Science

A 16-year-old boy from Pune, Maharashtra, has created one of the most beautiful and detailed three-dimensional images of the Moon by compositing 50,000 images. Prathamesh Jaju, who describes himself as an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, said the massive number of images (over 186GB data) he had to work with almost killed his laptop while processing.

While the pandemic has led to people and authorities shifting their focus on fighting the coronavirus, some technology companies are trying to use this situation as a pretext to push “unproven” artificial intelligence (AI) tools into workplaces and schools, according to a report in the journal Nature. Amid a serious debate over the potential for

NASA and its peers around the world conducted a “table-top” exercise last month to determine the time scientists will take to understand and find ways to prevent a catastrophic collision of an incoming asteroid into the Earth. The simulation was hypothetical and intended to allow scientists time to prepare for such situations if that were

When astronauts go for spacewalks aboard the International Space Station (ISS), they not only have to share their spacesuits, but also the garment worn underneath. Known as the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG), it resembles a long underwear, and helps keep the astronauts cool and comfortable when they’re out working on the station. Now,

A posterior lumbar interbody fusion involving the addition of bone graft to an area of the spine was a fairly long and invasive procedure until now. However, Dr Kornelis Poelstra and his team, in partnership with The Nevada Spine Clinic, have accomplished a feat that may reduce the time it took for the surgery to

An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Mars on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported, making China the second space-faring nation after the United States to land on the Red Planet. The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia, “leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars

The biodiversity we see around us is a product of millions of years of evolution on the earth. To understand how animals and plants have evolved or come to exist on this planet, one can make use of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules that are present in cells of most living organisms. DNA provides biological

China’s “Zhurong” rover, part of its ambitious space programme to send a probe to Mars, is set to attempt the challenging landing on the Red Planet in the next five days, Beijing’s space agency said Friday. The tricky touchdown, if successful, would come a few months behind America’s latest probe to Mars, as Beijing presses

Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano will be the next tourists to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said Thursday. Maezawa and Hirano will travel aboard a Russian “Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft that is scheduled for launch on December 8, 2021 from the Baikonur cosmodrome” in Kazakhstan,

A team of researchers at Stanford University have, for the first time, decoded brain activity related to writing by hand. To further explore this, the researchers collaborated with a participant with paralysis who had sensors implanted in his brain. The team then used an algorithm that identified the letters the participant imagined and attempted to

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has picked up an uncanny humming sound coming from space. NASA launched the Voyager 1 space probe 44 years ago and today it is the most distant human-made object from Earth, after exiting our solar system nine years ago. Since then, it has been exploring the near-emptiness of interstellar space and

NASA has shared an image of asteroid Bennu captured from its Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft, which is now slated for return to Earth in 2023. In the Instagram post, the space agency wrote, “Stop! 4.5-billion-year-old steroid crossing! You’re looking at a real image of asteroid Bennu captured from @NASASolarSystem’s

A team of researchers at Canada’s McGill University has succeeded in developing a new method to create brain implants that are as soft as the brain tissue itself. The researchers used silicon and sugar to create delicate silicone implants, the softest brain implant to the day, as thin as sewing thread (nearly 0.2 mm). Its

The US space probe OSIRIS-REx on Monday left the orbit of the asteroid Bennu, from which it collected dust samples last year, to begin its long journey back to Earth. The probe still has a vast distance to cover before it lands in the Utah desert on September 24, 2023.  OSIRIS-REx is “now moving away

Ever wondered what happens to a selfie you upload on a social media site? Activists and researchers have long warned about data privacy and said that photographs uploaded on the Internet may be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) powered facial recognition tools. These AI-enabled tools (such as Clearview, AWS Rekognition, Microsoft Azure, and Face++)

Many recent studies have claimed that technology can do more harm than good for children and the time they spend with gadgets is somehow linked to deteriorating mental health. But a new study says that there is little correlation between the use of technology and mental health problems in adolescents. It also throws into question