Science

The neem tree growing outside my house is a shape-shifter. Every year, without fail, in the cool dry winter its leaves become tired and yellow-brown, and sometimes fall off completely. Just as the weather turns a bit warmer, heralding the summer, the neem miraculously becomes green again. Then the shy white flowers emerge, hiding in

Scientists say they have been able to resolve a long-standing controversy about an extinct horned crocodile that lived among humans in Madagascar, an island country in the Indian Ocean, saying this particular crocodile, Voay Robustus, was closely related to the modern-day “true” crocodiles but on a separate branch of the crocodile family tree. Based on

The International Space Station (ISS), on Thursday, shared a collection of photographs, featuring the ‘Super Moon’. This celestial event occurs when the Moon is at its closest point to the Earth and at the same time is full. As a result, the Moon looks larger and brighter than other days. Also known as the ‘Pink

NASA Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet. NASA shared an image of the exoplanet — a planet outside the Solar System — on the official social media pages of Hubble telescope. Called PDS 70b, the exoplanet can be seen feeding off material surrounding a young star. The

The world is still experimenting with and in awe of Deep Nostalgia, an AI-powered technique from online family tree service MyHeritage, which adds facial animations to still portrait photographs. Almost daily, we come across small clips on the Internet in which the said technology has been used to animate still pictures, making a character smile,

Tvasta Manufacturing Solutions, a start-up founded by alumni of IIT Madras, has made what it says is India’s first 3D-printed house. The team printed the structure using a specialty concrete that it had developed to print large-scale 3D structures in short periods. They say the mix is based on ordinary portland cement, which has a

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Tuesday it had voted to approve a SpaceX plan to deploy some Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit than planned as part of its push to offer space-based broadband internet. Elon Musk’s SpaceX had asked the FCC for approval to fly 2,824 satellites at a lower orbit

NASA has made a new discovery through its Chandra X-ray Observatory that could turn out to be a major step towards pinpointing exactly how some giant stars explode. The space agency said that its scientists have found fragments of titanium blasting out of a famous supernova — an extremely bright super explosion of a star.

Blue Origin, the space rocket company backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is formally challenging the $2.9-billion (roughly Rs. 21,650 crore) Moon lander contract awarded by NASA to rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Blue Origin said on Monday it had filed a protest with the federal Government Accountability Office, accusing NASA of moving the goalposts for contract

The Indian Space Research Organisation will launch a data relay satellite that will help maintain contact with the Gagangyaan mission throughout after the launch, sources said. The satellite will be launched before the final leg of the Gaganyaan mission, which will send astronauts to the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO). The first leg - the unmanned mission

NASA’s mini helicopter Ingenuity on Sunday successfully completed its third flight on Mars, moving farther and faster than ever before, with a peak speed of 6.6 feet per second. After two initial flights during which the craft hovered above the Red Planet’s surface, the helicopter on this third flight covered 64 feet (50 metres) of

To celebrate the 31st anniversary of the launching of Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers from NASA aimed the observatory at one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy on Friday. Called AG Carinae, it is located approximately 20,000 light-years away. It’s not just a luminous dot in the sky, but a glowing gas-and-dust nebula waging

A four-astronaut team arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, NASA said, after becoming the first crew ever to be propelled into orbit by a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight The Endeavour capsule, also making its second flight, was launched into space on Friday atop

A new species of a plant-eating dinosaur has been discovered in the world’s driest desert in Chile. The Arackar Licanantay belongs to the gigantic titanosaur dinosaur family tree, according to an infographic shared by news agency AFP on Twitter. The term Arackar Licanantay means “Atacama bones” in the Kunza language. Though the Atacama Desert is

NASA and Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company SpaceX launched a new four-astronaut team on a flight to the International Space Station early on Friday, the first crew ever propelled toward orbit by a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight. The company’s Crew Dragon capsule, Endeavour, soared into the darkened pre-dawn sky atop a SpaceX

Barney is a bit different from your usual Swiss bartender. He is fully automated, mixes dozens of cocktails, and even makes terrible jokes. Developer F & P Robotics says it is seeing rising interest in “The Barney Bar” and hopes it will be a hit among hotels, bars, and shopping centres looking to reduce human