Science

Isaac Newton (Image: Wikipedia) Isaac Newton spent his entire career proving that the universe follows precise, predictable laws. Then he lost a fortune betting on people, and admitted the difference out loud. “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people,” he is reported to have said, after watching his…

Bumblebees may be carrying a far heavier burden of toxic metals than honeybees, even when both species forage in the same countryside. The research found that pollen collected by bumblebees contained between two and seven times higher concentrations of several harmful metals, including arsenic, chromium, lead and tin, compared with pollen gathered by nearby honeybees….

BENGALURU: Isro has completed the fifth Integrated Main Parachute Airdrop Test (IMAT-05), clearing another milestone towards the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission by qualifying the crew module’s main parachute system to withstand the maximum expected loads during descent.“The test, conducted on July 7 at the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) drop zone in Sheopur…

Seaweed is no longer just an aquatic flora, it has now transformed into a nuisance, especially for scientists. Sargassum, a genus of brown macroalgae that was once largely confined to the Sargasso Sea has evolved into the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt that stretches across 5,000 miles. In May alone, scientists detected 37.5 million tons of…

Mangrove forests rank among the world’s most valuable coastal ecosystems, shielding communities from storms, storing vast amounts of carbon and providing nurseries for countless marine species. For decades, scientists warned that these unique forests were disappearing faster than many tropical rainforests because of coastal development, aquaculture and pollution. Now, new satellite observations from Nasa present…

When roads, railways or new buildings are planned, centuries-old trees are often among the first casualties of development. In Japan, however, some of the country’s most valuable trees are given a second chance. Rather than cutting them down, arborists and horticultural experts sometimes relocate them using a painstaking process that can take months or even…

For years, the idea that Mars once held vast amounts of water has remained one of planetary science’s most persistent questions. Dry river valleys, mineral deposits, and ancient lake basins have all hinted that the planet looked very different billions of years ago, but proving the existence of a true ocean has been far more…

Scientists Invented a Disease to Test Whether A.I. Knew It Was Fake. Then, Chatbots Started Saying It Was Real A made-up eye disease has exposed a real problem with artificial intelligence.Researchers in Sweden deliberately invented a condition called bixonimania to see whether popular AI chatbots could recognise false medical information. Instead, several large language models…

“Gus” the T. rex—discovered on a cattle ranch in South Dakota—goes up for auction this summer, July 14, 2026. (Credit: Matthew Sherman / Sotheby’s) Owning one of the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons could soon become a reality. But there is a huge “if” factor to it. The buyer must having and willing to spend…

Albert Einstein (Image: Wikipedia) Albert Einstein wrote, “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” The line is a straightforward claim about where genuinely original work actually comes from. Not from committees, not from rigid instruction, and not from people working under constant supervision, but from…

Strange Spheres Washed Ashore on an Australian Beach. Authorities Say They’re Probably ‘Space Balls’ What began as an ordinary day in a small Australian beach town turned into an unusual investigation after six large metallic spheres washed ashore. The discovery forced residents to evacuate and raised fears that the objects could be dangerous.The shiny objects…

Scientists have long relied on chemical traces locked inside ancient rocks to piece together the story of early life. Fossils from the deepest reaches of Earth’s history are rare, often fragmentary and difficult to interpret. Isotopes, by contrast, can survive for billions of years. Among the most informative are those linked to nitrogen, an element…

Innovation often begins with solving problems that others consider impossible. For Dr Robert Sola Okojie, a Nigerian-born engineer and inventor, that pursuit has led to a career spanning more than two decades at Nasa and groundbreaking contributions to space technology. After 21 years at Nasa and securing 21 US patents, he was inducted into the…

From hundreds of kilometres above Earth, a national celebration looked very different. While crowds gathered across the United States for the country’s 250th anniversary, astronauts aboard the International Space Station watched the evening lights spread across the planet below. On July 4, as fireworks filled the skies over Los Angeles, the display became part of…

Far beyond Pluto, where sunlight is faint and temperatures remain extremely low, countless icy bodies drift through the outer reaches of the Solar System. These distant objects, known as trans-Neptunian objects, have long been viewed as frozen relics left over from the Solar System’s formation. Most are thought to be too small to hold onto…

Most years, skywatchers have to wait patiently for different celestial events to arrive one at a time. An eclipse might dominate one month, while a meteor shower steals attention weeks later. This August, however, the calendar has produced a rare overlap. On 12 August 2026, a solar eclipse will unfold across parts of the Northern…

The Cambridge team behind the living algae-powered bio-battery: Lucia Giron, Dr Paolo Bombelli and Professor Chris Howe. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a living bio-battery that generates electricity continuously using photosynthetic algae, offering a potential alternative to millions of disposable batteries used in everyday electronics. Unlike conventional batteries that gradually run out…

For decades, scientists believed the world’s tallest trees faced a fundamental disadvantage during drought. The higher a tree grows, the harder gravity makes it for water to travel from the roots to the leaves, leading researchers to assume that towering rainforest giants would be especially vulnerable as the climate becomes hotter and drier. A new…

Some of the world’s most advanced robots are preparing for an extraordinary expedition to one of the planet’s most dangerous environments. Beginning this July, a fleet of autonomous drones, robotic boats, underwater vehicles and intelligent sensors will travel to Greenland to investigate how its glaciers are melting where they meet the ocean. The mission, known…

For decades, astronomers have searched for the birthplace of globular clusters, the dense spherical collections of stars that orbit galaxies today. These ancient systems are among the oldest visible structures in the Universe, yet their earliest history remains surprisingly difficult to reconstruct. Most theories have focused on crowded regions inside young galaxies, where gas was…