A pedestrian wears a face mask amid a thick blanket of smog in New Delhi, November 18, 2024. | Photo Credit: AP A: Air pollution is increasingly being recognised as an important threat to brain health. Research has demonstrated that exposure to airborne pollutants like fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone can … Read more
In altermagnetic materials, atoms form a regular pattern with their spin and spatial orientation alternating on the neighbouring magnetic sites in the crystal. | Photo Credit: Libor Šmejkal (CC BY-SA) Some materials conduct electricity mainly with one kind of charge‑carrier everywhere: either negative electrons (n‑type) or positive ‘holes’ (p‑type). A rare class can breach this … Read more
In 2010, in the waters of Mono Lake in California, NASA-funded scientists claimed to have found a microbe called GFAJ-1 they said rewrote biology. It had allegedly replaced the phosphorus in its DNA with the toxic element arsenic. The announcement, made at a high-profile press conference on December 2 that year, stunned the world. The … Read more
A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley Quiz: Easy like Sunday morning | All about proteins What fibrous protein is the main structural material in many animals? START THE QUIZ 1 / 10 | … Read more
When gold is heated really quickly, it seems it remains solid at temperatures far beyond the point where it should have become liquid, a new study in Nature has found. The term for when a solid stays a solid at or beyond its melting point is superheating. Most materials can be superheated only in a … Read more
Bacteria are enclosed by protective cell walls, made from a unique substance called peptidoglycan. This material is absent in other life forms, including humans, which is why many antibiotics target it. A team of scientists led by Manjula Reddy at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, has found that bacteria sometimes make mistakes … Read more
From bones to immune cells, vitamin D is everywhere, guiding growth and shaping defence. But could it also have an effect on the mind? A major new study suggests so. Published in The Lancet Psychiatry, the study drew from the extraordinary depth of Danish health data to establish whether neonatal vitamin D levels might contribute … Read more
Image for representational purposes only. | Photo Credit: E. Lakshmi Narayanan The researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune (IITM Pune) have developed a Smart Irrigation Plan to save 10-30% of irrigation water in drought-prone regions, combining weather forecasts, satellite soil moisture data, … Read more
‘Conducting experiments on laboratory-grown anatomical parts would also help the development of the nascent field of tissue-engineering or regenerative medicine’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto As human beings are superior to animals, and as animals instinctively rely on the benevolence, goodwill, and protective nature of man, we must fulfil our obligation to treat our fellow … Read more
HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation, as imaged by ALMA. | Photo Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al. When rocky worlds like the earth began to form, dust in the young Solar System was first heated until it vaporised and then cooled so that the very … Read more