Artemis II mission: NASA is set to reveal the four astronauts selected for its Artemis III mission tonight, but the announcement carries more weight than a routine crew assignment. While most searches for Artemis-III astronauts point toward a long-awaited Moon landing crew, the reality being presented now is more complex. Artemis III is increasingly being…
Astronomers don’t treat every “close approach” headline the same way the public does. On June 9, two near-Earth objects, 2026 LD and 2026 KM3, are being tracked as they pass Earth at distances measured in millions of kilometres. On paper, they’re described as “aeroplane-sized,” a comparison that tends to amplify concern. But in orbital mechanics…
For decades, the Tasmanian tiger was portrayed as Australia’s most feared livestock predator. Farmers blamed it for dead sheep, newspapers described it as a menace to agriculture, and the Tasmanian government eventually paid cash rewards for its destruction. By the time the last known thylacine died at Hobart Zoo in September 1936, the species had…
The summer solstice doesn’t arrive with a visual cue you can easily notice from a rooftop or a backyard. In New York City, the sun might look slightly higher in the sky than the day before, but traffic still moves, trains still run, and most people only realise the moment has passed when it shows…
The path from a medical college in New Delhi to one of the most prestigious academic appointments in American medicine is rarely straightforward. Ravi Vij followed that journey while building a career dedicated to understanding and treating blood cancers. The Indian-origin physician-scientist was recently named the inaugural Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman Distinguished Professor…
At first glance, Mio looks like countless other small towns scattered across rural America. Fewer than 2,000 people live here and the surrounding landscape is dominated by forests and quiet roads. Yet this unassuming community in northern Michigan became the centre of one of the greatest conservation successes in modern history. Fifty years ago, the…
The microscopic yeast that could survive in association with a 5,300-year-old body feels unlikely, almost speculative. Yet the frozen remains of Ötzi, the Copper Age “Iceman” preserved in the Alps and housed in a controlled museum chamber in northern Italy, have provided scientists with an unexpected testing ground for that possibility. Over decades of study,…
Marc Aaronson (Image source: researchgate.net) There are certain quotes that make people pause because they seem to challenge a habit that most of us have. This quote by Marc Aaronson is one of them. It does not offer comfort. It does not suggest a careful plan. Instead, it asks readers to think about how much…
A commuter steps off a bus in midday heat, phone already at 12 percent, and no wall socket in sight. The scene is familiar in dense cities where charging infrastructure hasn’t kept up with device dependence. In that gap between mobility and power demand sits an idea that feels almost obvious once you see it:…
A spacecraft drifting past Neptune would not need much imagination to picture diamonds forming in its atmosphere. Deep inside ice giants, carbon compounds are squeezed under pressures that break molecular bonds and reorganise atoms into crystalline structures. In lab experiments and planetary simulations, scientists have modelled this “diamond rain” for decades, and missions like NASA’s…
