges around adaptation...

In a landmark paper in Science on May 20, 1983, researchers reported they had isolated a “retrovirus” from a patient at risk of developing AIDS. The work, led by French virologists Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier at the Institut Pasteur, was the first glimpse of what would become one of the most devastating pathogens in...

Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla has said the next five to 10 years are going to be defining times for India as far as space exploration is concerned, as a lot of things are going to happen. In an interactive session on the sidelines of space startup Skyroot’s facility inauguration in Hyderabad on November 27, Mr....

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that it has secured a record budget of 22.1 billion euros to fund its programmes for the next three years, as the continent seeks greater independence in space. The ESA also approved a plan to bolster defence cooperation and laid out plans for scientific space missions at a...

Scientists conducting a field survey in Manipur’s Imphal West district have discovered fossil evidence indicating that thorniness in bamboo was already present in Asia during the Ice Age, a government release said. Researchers from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP), an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), found a bamboo...

Scientists have solved the mystery of 3.4 million-year-old fossils called the “Burtele Foot” discovered in Ethiopia in 2009, finding they belonged to an enigmatic human ancestor that lived alongside another closely related species during a poorly understood time in human evolution. Based on the recent discovery nearby of 25 teeth and the jawbone of a...