The moa were a group of giant flightless birds that lived in New Zealand. They disappeared from Earth about 600 years ago, not long after humans settled the islands and radically changed the ecosystems. The largest species were more than three meters tall and had a major ecological role long before the Polynesian hunters caused…
BENGALURU: Scientists from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) reported an advance in the long quest to move electronics beyond silicon, by creating molecular-scale devices that can adapt their behaviour and perform multiple computing functions within the same material.In a study that brings together chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering, the IISc team has demonstrated tiny electronic…
The venom of black widow spiders can cause an array of symptoms in humans. (Image credit: Kimberly Hosey/Getty Images) Most encounters with black widow spiders happen by accident, a hand in a shed, a brush against a web. In one rare and extreme case documented by clinicians, a woman deliberately introduced black widow venom directly…
Dreams of space travel often start with rockets and starry views, not dental chairs. Yet for astronauts, small and ordinary parts of the body can become serious concerns once Earth is far behind. Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station, recently spoke about one such detail that rarely makes headlines….
On record 2025 as one of the most amazing years in contemporary astronomy, providing findings that would turn our collective understanding of our planet and our place within our galaxy on its head. Ranging from finding a rare interstellar comet passing through our solar system to hints that point towards signs of past life on…
January tends to pass quietly for most people, but above Earth, it rarely does. The International Space Station keeps moving, orbit after orbit, while small changes continue to shape its future. Early in the year, two planned spacewalks will take place outside the station, part routine work, part long-term preparation. Before any astronaut steps outside,…
17-year-old boy in the Netherlands temporarily lost the ability to speak his native Dutch after waking from knee surgery/ Representative image When a 17-year-old boy in the Netherlands woke up from routine knee surgery, hospital staff initially noticed something unusual but not alarming. Instead of speaking Dutch, his native language, he was communicating only in…
The rolled-up piece of lead contains inscriptions that are barely visible to the naked eye. (Image credit: Archeology in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (AIM-V)) The discovery came from a place no one expected to yield anything remarkable. During routine excavation work for an extension to Rostock’s town hall, archaeologists lifted an unassuming, tightly rolled strip of lead…
Breakthroughs in scientific research are not always made in experienced laboratories and research teams. Occasionally, they are made by new eyes that are eager to challenge how data is analysed. This is exactly what happened when Matteo Paz, a teenager from the United States, used AI to re-analyse data from NASA’s now-retired research project. Given…
Meteor showers promise a diverse and exciting year for sky gazing in 2026, ranging from brief and bright outbursts at rapid rates to prolonged and faint displays spread throughout the year. These phenomena are produced when Earth intersects with trails of debris trailed by comets and asteroids, which then result in the fragmentation and ignited…
There is a moment each year when the Arctic stops reflecting light and starts holding it. It does not announce itself. Satellites notice first. Then, researchers begin to compare notes. By late summer, the ice that once covered much of the Arctic Ocean has thinned and retreated again, but this time the loss feels sharper….
Some questions arrive quietly. When is the next full Moon 2026 is one of them. It usually turns up while scanning a calendar or noticing the moon hanging a little brighter than usual. The full moon does not announce itself loudly. It simply shows up, round and pale, pulling attention for a few nights before…
Winter often feels like a long stretch of weak light and cold air. The idea that Earth is actually closest to the Sun during this time can sound wrong, almost misleading. January mornings do not feel warmer because of a smaller gap in space. Yet every year, quietly and without drama, Earth reaches that closer…
Credit – NASA39037_Mars-viking-orbiter-olympus-mons-volcano On some Mars images, Olympus Mons does not look dramatic at first glance. It sits there quietly, a wide pale rise against rust coloured plains. No sharp peak. No obvious violence. Only when scale is added does it begin to feel strange. This single volcano rises higher than anything on Earth and…
It could be the largest lunar impact event in 5,000 years.If it hits in December 2032, asteroid 2024 YR4 — believed to be 60 metres in diameter — may release the energy equivalent of six million tonnes of TNT, 400 times the power of the bomb over Hiroshima, and leave the Moon with a new…
1 Ship to breach Earth’s CRUST Next year, a 600-foot Chinese research vessel will set sail to find the perfect site from where it will start drilling down to the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (Moho), the boundary between Earth’s crust and mantle. Scientists have been trying to breach Moho since 1961 to study tectonic activity. Moho lies…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recently discovered a rare exoplanet, whose composition has baffled scientists as it defies all explanations. Officially named PSR J2322-2650b, the Jupiter-sized planet is outside our solar system and its atmospheric composition challenges our understanding of how it was formed. It orbits a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star,…
Wormholes are one of science fiction’s favourite cheats. Need characters to cross impossible distances? Skip years of travel? Break reality without saying “magic”? Introduce a wormhole.By Season 5 of Stranger Things, the show finally joins a long cinematic tradition. Up to Episode 8, it reframes the Upside Down not as a spooky parallel world but…
Source: Babraham University Implantation, one of the most poorly understood phases of early human development, occurs in the depths of the womb, at a time when embryos are microscopic and well out of reach. Until recently, much of what was known about this critical moment came from limited indirect evidence. Babraham University researchers have taken…
The asteroid Apophis, also known as 99942 Apophis, will have its historic close approach to Earth on Friday, the 13th of April 2029. With its diameter at approximately 375 meters, this NEA will be reaching Earth at a distance of about 32,000 kilometres, just over a tenth of the distance to the Moon. Initial estimates…
