Tag: Science

— Akarsh A: People often make oddly tense facial expressions when putting eye drops in their own eyes because the activity significantly tasks the nervous system. To place a drop in your eye, you need to control yourself while something approaches a sensitive part of your face. People instinctively tense their facial muscles and may...

In the imagination of children, flying holds a special place. Folded pieces of paper become airplanes ready to be launched, eager gazes follow soaring eagles, and dragonflies are the helicopters of their fantasies. Dragonflies (called sitara in Hindi) are indeed wonders of flight. These insects belong to a lineage whose members were among the planet’s...

India’s laboratories are expanding, research funding is growing, start-ups are emerging, and Indian researchers are increasingly contributing to scientific knowledge. Amid this expansion, who is preparing scientists to become leaders? A researcher may spend years mastering experimental techniques, analysing data, publishing papers, and writing research proposals. But when that researcher becomes a principal investigator, a...

(This article forms a part of the Science for All newsletter that takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Subscribe now!)  Birds have long fascinated scientists and nature lovers alike with the rich variety of sounds they produce. From melodic songs to sharp alarm calls, bird vocalisations serve a variety of...

Dolly Parton’s most enduring contribution to science, from a public point of view, is probably Dolly, the cloned sheep. Though that was a reference to her prominent mammaries, a fact she reacted to with her characteristic good humour, despite the controversy, but the whole story is that Dolly Parton, singer, celebrity, and philanthropist, who died...

In the heart of the Western Ghats lies a rare conglomeration of freshwater swamps, restricted to a patch in Kulathupuzha, Kerala: it consists of plants with pneumatophores (aerial roots that grow vertically out of water) and stilt roots adapted to waterlogged conditions and they support a plethora of fauna. They are ecologically crucial in regulating...

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is India’s preeminent digital payments system. In July 2026 alone, it processed 2,366 crore transactions — or around 7,600 transactions per second — in total worth nearly ₹30 lakh crore. Across the 2025-26 financial year, UPI handled 24,160 crore transactions worth ₹314 lakh crore, accounting for 85% of the country’s...

The world needs more mega-science projects, said Director-General of CERN, Mark Thomson, during his visit to Mumbai on Monday (August 31, 2026) for the India premiere of ‘The Peace Particle’, a documentary on CERN. The documentary was premiered at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. During the programme, Mr. Thomson also delivered an address on...

In a new study, scientists have found small, short-lived brightenings in the Sun’s atmosphere that appear in the hours before a major solar flare erupts and cluster around the very spot where the flare later occurs. The study was carried out by researchers from the Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences and Manipal Academy of Higher...

NASA is preparing to launch its next flagship space observatory — one scientists plan to use to investigate some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including dark energy and dark matter, while also testing gravity at vast scales and hunting ​for planets beyond our solar system. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a roughly $4...