BENGALURU: When the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) wrapped up its high-altitude human behaviour simulation near Leh on April 9, much of the focus was on what it could reveal about crew psychology. Less visible was the role played by a Bengaluru-based firm that enabled the exercise on…
Forests seem sturdy and solid from the outside, but there might be something happening silently underneath. Some fungi can cause trees to decay internally and leave them weakened without showing any sign of it. Researchers are cautioning us that these seemingly insignificant beings could be pointing towards a more serious environmental problem, which is global…
Our oceans encompass over 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface area; however, the depths of the oceans represent one of mankind’s most mysterious frontiers. Under thousands of meters of water and tremendous pressure are many geological anomalies, biological marvels, and historically mysterious things that defy our existing scientific knowledge. Examples of this are the…
In terms of plant nutrition, the root system is traditionally viewed as the main access point to nutrients. Ground-breaking research, however, has demonstrated an additional survival strategy with elegant sophistication. Plants in some of the world’s highly nutrient-poor environments have developed a strategy for ‘eating’ minerals found in aerial dust and, subsequently, avoiding exhausted soil…
You walk into a room and suddenly feel every eye on you. Before you can even process what is happening, warmth rushes to your face. Your cheeks turn red, your skin tingles, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets. Blushing feels uncontrollable and often embarrassing, yet it is one of the…
Not only is the Universe expanding, but its expansion is actually happening at a speed higher than was thought possible until recently. For many years now, physicists have been trying to establish the speed of galaxy movement through the Hubble constant. But the different measurement results have posed a dilemma for modern physics, and it…
Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, has taken a notable step towards enabling sustained human presence beyond Earth by extracting oxygen from Moon-like soil in laboratory conditions. The development builds on years of scientific research into unlocking oxygen trapped within lunar minerals, which make up a large portion of the Moon’s surface. By producing oxygen…
Image: Left/Canva/Right/AI Generated Plastic waste on a global level amounts to hundreds of millions of tonnes annually, although very little of that is recycled. On the other hand, corrosive waste such as spent battery acid from used cars is rendered neutral and disposed of. However, scientists now have devised an ingenious process that addresses both…
Although many people consider the cosmos to be a peaceful, stunning environment, the truth behind its appearance offers an incomprehensible universe with extreme events. For instance, there are the undead stars (or zombie stars) that consume energy from their star neighbours, and there are enormous galaxies that may contain thousands of Milky Ways. Therefore, the…
Stanley Milgram’s 1961–62 Yale University experiment tested obedience, where participants believed they delivered painful electric shocks to others under authority. In the early 1960s, a deceptively simple question took shape inside a laboratory at Yale University: how far would an ordinary person go if instructed by an authority figure to harm someone else? The answer,…
