Author: auto_blogs

A SpaceX capsule carrying NASA astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, U.S., on March 18. | Photo Credit: NASA The recent safe return of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore after a nine-month stay onboard the International Space Station (ISS) underscored the importance of following safety protocols. While these protocols were hidden from view, they allowed NASA to make sure that the astronauts were not harmed physically or mentally in the course of their unpredictable Starliner test mission. The Indian…

One of the most powerful objects in the universe is a radio quasar – a spinning black hole spraying out highly energetic particles. Come too close to one, and you’d get sucked in by its gravitational pull, or burn up from the intense heat surrounding it. But ironically, studying black holes and their jets can give researchers insight into where potentially habitable worlds might be in the universe.As an astrophysicist, I’ve spent two decades modelling how black holes spin, how that creates jets, and how they affect the environment of space around them.What are black holes?Black holes are massive, astrophysical…

The invention of silicon chips revolutionised communications. Even today they are the cornerstone of the technologies we use to move information around the world.The way they work has changed significantly, however. They have become better: for a long time this was because experts improved its hardware to operate as efficiently as possible. But more recently, researchers have started to replace the electrons with photons, the particles of light, as the agents responsible for storing and manipulating information.Thus today we have silicon photonics with valuable applications in data centres and sensors as well as potential ones in quantum computing. Silicon photonics…

In one way or another, all living people on the earth can trace their ancestry to Africa and therefore carry some portion of African ancestral DNA — some to a significant degree, others less so. If we all originated from the same African ancestors, why do we look so different?Imagine two grains of paddy, one red and one blue. You plant them in two isolated locations, and each grows into a healthy rice plant, producing bags of red and blue rice, respectively. The next time, you sow a field with thousands of these red and blue grains. You no longer…

Leptobrachium aryatium, a new-to-science frog recorded from a reserve forest on the edge of Guwahati. Photo: Special Arrangement GUWAHATI A study spanning 21 years has yielded a new species of frog named after an Assam college that helped a locality shed its identity as a hub of country liquor production.Guwahati’s Aryanagar used to be called Sharabbhati, meaning a place for brewing liquor. The locality was renamed in 2022 to give it the respectability that the local authorities felt Arya Vidyapeeth College, one of Assam’s most reputed educational institutions in the vicinity, deserved.Leptobrachium aryatium, a new-to-science frog recorded in the Garbhanga…

Since Donald Trump regained the U.S. presidency, he has coveted Greenland. Trump has insisted that the U.S. will control the island, currently an autonomous territory of Denmark, and if his overtures are rejected, perhaps seize Greenland by force.During a recent congressional hearing, senators and expert witnesses focused on Greenland’s strategic value and its natural resources: critical minerals, fossil fuels and hydropower. No one mentioned the hazards, many of them exacerbated by human-induced climate change, that those longing to possess and develop the island will inevitably encounter.That’s imprudent, because the Arctic’s climate is changing more rapidly than anywhere on the earth.…

For her PhD research, bat biologist Kadambari Deshpande made overnight recordings of bat echolocation calls in the Western Ghats. A “good night” would generate about 30 GB of data from 11 hours of recording with a bat detector. To process the data, Deshpande would go through several one-minute recordings, scanning every millisecond for bat calls, and make notes on the species and other information on their behaviour and ecology.“It took me 11 months to process 20 nights of data,” Deshpande said. “BatEchoMon can probably give me that in a few hours.”BatEchoMon, short for “Bat Echolocation Monitoring”, is an autonomous system…

Did you know that the word “atom” originates from the Greek word “atomos”? The Greek word means uncuttable or indivisible and the choice of the word comes more from philosophical concepts than from scientific studies. Atoms, as you might well have studied in school, comprise subatomic particles. The first nuclear transmutation of one element (lithium) to another (helium) under complete human control was achieved by physicists John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton on April 14, 1932. John Cockcroft Born on May 27, 1897, Cockcroft came from a family of cotton manufacturers in Todmorden in northern England. He went through a varied educational…

Two old African elephants, Bully (left) and Susi, stand inside the Barcelona Zoo in Spain, March 27, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP At the Barcelona Zoo, a 40-year-old African elephant places her foot through the metal barrier where a zookeeper gently scrubs its sole — the beloved pachyderm gets her “pedicure”, along with apple slices every day.The treatment is part of the zoo’s specialised geriatric care for aging animals that cannot be reintroduced into the wild as zoos world over increasingly emphasise lifelong care.“Sending them back into nature would be an error,” said Pilar Padilla, head of the zoo’s mammal…

Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images The story so far: The preliminary findings of the GenomeIndia project, which attempted to study whole genomes of 10,000 healthy and unrelated Indians from 83 population groups, were published in the journal Nature Genetics on April 8. After excluding two populations, the published findings are based on the genetic information of 9,772 individuals — 4,696 male participants and 5,076 female participants.When was it launched? The 10,000-human genome study was launched in January 2020 with funding from the Department of Biotechnology. Blood samples and associated phenotype data such as weight, height, hip circumference, waist circumference…