The cause of last week’s massive power outage in Spain and Portugal remains unclear but it has shone a spotlight on solar and wind energy, which critics accuse of straining electricity grids. The rise of renewables presents a challenge for power grids, which must evolve to adapt as countries move away from fossil fuels. Maintaining…
From breathtaking snapshots of distant galaxies to game-changing discoveries about the universeās expansion, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has dazzled humankind for 35 years. After launching on April 24, 1990, Hubble overcame early flaws to become one of NASAās greatest triumphs. Its vivid images and countless scientific breakthroughs have reshaped our understanding of the cosmos,…
Axiom Mission 4: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is all set to launch into space on May 29. He will travel to the International Space Station, along with three other crew members, from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 10.33 pm IST on May 29. Shukla will travel to space onboard…
In his 1997 book āDominance Without Hegemonyā, historian Ranajit Guha recounted how Mahatma Gandhi, āperhaps Indiaās foremost ideologue of self-disciplineā, created an āelaborateā set of rules about how people should behave around him as they travelled the country. To Gandhi, Guha wrote, a haphazard crowd was āunmanageableā, āuncontrollableā, āundisciplinedā, and ultimately entailed a āmobocracyā. Gandhi…
The Voyager 1 spacecraft was 25 billion km away in February, somewhere in the outer edge of the solar system. Itās the farthest a human-made spacecraft has gone from the earth. The hope is that in the distant future, a human astronaut will be able to go where Voyager 1 has been ā a journey…
Researchers at Dartmouth College believe artificial intelligence can deliver reliable psychotherapy, distinguishing their work from the unproven and sometimes dubious mental health apps flooding today’s market. Their application, Therabot, addresses the critical shortage of mental health professionals. According to Nick Jacobson, an assistant professor of data science and psychiatry at Dartmouth, even multiplying the current…
The Central governmentās plans in the Nicobar Islands, especially land taken over for deforestation, will affect the native Shompen tribe, which needs forests for its livelihood. | Photo Credit: Public domain The famous tree crusader and tree lover Shri āVanajeeviā Ramaiah who passed away last month was a firm believer that trees are vital for…
Representative image. An American man named Timothy Friede has subjected himself to more than 200 snakebites and 700 injections of venom over 18 years. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto For millennia, there have been stories of people who tried to make themselves immune to poison by regularly ingesting small, non-lethal doses of it. The practice…
The Soviet Union launched the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 in 1972, one of a series of Venus missions. | Photo Credit: PTI A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth, possibly within the first two weeks of May. Itās too early to…
A little bit more than 124 light years from Earth, circling an otherwise uninteresting star in the constellation of Leo, sits a planet called K2-18 b. It is one of thousands of exoplanets spotted by Kepler, a space telescope that was launched in 2009 and is designed for the task. In 2019 observations by the…
