The habitat concept emerged from research undertaken during the Indian leg of Shukla’s astronaut training in Bengaluru NEW DELHI: Indian astronaut and ISS-returned Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla has shared details of his academic research project exploring how future Indian astronauts could live on Moon, Mars and other extraterrestrial destinations, proposing a concept called Bharatiya Habitable…

A tomato plant carries thousands of genes that stay largely quiet under normal growing conditions. Send that plant into orbit, however, and a striking number of them switch on or off within weeks. New research examining ‘Red Robin’ tomatoes grown aboard the International Space Station has found that once gravity is taken out of the…

​Representative Image of an adult female snake with distinctive scales crossing a mountain road after being discovered by a persistent youth (AI-generated image) On October 18, 2024, Zhou Jiajun of the Zhejiang Forest Resources Monitoring Centre and local biology enthusiast Chen Haojun found the incomplete remains of an unusual snake while surveying the Kuocang Mountains…

Visual observations indicated a retention time of about 61 minutes in Cell 3 and 66 minutes in Cell 4. Monastery Run Wetland 1, near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, was built in 1997-1998 as a passive treatment system for several discharges from an abandoned underground mine. Adequate retention time for iron removal from mine water before discharge to…

PC: Natural History Museum of Utah A fungus can turn an infected ant into what scientists describe as a real-life ‘zombie ’, taking over its behaviour in a way that helps the parasite reproduce. The phenomenon is linked to Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus that infects several ant species. After infection, the ant may continue behaving…

On August 30, thousands of Bengalureans gathered at Lalbagh and marched towards the iconic rock. It has been standing in what is now Bengaluru for billions of years, long before humans, cities or even the Himalayas existed. Now, one of Bengaluru’s most significant geological landmarks has found itself at the centre of a modern infrastructure…

For centuries, poets have been fixated on birdsong. They called it nature’s closest approximation to music. John Keats was obsessed with the nightingale’s ‘full-throated ease’, while Percy Bysshe Shelley imagined the skylark pouring forth an ‘unpremeditated art’ of ‘shrill delight’ from the heavens. William Wordsworth heard more than a call in the cuckoo; it was…

Human beings have always been drawn towards challenges that appear difficult, uncertain or even impossible. From exploring unfamiliar places to developing new technologies and solving scientific problems, progress often begins with the decision to attempt something that has never been done before. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, once offered…

Scientists have found that Mars is not the geologically uniform ball of rock it might appear from orbit. New analysis of nearly two decades of spacecraft tracking data shows that the mantle beneath the planet’s southern highlands runs between 200°C and 400°C hotter than the mantle beneath its northern lowlands, a temperature gap wide enough…