It was the clash of two intellectual titans that left behind a trail of ambiguity on the scientific and philosophical landscapes of the 20th century. It muddied the waters more than it helped clear the air surrounding the discourse about the nature and meaning of something they disagreed on: time. Both suffered blows. Albert Einstein … Read more
The year 2024 was the warmest year on record in Asia, with widespread and prolonged heatwaves, the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report states. In 2024, heatwaves gripped a record area of the ocean, the report said. The global mean temperature in 2024 was the highest on record for … Read more
The newly discovered gecko species | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT A new species of gecko, believed to be present only around Coonoor, has been discovered in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. Published in ‘Bionimina’, Dravidogecko coonoor is the formal name of the “…distinct population of Dravidogecko in Coonoor Hills of the Upper Nilgiris, Western Ghats, … Read more
Traditional livestock production systems have severe environmental consequences, including high greenhouse gas emissions, extensive land and water use, and risk of fostering antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Together with the steadily rising demand for nutrition, global and regional food systems have been exploring alternative ways to sustainably maintain their supply chains. Insect-based feed has emerged as one … Read more
India could be technologically capable of “quantum communication” using satellites in the “next half a decade” Professor Bhaskar Kanseri of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, whose team recently reported an instance of quantum key distribution one kilometre apart — the farthest such transmission in India, without any connecting cables — told The Hindu in … Read more
Close-up view of air bubbles in a variety of shapes frozen inside a mass of ice. | Photo Credit: Dominic Bazinet/Unsplash For as long as humans have lived, they’ve found ways to store information for others to find. Cave paintings were perhaps the first examples, followed later by messages in bottles, semaphore, books, persistent URLs, … Read more
Charon’s discovery The story of Charon’s discovery takes us back to 1978 – a time when even astronomers were still thinking that Pluto was a planet. Little was known about Pluto and its system, but all that was about to change in the decades that followed. On the morning of June 22, American astronomer … Read more
By the time Nishant Narayanasamy joined Shashi Thutupalli’s lab at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru in 2019, the lab had a new guest: a yeast colony that had seemingly grown way beyond its expected size. The snowflake yeast had been shipped from William Ratcliff’s laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology … Read more
A farmer works at a maize field in a village bordering Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, April 20, 2025. | Photo Credit: G.N. Rao/The Hindu For every 1º C rise in average temperature worldwide, the per person availability of calories will fall 4% of what’s recommended by 2100. Most major staple crops, including rice, wheat, sorghum, maize, and … Read more
