In a significant move to bolster border and coastal security, India plans to launch an additional 100 to 150 satellites over the next three years, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan. He revealed the ambitious strategy during an event in Chennai on Wednesday. Presently, India has around 55 operational satellites. However,…
Artificial intelligence was struggling on Wednesday to forecast the outcome of the notoriously secretive and unpredictable process by which Catholic cardinals elect a new pope. The April 21 death of Pope Francis triggered a period of mourning in the Catholic Church, but also kick-started the race for his successor, with everyone from Vatican insiders to…
Plate tectonics is geology’s Theory of Everything. The realisation in the 1960s that Earth’s crust is made of fragments called plates—and that these plates can grow, shrink and move around—explained the origins of mountain ranges, ocean trenches, volcanoes and earthquakes. It also explained why continents drift over the planet’s surface and thus, from time to…
A Chinese national flag and pins showing the Tiangong space station are displayed on a uniform of Chinese astronaut for the upcoming Shenzhou-20 mission during a meeting with media at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, April 23, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP China is set to launch its Shenzhou-20 mission that will…
Science Quiz | The places where things stay the same 1 / 6 | This map shows radiation leftover from the Big Bang right after it happened. It depicts how the temperature of the radiation is anisotropic: different at different distances. What’s this radiation called? Credit: NASA 2 / 6 | If the contour lines…
Like it or not, it’s clear: every year, India must face down intense heat waves and erratic but also often intense bursts of rainfall. In a bid to find as many ways out of the consequences — or at least their ability to surprise governments — as possible, the country has turned to artificial intelligence…
India, with its high population density, prevalence of infectious diseases, and over-the-counter availability of antibiotics, has a long and winding road to travel in order to counter AMR. Photograph used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: istock.com/Dr_Microbe Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), often labelled as a silent pandemic, is one of the most pressing global health…
Earlier this year, scientists discovered a peculiar term appearing in published papers: “vegetative electron microscopy”. This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a “digital fossil” – an error preserved and reinforced in artificial intelligence (AI) systems that is nearly impossible to remove from our knowledge repositories. Like biological fossils trapped in…
Indian air force officer Shubhanshu Shukla, is set to create history by piloting NASA and ISRO’s joint space mission to the International Space Station later this year. According to a NASA statement last week, Shubhanshu Shukla will pilot its mission travel to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from Florida “no earlier than spring…
People walk on a dusty road in the town of Byrnihat, Meghalaya, March 29, 2025. | Photo Credit: Reuters Two-year-old Sumaiya Ansari, a resident of India’s Byrnihat town, ranked the world’s most polluted metropolitan area by Swiss Group IQAir, was battling breathing problems for several days before she was hospitalised in March and given oxygen…
