Science

An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported on Wednesday. China’s Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February 2021 on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has

US space agency NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars and digging for signs of life since it landed on the planet in February last year. Besides the rocks and alien atmosphere, the rover witnessed some intense dust winds called dust devils in the Jezero Crater. In a new study, scientists have tried to examine

In the quest to find habitable exoplanets that can host life like Earth, liquid water has played a key role in indicating the possibility of life. While scientists have looked for water bodies similar to that on Earth, a study suggests that liquid water could exist on the surface of exoplanets for billions of years

While dyslexia is characterised by learning difficulties, researchers from the University of Cambridge have concluded that people with the disorder are skilled at exploring the unknown. This strength, according to researchers, has helped humans adapt and survive in changing environments. The findings came as researchers carried out a study on behaviour, cognition and the brain.

The Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has started authorising Indian private firms, marking the beginning of private space sector launches in India. IN-SPACe is an autonomous, single window nodal agency; formed to promote, authorise, monitor, and supervise the space activities of Non-Governmental Private Entities (NGPEs) in India. Dhruva Space, Hyderabad, and Digantara research

The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft is set to get a major software upgrade that will boost its capabilities. The Mars Express was ESA’s first mission to Mars, launched on June 2, 2003 and it ran Windows 98. It has been

Scientists have managed to find signs of microbial life in one of the harshest spots on Earth, giving further hope that life may also be found in some of the unknown environments of space. In the depths of the Canadian Arctic, scientists managed to identify signs of life in the low-oxygen, super-salty waters of the

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and has a mass that is 2.5x more than all the other planets put together. Most would remember that Jupiter is mostly made out of helium and hydrogen. But unlike most other gas giants, there is a significant presence of metals in the planet’s composition. Scientists

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a human tissue model to demonstrate the functioning of nanoparticles. Cancer types like glioblastoma have a high fatality rate and treating them is difficult due to the blood-brain barrier. The barrier doesn’t allow most chemotherapy drugs to penetrate through the blood vessels around

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been traversing over a transitional region between a clay-rich region to a sulphate-rich region. In the process, the rover has been capturing images of rocks that had once been at the bottom of multiple stream beds on the red planet. Harkening to a distant past when water was found on

A startup in West Bengal has come out with a device that produces oxygen from water just by pressing of a switch, the founders of the technology claimed. ‘OM Redox’, the device developed by Solaire Initiatives Pvt Ltd, which is incubated in the Webel-BCC&I Tech Incubation Centre here, provides pure oxygen from water, they said.

Amazon on Thursday announced a tool to help software developers write code, the latest such effort by the tech industry. The service, called Amazon CodeWhisperer, suggests how to program, and also scans for security and bias issues in web developers’ projects, Swami Sivasubramanian, a vice president at Amazon’s cloud division, said at a company conference

Combining data obtained from several sources, scientists have managed to unravel the mystery behind the red cap on Pluto’s moon Charon and its composition. NASA’s interplanetary space probe New Horizons had captured the reddish region on the top of Charon and collected data in 2015. After the encounter, scientists soon speculated that the tholin-like material

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday said it will be launching — the second dedicated commercial mission of its commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) — ‘PSLV-C53’ carrying three satellites from Singapore on June 30. The launch vehicle carrying DS-EO satellite along with two other co-passenger satellites is scheduled to lift off at 6pm

The planetary formation theory that scientists have been referring to for decades seems to have been jeopardised by a recent study regarding an old meteorite. The theory explained how rocky planets like the Earth and Mars acquire volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and noble gases during the formative stages. During the research,

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said a 10 percent cut in salaried staff at the electric car maker will happen over three months, as the world’s richest man predicted a US recession was more likely than not. His remarks were his most detailed explanation of job cut plans and his first in-person appearance since Reuters

Alzheimer’s disease may soon be detected using a single magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, according to UK researchers. Getting tested for Alzheimer’s disease — the most common form of dementia — can involve taking a painstaking number of tests and scans, along with several memory and cognitive tests. The study focussed on the regions of the brain which were traditionally not

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, have indigenously developed a metal 3D printer for aerospace, defence and general engineering applications. According to officials, all the components of the metal 3D printer, except the laser and robot systems, are designed and manufactured in India. The project’s main objective is to reduce the cost

An international study conducted as part of the first global assessment of all terrestrial vertebrate species yet to be declared extinct, has identified more than 500 species that have been considered “lost”. Species that have not been observed by anyone in more than 50 years are considered lost, and the list includes amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Like a thick velvety headband, the somatosensory cortex arcs across the top of brain from just above one ear to the other. I fell in love with the brain as an undergraduate student and pursued a career in neuroscience, but for years I had largely ignored this structure, since it appeared to be involved “only”