Standing in the courtyard of the Qutb complex in Delhi, the Iron Pillar is one of the most extraordinary achievements of ancient Indian metallurgy. Forged during the Gupta period around the 4th or 5th century CE, the monument has stood beneath the open sky for nearly 1,600 years while showing remarkably little corrosion. Historians widely…
The view coming back from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has a way of turning familiar categories of comet science slightly awkward. 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object only briefly passing through the solar system, has been watched before, but this time the reading feels less like a routine update and more like a chemical surprise that…
High on the Tibetan Plateau, where the air feels thin in a way that is hard to describe unless you’ve stood there, human life has been quietly adjusting itself for thousands of years. Villages sit at heights where most visitors feel breathless within hours, sometimes minutes, yet whole communities carry on with farming, family life,…
Mathematical model reveals how ambitious you should be. A mathematical model has now cracked the exact degree to which one should be ambitious and unlike conventional wisdom, it says ‘don’t shoot for the stars’. Researchers at the University of Wyoming, Stanford University and the University of Colorado-Boulder came up with the mathematical model to show…
More than a century after she revolutionised astronomy with a discovery that reshaped humanity’s understanding of the cosmos, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is receiving fresh recognition for her extraordinary achievements. English Heritage has unveiled a blue plaque at her former home in Notting Hill, London, commemorating the scientist whose groundbreaking work revealed that stars are composed primarily…
The problem of how life evolved on Earth has intrigued the minds of many great scientists for centuries. Now, according to an exciting study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists from Harvard University may be a step closer to figuring out how life on Earth was formed. Using their…
Image: Left/Canva/Right/Wikipedia Mosquito-borne infections, including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, continue to pose risks for millions around the world. With the rise in global warming and mosquito numbers, scientists are finding new ways to limit the spread of diseases. The most viable approach appears to be the use of Wolbachia. Wolbachia is a natural bacterium found…
Most major archaeological discoveries begin with years of fieldwork, expensive expeditions and painstaking excavation. The discovery of Valeriana, a vast ancient Maya city hidden beneath the forests of southern Mexico, began very differently. Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane University, was searching online when he came across an obscure LiDAR dataset buried deep in…
Smoke detectors sit quietly on ceilings, usually ignored until something goes wrong. Most people only notice them when the test button is pressed or when a faint chirp signals a fading battery in the middle of the night. Yet these small plastic discs have become a standard fixture in homes and public buildings, shaped by…
For weeks, a young humpback whale named Timmy became the focus of one of Europe’s most unusual wildlife dramas. After entering the Baltic Sea, an area where humpback whales are rarely seen, the animal repeatedly stranded on shallow sandbanks along Germany’s coast. His struggle triggered an emotional public response, divided marine experts and ultimately led…