Tag: Science

Every few minutes, aircraft descend over densely populated neighbourhoods near India’s major airports. For the people here, the noise has been almost constant for years, often even continuing through the night. India’s aviation and environmental regulations require airports to map the aircraft noise exposure using decibel contours — maps showing how the air pressure varies...

In 1799, during the storming of the fortress of Seringapatam, British troops broke through the defences of Srirangapatna and killed Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore. The palace inventories compiled in the aftermath record jewels, weapons, manuscripts and textiles of startling colour. Officers wrote with particular fascination about the intensity of the dyed fabrics stored in...

Two new studies, published in Nature and Nature Geoscience, have found that as climate change concentrates rainfall into fewer, more intense events, the land below may face a double whammy. In their May 13 paper in Nature, Dartmouth College, U.S., researchers concluded that more concentrated rain can reduce the amount of water stored in soils...

A: A birthmark is a coloured mark on the skin that is either present at birth or develops shortly afterwards. Most are completely harmless and painless. While some of them may fade over time, others stay for life. Birthmarks are essentially ‘mistakes’ in the development of skin cells or blood vessels. They generally fall in...

Physicists have spent more than two decades studying one of the strangest forms of matter ever created in a laboratory: the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Quarks and gluons are the smallest pieces of matter. A QGP existed in the first few millionths of a second after the Big Bang, before the quarks bound together to form...

As we grow older, our cognitive abilities begin to wane. We forget names and places, lose trains of thought, and become creatures of habit. A key to overcoming these ageing-induced cognitive deficits may be exercise. “Exercise improves cardiovascular fitness, glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, lipid profiles, sleep, mood, and immune function,” Atefe Tari, a...

For the first time in about four billion years of life on the earth, one species is learning not just to read the book of life but to write new versions. Our quest to understand and explain the natural world has always carried a double consequence: every success also enhances our ability to change the...

Tyrannosaurus rex was a huge land predator during the twilight of the age of dinosaurs. But it was not the only T. rex that terrorised the Cretaceous Period. ​There also was a marine reptile named Tylosaurus rex – the T. rex of the sea – that rivalled its land counterpart in size and ferocity. Scientists...

Elephants’ decline portends dung beetle co-extinction Elephants are keystone species that sustain savannah ecosystems. A long-term study in East Africa has reported that dung beetles depend heavily on elephant dung. Following a 15-year field experiment, researchers concluded that beetle species richness dropped by 23%, and total beetle biomass fell by 51% sans elephant dung. Smaller...

Guwahati The red-orange pigment from carrots can make fake ghee dodge a popular quality test to pass off as a premium product sourced from cows, a new study has found. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, have demonstrated that non-dairy fats, such as palm oil and lard...