Eighty million years ago humans, rats, and mice shared the same mammalian ancestor. More recently, researchers made the astonishing discovery that even today our genomes contain close to 500 segments that have remained totally unchanged since then. These segments are called ultra-conserved elements (UCEs). Nearly all the UCEs are also highly unchanged in the chicken … Read more
Environmental activists take part in a flash mob at Circo Massimo as the COP16 biodiversity conference resumes at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters in Rome, February 25, 2025. | Photo Credit: AFP Global talks to protect nature restarted Tuesday with a call for humanity to come together to “sustain life on the … Read more
Sci-Five | The Hindu Science Quiz: On Fibonacci 1 / 5 | What are the first five numbers of the Fibonacci sequence? 0, 1, 1, 2, 3 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 The first five numbers of the Fibonacci sequence are 0, 1, 1, 2, … Read more
More often than not, you may happen to hear a crack or a pop from your joints, especially during your PT or PE period and yoga classes. You might have been chided or even scolded for cracking your knuckles and been told it’ll lead to arthritis. Today, let’s explore the real reason behind our noisy … Read more
This April 2024 image provided by NASA shows the SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) telescope at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colo. | Photo Credit: AP NASA will soon launch a new telescope which it says will create the “most colourful” map of the cosmos ever made. The SPHEREx … Read more
Encounters between baboons and people are common in parts of South Africa. WhatsApp groups often share stories of baboons raiding a kitchen and stealing all the food. And stories appear in the media about the torture and killing of baboons. Recently the hashtag #JusticeForRaygun has been widely shared on social media. A young male baboon named Raygun was being tracked as … Read more
Do artists and scientists see the same thing in the shape of trees? As a scientist who studies branching patterns in living things, I’m starting to think so. Piet Mondrian was an early 20th-century abstract artist and art theorist obsessed with simplicity and essence of form. Even people who have never heard of Mondrian will likely recognize his … Read more
Space is about to get more crowded for Elon Musk. The billionaire’s Starlink communications network is facing increasingly stiff challenges to its dominance of high-speed satellite internet, including from a Chinese state-backed rival and another service financed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Shanghai-based SpaceSail in November signed an agreement to enter Brazil and announced it … Read more
An illustration shows a hypothetical picture of Mars 3.6 billion years ago when an ocean may have covered nearly half the planet, released February 24, 2025. The blue areas show the depth of the ocean filled to the shoreline level of the ancient, now-gone sea, dubbed Deuteronilus. The orange star represents the landing site of … Read more
Time measurements and calendars have often been refined over the years. | Photo Credit: Alexey Savchenko/Unsplash A: A tropical year is the time (365.242199 days) the earth takes to revolve around the sun once. By having just 365 days in a calendar year, 0.242199 days are lost each year. To correct this error, Julius Caesar … Read more