Science

Do you know a newborn’s umbilical cord is home to life-saving stem cells like lymphoma and leukaemia? This is one of the major reasons parents, these days, opt to store the blood in an infant’s umbilical cord. Notably, if pregnancies get affected by gestational diabetes, the stem cells of the umbilical cord get damaged, making

Scientists had attributed the fall of several ancient civilizations including the Akkadian Empire, the Old Kingdom of Egypt, to factors like climate change and shifting allegiances. However, a new study proposes that this could be due to some extinct pathogens. Archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology excavated remains from an ancient burial

Fusing wearable technology with artificial intelligence, researchers, at the University of Chicago, have developed a flexible stretchy device that records heath data and processes by mimicking the functioning of a human brain. Today, a range of wearable fitness bands and other health devices exist in the market. However, most of them are not capable of

A mysterious object from space crashed into the ocean off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014. Called the CNEOS 2014-01-08, the meteorite has still kept scientists puzzled about its origin but initially, it was speculated that it could be an interstellar object. After its discovery, researchers namely then graduate Amir Siraj, and Harvard

Millimetre-wavelength light originating from a collision of a neutron star with another star has been captured for the first time by researchers. The team, led by astrophysicists from Northwestern University, US, and Radboud University in the Netherlands, has claimed that the flash emerging from this collision was among the most energetic short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)

South Korea’s first lunar orbiter successfully launched on a year-long mission to observe the Moon, Seoul said Friday, with the payload including a new disruption-tolerant network for sending data from space. Danuri — a portmanteau of the Korean words for “Moon” and “enjoy” — was on a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in

NASA and the White House have since late last year quietly drawn up contingency plans for the International Space Station in light of tensions with Moscow that began building before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to nine people with knowledge of the plans. The US space agency’s game planning shows how the US is juggling its relationship

Stargazers and space enthusiasts might want to turn their eyes to the night sky in the coming weeks, as the stage is set for a spectacular meteor shower. Known as Perseids, these meteor showers occur annually and are usually visible from Earth in the night sky. The shower usually peaks during mid-August and this year,

An underwater volcano that erupted in the South Pacific near Tonga on January 15 this year causing a catastrophe in the archipelago. The Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption also triggered an earthquake and tsunami that flooded the country. A new study indicates that during this event, the volcano spewed not just ash into the atmosphere but also a

A geomagnetic storm, triggered by high-speed solar winds from the Sun, is predicted to hit Earth today. However, it is unlikely to pose any threat to life on the planet as it has been classified as G-1 and is expected to be a mild geomagnetic storm. The high-speed solar winds that cause the solar storm, originate from a

The James Webb Space Telescope has peered through time and huge amounts of dust to capture a new image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing the spinning ring of colour in unprecedented clarity, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday. Located around 500 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sculptor, the Cartwheel gained its shape

Scientists combined data from NASA’s New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modelling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto’s moon Charon and how it may have formed. This first-ever description of Charon’s dynamic methane atmosphere using new experimental data provides a fascinating glimpse into the origins of this

A water-activated disposable paper battery has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of electrical trash produced by single-use devices, such as those used in the medical and industrial sectors. Researchers have developed a battery that is cheap to assemble, biodegradable and made of renewable materials. Additionally, it can be made in a range of

A robot created at Standford University in the United States is diving down to shipwrecks and sunken planes and allowing its operators to feel like they’re underwater explorers too.  The robot known as OceanOneK has humanoid top half, with eyes that have a 3D vision, capturing the underwater world in full colour. It resembles a

Experiments on mice have helped scientists identify some key differences in the development of brains in modern humans and our closest relative, Neanderthals. After our ancestors split from the Neanderthals, some one hundred amino acids underwent changes and spread to almost all modern humans. The reason behind this change had puzzled scientists all this while.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are the most common neurodevelopmental disorders that are diagnosed in early childhood. While both are separate conditions, their symptoms tend to overlap which makes it quite tricky to differentiate between them. Now, in a novel study, researchers from the University of South Australia and Flinders

To understand any physical phenomenon, one must identify the variables that are responsible for it. While scientists are familiar with the variables for most physical connects, some have remained to be elusive. Now, researchers from Columbia University have used artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a program that observes such physical phenomena and detects the relevant

Powerful storm systems triggered flash flooding across the US in late July, inundating St. Louis neighbourhoods with record rainfall and setting off mudslides in eastern Kentucky, where at least 16 people died in the flooding. Another deluge in Nevada flooded the Las Vegas strip. The impact of climate change on extreme water-related events like this

The “origin of life” is a subject that scientists have invested an unparalleled amount of time and resources in to understand it better. How life emerged from non-living molecules continues to be a much-debated topic. But now, scientists at Scripps Research may have found something to shed light on the subject. Scientists have discovered a

The amount of time, effort, and money needed to train ever-more-complex neural network models are soaring as researchers push the limits of machine learning. Analogue deep learning, a new branch of artificial intelligence, promises faster computation with less energy consumption. The findings of the research were published in the journal ‘Science’. Programmable resistors are the