Science

New research has found that it is possible for people to learn click-based echolocation in just 10 weeks. This worked for people at very different ages, and this was shown to be a skill anyone could learn, not just the visually impaired. For the longest time, bats and dolphins were the two commonly cited examples by

A gigantic dinosaur discovered in Australia’s outback has been identified as a new species and recognised as one of the largest to ever roam the Earth, according to palaeontologists. The Australotitan cooperensis, part of the titanosaur family that lived about 100 million years ago, has finally been named and described 15 years after its bones

A team of scientists in Namibia, in southwest Africa, has recorded a phenomenal cosmic explosion, the brightest so far, of gamma radiation from a collapsing star. They said usually these explosions occur when a massive star — five or 10 times the mass of the Sun – abruptly detonates and turns into a black hole.

A team of scientists from Bengaluru’s Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) has developed a device that can emulate the cognitive actions of a human brain, and is more efficient than conventional techniques. The new AI technology enhances computational speed and power consumption efficiency. The team fabricated an artificial synaptic network (ASN), resembling the

Jeff Bezos has announced he will be flying to space with his brother on July 20. The former Amazon CEO will be among the travellers on the first passenger flight of Blue Origin. Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket system named New Shepard will take its first astronaut crew to space along with Bezos and his

A team of scientists at New Culture, a San Francisco-based startup, is set to modernise the art of cheesemaking. The scientists are aiming to launch what they describe as animal-free Mozzarella by late 2023. The creation of “real cow cheese without the cow” involves the fermentation process to create casein, leading to a piece of

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has invented a fibre with digital capabilities that can sense, store, analyse, and infer activities after it’s sewn into a shirt. Yoel Fink, professor and principal investigator at the Research Laboratory of Electronics and a senior author on the study, said that these fibres

A new study has found that a single mysterious event about 19 million years ago wiped nearly the entire population of sharks. Scientists behind the new research say that studying the shark teeth buried in deep-sea sediment, revealed that the current diversity among sharks is only a tiny remnant of a much larger variety that

Whatever or whoever they are, they’re still out there. US intelligence is after them, but its upcoming report won’t deliver any full or final truth about UFOs. The tantalising prospect of top government intel finally weighing in — after decades of conspiracy theories, TV shows, movies and winking jokes by presidents — will instead yield

Nasa’s 31-year-old Hubble Space Telescope has made another incredible discovery — it has found a “lopsided” spiral galaxy that has been deformed by the gravitational tug of another nearby galaxy. NASA has shared the stunning image of the galaxy called “NGC 2276”, which is located in the constellation Cepheus, about 120 million light-years away from

Researchers at Australia’s Queensland Museum have found a new, adorable frog species in the swampy, lowland forests of New Guinea. Named the “chocolate frog”, it has big, cartoonish eyes and its skin is the colour of milk chocolate. The candy-coloured amphibian is closely related to the green tree frog that’s common in Australia. The researchers

NASA’s long-awaited flagship observatory — the James Webb Space Telescope — is slated for take-off after October this year, as the space agency continues its talks with the European Space Agency (ESA) to fix a final launch date. This comes after their initial announcement in July last year in which the Webb Telescope was due

SpaceX launched thousands of tiny sea creatures to the International Space Station on Thursday, along with a plaque-fighting toothpaste experiment and powerful solar panels. The 7,300-pound (3,300-kilogram) shipment — which also includes fresh lemons, onions, avocados, and cherry tomatoes for the station’s seven astronauts — should arrive Saturday. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted into the hazy

A team of scientists at Columbia University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering has made a major breakthrough and developed a robot that can smile, smirk, raise eyebrows, and mimic the forehead wrinkles of humans. The artificial intelligence-powered robot, named Eva, can emulate human facial expressions to an extent not seen before in the field of robotics.

A team of researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research in Kobe, Japan, may have just found an answer to hair loss and baldness woes. While many methods have been devised in the past to address hair-related issues, this one is unique, for it’s a recipe for continuous cyclical regeneration of hair follicles

The UK’s Royal Navy is testing the accuracy and effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) to defeat missile attacks for the first time at sea. The test of the leading-edge software is being done against supersonic, ballistic, as well as cruise missiles during the largest exercise of its kind off the coasts of Scotland and Norway,

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has shared a stunning new image of clouds on Mars. Captured by an onboard camera on the rover, the monochrome image shows grey clouds hovering over a cliff named Mont Mercou at twilight. In a blog post, NASA said the image was captured on sol 374 (one day in Mars is called

NASA on Wednesday shared a stunning image, captured from space, of the 2019 Hurricane Dorian to mark the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. Dorian was the most powerful storm to hit the Bahamas since records began. In a long Instagram post, the American space agency explained through five pointers how it is preparing to

Scientists in Israel has successfully experimented on 250 mice, boosting their life expectancy by nearly 23 percent, something they believe can be replicated on humans too. Scientists achieved these incredible results by increasing the supply of SIRT6, a protein that starts declining with age. “These findings show that SIRT6 optimises energy homeostasis in old age

China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) has set a new record in the latest experiment, where it achieved a plasma temperature of 216 million Fahrenheit (120 million C) for 101 seconds. Not just that, the scientists working on the “artificial sun”, also achieved 288 million Fahrenheit (160 million C) for 20 seconds, according to state media

A team of palaeontologists has unearthed the bones of a dinosaur in Queensland, Australia. The discovered parts of spine, scientists said, could belong to a new species altogether and may well be the youngest dinosaur discovered in Australia to date. The remains were uncovered after experts from the Eromanga Natural History Museum carried out digging

NASA is going to take squid into space in a mission that may remind you of the hit HBO series Watchmen. The space agency has decided to send 5,000 tardigrades or water bears, and 128 baby glow-in-the-dark bobtail squid to the International Space Station (ISS) this month to conduct research. They are part of the

NASA released an animated video showing its Perseverance Rover on Mars. The rover is seen moving on the surface of the red planet as the area in its vicinity gets lit in white colour while lines showing the position of wheels form. On Twitter, the video was shared by the official handle of NASA’s Perseverance

2021 KT1, a “potentially hazardous” asteroid is passing near the Earth on Tuesday (June 1), NASA has warned. The asteroid will make a close approach to the Earth at around 10:24am EDT (7:54pm IST). The gigantic rock would fly past our planet with a distance of around 4.5 million miles. Some other asteroids are also

A three-man crew of astronauts will blast off in June for a three-month mission on China’s new space station, according to a space official who was the country’s first astronaut in orbit. The plans for the station’s first crew were confirmed to state television by Yang Liwei, the manned space programme’s deputy chief designer, as

International Space Station (ISS) has shared some spectacular photos of the Earth, captured by the astronauts stationed on it. In a new Instagram post, the ISS shared four different photos of “the Earth’s colours” — capturing our home planet “from the city lights to the hues of an orbital sunrise.” It also added “how vivid

NASA shared a stunning panoramic view of the Milky Way’s galactic centre on Instagram. Explaining the photo, the space agency said threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields weave a tapestry of energy at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. NASA captioned the post, “The fabric of our galaxy.” This image of the cosmic

A team at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Artificial Intelligence Software Architectures and Algorithms Group attempted to better understand disinformation campaigns and also aimed to create a mechanism to detect them. The objective of the Reconnaissance of Influence Operations (RIO) programme was also to ensure the ones spreading this misinformation on social media platforms are identified.

A banana farmer in Malebennur, Karnataka wakes up every morning and reaches for the point-and-shoot-camera he bought, first thing, before stuffing it in his pocket and setting out for work. Over the course of the day as he goes about his chores, he documents the species around him and uploads it on the India Biodiversity

A navigation timing error sent NASA’s little Mars helicopter on a wild, lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month. The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported Thursday. The trouble cropped up about a minute into the helicopter’s sixth