Technology

Contrary to a previous report, there’s no evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri, the Milky Way’s most massive and luminous globular star cluster, a new study finds. Instead, a hive of much smaller black…

New Delhi, ISRO chairman S Somanath on Tuesday said the space agency has completed the design for the next round of moon missions – Chandrayaan 4 and 5 – and is in the process of seeking government approval for the same. HT Image…

Four members of a SpaceX mission that will carry out the first ever private spacewalk arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of their takeoff next week. HT Image The five-day expedition, named Polaris Dawn, will be led by US billionaire…

Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet's changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? “What a cool…

Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet's changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Since the…

To achieve net-zero emissions, where emissions and removals of greenhouse gas pollution balance each other out, governments and corporations must do two things: cut emissions as much as possible and remove any residual pollution from the…

Old books can be beautiful to look at. But handle with care — they just might be toxic. The covers of Victorian-era books are already known to sometimes have pigments that contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and…

Aug 17, 2024 11:37 AM IST Astronaut Matthew Dominick, currently aboard the International Space Station, shared this incredible photo of “lightning at night over India.” Astronauts often share breathtaking photos of Earth on…

Aug 17, 2024 07:17 AM IST Matthew Dominick stunned everyone with a picture that captures a “single lightning strike” above Southeast Asia. The photo is likely to leave you mesmerised. Matthew Dominick, aboard the International…

An animal that could be mistaken for a spiky fruit is giving scientists a peek into what mollusks looked like around 500 million years ago. Fossils of an ancient invertebrate dubbed Shishania aculeata show that the animal…

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is aiming to launch the first test flight of the Gaganyaan mission by December of this year, said ISRO chairman S Somanath in Sriharikota. The official announcement came after the successful…

One of the farthest known quasars seems to have shut down the creation of new stars in all the galaxies within its vicinity. A quasar is a powerful source of light, created by torrid gas orbiting a gargantuan black hole at the…

Access to clean water is a human right — one that half of the world may not have. Out of the roughly 8 billion people on Earth, more than 4.4 billion lack access to safely managed drinking water, researchers report August 15 in…

Earth’s most famous killer asteroid came from the outer reaches of the solar system, researchers report in the Aug. 16 Science. About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the sea just off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula,…

Imagine going on a weeklong business trip and not coming home until the following year. That may be the situation for U.S. astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, whose eight-day mission to the International Space Station…

For the second time, the World Health Organization has declared that mpox, formerly called monkeypox, is a global health emergency. In 2022, global spread of the virus, which causes rashes, fevers, muscle aches and other…

As more and more species near extinction, scientists have been collecting samples from animals, plants and other creatures and storing them in biorepositories across the globe (SN: 5/8/19). But climate change, environmental…

NASA announced on Wednesday that the decision on whether to keep astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams at the International Space Station (ISS) remains unresolved, with a possible extension “until early next year,” according to an…

An appetite-stimulating protein can reverse anorexia in mice. Mice with lack of appetite and weight loss — symptoms similar to people with anorexia — that were genetically tweaked to secrete a protein called ACBP ate more food…

Stonehenge had a hard Scottish heart, a new study suggests. The ancient site’s central stone, a large slab known as the Altar Stone, consists of rock transported at least 750 kilometers from northeastern Scotland to southern…

All it takes is one miserable night after a bad dinner or drink to make humans avoid an ingredient for life. To teach freshwater crocodiles in Australia to avoid a lethally poisonous toad, all it takes is one very, very nasty toad…

The pills stocked inside your medicine cabinet may factor into how well you can handle summer heat. Extreme heat can be deadly. As outdoor temperatures sizzle, our bodies jump into action to keep internal temps under control…

New Delhi, All Indian salt and sugar brands, whether big or small, packaged or unpackaged, contain microplastics, according to a study published on Tuesday. HT Image The study, "Microplastics in Salt and Sugar" and conducted by the…

By Gerry Doyle HT Image SINGORE, - A study released Monday using data from NASA's Mars InSight lander shows evidence of liquid water far below the surface of the fourth planet, advancing the search for life there and showing what…

Aug 13, 2024 06:51 AM IST Liquid water exists deep underground rocks. Finding is crucial to understand the cycle of water and the evolution of Martian climate. New seismic data from NASA's Insights Lander has discovered that a…

For animals exploring new territory, taking risks is key to survival. But eating unfamiliar foods can be dicey, since they might contain new pathogens and parasites. One avian immune system, however, seems to have a way of rolling…

Reading people’s faces can literally give you a hint of how they are feeling on the inside. Mapping the face’s hot and cool spots can provide clues to a person’s biological age — that is, how fast their cells are aging — and…

Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet's changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? But how do…

A sign of our past? Deaf experimental psychologist Rain Bosworth has found that babies have an intrinsic ability to recognize sign language, Meghan Rosen reported in “Primed to sign” (SN: 4/26/24). Reader Suzanne…

Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses frogs and chytrid fungus, trilobite fossils and a dinosaur named after the Norse god of mischief.