This bird’s eye view shows the severely contaminated Adyar river flowing into the Bay of Bengal after cutting through Chennai’s Marina beach. Less than half a kilometre on either side, the river mouth is flanked by urban settlements. | Photo Credit: Google Earth Through history, human civilisations almost always erupted near bountiful rivers. The waters … Read more
Watch | Rain before its time, what’s really going on with the 2025 Monsoon? | Video Credit: Sabika Syed | Shikha Kumari A | Tayyab Hussain S M The Southwest Monsoon arrived in Kerala a full week early this year—on May 24, 2025. While early rain might sound like good news, this sudden shift raises … Read more
Awake all night? Taken a flight across time zones? Each of these events makes us tired, grumpy and out-of-sorts. A short nap may not be enough to catch up on either sleep or a sense of wellness, because the biological rhythm of the body has been disrupted. There are many biological rhythms in nature, one … Read more
In a groundbreaking discovery that could reshape our understanding of the immune system and pave the way for revolutionary new vaccines and drugs, scientists have characterised a previously less-understood immune cell with powerful regulatory functions. They have found that immune cells called TR1 cells play a dominant role in mounting an immune response to malaria. … Read more
The roots of addiction medicine began in the ancient civilisations of Africa and Europe. Special methods to care for persons addicted to alcohol were developed in ancient Egypt. There are references to individuals considering chronic intoxication as a sickness that enslaved the body and soul dating back to the fifth century BC. Native American healers … Read more
Lucknow Super Giants’ Rishabh Pant plays a shot during the IPL 2025 cricket match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Lucknow Super Giants, Lucknow, May 27, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI Quickly shaking the hand may briefly feel better. But depending on how hard the ball has struck the hand, instinctively shaking it may or may … Read more
In this undated photo, hieroglyphs are revealed in the three new graves of senior statesmen found in the Dra’ Abu al-Naga necropolis area in Luxor, Egypt. | Photo Credit: AP Egypt unveiled three new tombs of prominent statesman in the Dra Abu al-Naga necropolis in Luxor, officials said Monday. Egyptian archaeologists have discovered tombs dating … Read more
Representational image. File | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam The story so far: On April 17, the Tamil Nadu Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in Chennai, approved the Space Industrial Policy, thereby following Karnataka and Gujarat in formulating a State-specific document to stimulate development and woo investments in the space … Read more
The story so far: Last week, the India Meteorological Department said the southwest monsoon set in over Kerala on May 24, a week ahead of its normal onset. Since 1975, the earliest monsoon onset over Kerala occurred on May 19, 1990, 13 days ahead of schedule. Is there a secret sauce to the monsoon’s early … Read more
SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on May 27, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP SpaceX’s prototype Starship exploded over the Indian Ocean on Tuesday (May 27, 2025), capping another bumpy test flight for the rocket central to billionaire Elon Musk’s dream of colonising Mars. The biggest and most powerful launch … Read more