Mosquitoes annoy almost everyone. And sometimes, you might notice that you are getting far more mosquito bites than your friend sitting right next to you in the same room. It can feel unfair, but let’s clear up a common myth first: it is not because your blood is “sweet.” In reality, mosquitoes do not choose...
Tag: Children
Why does water stay cool in a claypot even in peak summers?
Summers are here, and with them comes an endless thirst. We drink more water than usual and cold water feels almost magical in the heat. Quick fun fact: when you drink cold water, it absorbs heat from your body as it warms up, helping lower your core temperature slightly. At the same time, temperature sensors...
T. K. Radha: from Kerala to Oppenheimer
In the late 1930s, in a small corner of Thayyur, Thrissur, a couple had their third girl child, and no one ever predicted that she would later become one of the first Indian women and Malayali to meet the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. This is the story of T.K Radha. Growing...
What is ‘The Wow!’ signal?
If you are a distinguished member of the “I think about extraterrestrial life all the time!” fraternity and don’t know about ‘The Wow!” signal, then you have some catching up to do. E.T Evolved from the ideas of the ‘alien’, the SETI or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is the endeavour — diverse efforts, projects, etc....
Bibha Chowdhuri: a barrier breaker in STEM
A young girl was born in the early 1900s in Kolkata, an era when girls were barely given an education and were often pushed into marriages at a very young age. She, however, stood out and went on to become one of the first Indian women to obtain a postgraduate degree in physics. This is...
Women’s Day Special | ‘The greatest freedom is intellectual independence’
Meet D. Indumathi, a physicist who has spent decades exploring some of the universe’s most elusive particles, neutrinos. Recently retired, she built her career in high-energy physics, asking questions that most of us wouldn’t even know how to frame. Physics is often seen as intimidating — abstract, mathematical, distant. But Indumathi approaches it with clarity...
Shining a light on the life of C.V. Raman
A prodigious student Born on November 7,1888, in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman displayed remarkable brilliance from the beginning. As Physics and academia ran in the family (his father, R. Chandrasekhar Iyer, was a lecturer in Physics and Mathematics), he was drawn to Physics. He went on to earn gold medals in his Bachelor’s and...
How an Indian start-up sparked a global girls’ space mission
If there’s one thing that keeps Dr. Srimathy Kesan going, it is her “unwavering desire to create a platform for girls who are curious about space exploration and deep tech”. The CEO and founder of Space Kidz India, a Chennai-based aerospace and defence start-up pioneering in the launch of small satellites and spacecraft, is all...
National Science Day| An astrophysicist’s journey from starlight to solving the solar neutrino puzzle
From childhood inspiration to working at the Institute for Advanced Study — once home to Albert Einstein — she reflects on curiosity, challenges, and uncovering the Sun’s deepest secrets. The Sun is right under our noses, so to speak, and when one thinks of astrophysics, one thinks of more distant celestial objects. What made you curious...
National Science Day | What do scientists do?
Everyone knows scientists are in the business of “discovering” things. But what exactly do they do? When I was growing up in a small village in Kerala, there were no scientists around to ask this question. Even now, my friends ask me this question, half joking, half curious. I often laugh it off and change...
