The word ‘robot’ evokes images of human-like manmade metallic machine (humanoid) designed and programmed to automatically perform some tasks for us. However, robots (or bots) can be of any shape or size and can be made of any material (including biological materials such as livin … | Continue reading
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) has concluded with an agreement named The UAE Consensus, that sets out an ambitious climate agenda to keep 1.5°C within reach. This calls on Parties to transition away from fossil fuels to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Perh … | Continue reading
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), popularly known as United Nations Climate Change Conference, currently being held in UAE has announced several initiatives and partnerships aimed at sustainable urban development … | Continue reading
Merger of two black holes has three stages: inspiral, merger and ringdown phases. Characteristic gravitational waves are emitted in each phase. The last ringdown phase is very brief and encode information about properties of final black hole. Reanalysis of data from binary black … | Continue reading
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or United Nations Climate Change Conference is being held at Expo City, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It began on 30th November 2023 and will continue till 12th December 2023 … | Continue reading
A new vaccine, R21/Matrix-M has been recommended by the WHO for the prevention of malaria in children. Earlier in 2021, WHO had recommended RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine for prevention of malaria in children. This was the first malaria vaccine to be recommended. R21/Matrix-M is … | Continue reading
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” Quantum dots are nanoparticles, tiny semiconductor particles, a few nanometres in size between 1.5 and 10.0 nm (1nm is … | Continue reading
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”. An attosecond is one quintillionth of a second (equal to 1×10 … | Continue reading
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 has been awarded jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”. Both Katalin Karikó and … | Continue reading
Matter is subject to gravitational attraction. Einstein’s general relativity had predicted that antimatter also should fall to Earth in the same way. However, there was no direct experimental evidence so far to show that. ALPHA experiment at CERN is the first direct experiment to … | Continue reading
NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, launched seven years ago in 2016 to near-Earth asteroid Bennu has delivered the asteroid sample that it collected in 2020 to Earth on 24th September 2023. After releasing the asteroid sample into Earth’s atmosphere, the spa … | Continue reading
The United Kingdom and the European Commission (EC) have reached an agreement on the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe (EU’s research and innovation) programme and Copernicus (EU’s Earth observation) programme. This is in line with the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. … | Continue reading
Oxygen-28 (28O), the heaviest rare isotope of oxygen has been detected for the first time by Japanese researchers. Unexpectedly it was found to be short-lived and unstable despite meeting the “magic” number criteria of nuclear stability. Oxygen has many isotopes; all have 8 pro … | Continue reading
Kākāpō parrot (also known as “owl parrot” because of its owl-like facial features) is a critically endangered parrot species native to New Zealand. It is an unusual animal for it is the longest living birds in the world (may live up to 90 years of age). Weighing about 3-4 Kg, it … | Continue reading
Between 1958 and 1978, USA and former USSR sent 59 and 58 moon missions respectively. The lunar race between the two ceased in 1978. End of cold war and collapse of former Soviet Union and subsequent emergence of new multi-polar world order has seen renewed interests in moon mis … | Continue reading
India’s lunar lander Vikram (with rover Pragyan) of Chandrayaan-3 mission has safely soft landed at high latitude lunar surface on south pole along with respective payloads. This is first lunar mission to land on high latitude lunar south pole where presence of water/ice is confi … | Continue reading
Wearable devices have become prevalent and are increasingly gaining ground. These devices usually interface biomaterials with electronics. Some wearable electro-magnetic devices act as mechanical energy harvesters to supply energy. Currently, no “direct electro-genetic interface” … | Continue reading
NASA’s mission update on 05th August 2023 said Voyager 2 communications has paused. Communications should resume once the spacecraft’s antenna is realigned with Earth in mid-October 2023. On 4th August 2023, NASA had reestablished full communications with Voyager 2 following an … | Continue reading
Parthenogenesis is asexual reproduction in which genetic contribution from male is dispensed with. Eggs develop to offspring on their own without being fertilised by a sperm. This is seen in nature in some species of plants, insects, reptiles etc. In facultative parthenogenesis t … | Continue reading
Information about “family and kinship” systems (which is routinely studied by social anthropology and ethnography) of prehistoric societies is unavailable due to obvious reasons. Tools of ancient DNA research along with archaeological contexts have successfully reconstructed fami … | Continue reading
Some organisms have ability to suspend life processes when under adverse environmental conditions. Called cryptobiosis or suspended animation, it is a survival tool. Organisms under suspended animation revive when environmental conditions become favourable. In 2018, viable nemato … | Continue reading
Non-native English speakers face several barriers in conducting activities in science. They are at disadvantages in reading papers in English, writing and proofreading manuscripts, and preparing and making oral presentations in conferences in English. With little support availabl … | Continue reading