Thomas Szasz (Image: Wikipedia) Say what you actually think and someone will call you opinionated. Keep your views to yourself and someone else will say you lack conviction. Thomas Szasz, the Hungarian-American psychiatrist known for challenging almost every accepted idea in his own field, summed up that impossible bind in one line. “If you have…

India’s historic Physics Olympiad sweep: Five students secure gold at IPhO 2026 in Colombia Ask an Indian teenager to name Virat Kohli, Neeraj Chopra or PV Sindhu, and the answer comes instantly. But ask the same student about Kanishk Jain, Riddhesh Anant Bendale, Rishit Garg, Shresth Suraiya or Svarit Joshi, and chances are you’ll be…

For more than 5,300 years, it lay undisturbed beneath a Stone Age tomb in northern Spain, hidden among the remains of nearly 100 people. When archaeologists finally uncovered the ancient skull, they expected another glimpse into prehistoric life. Instead, they found evidence of something far more extraordinary. Careful examination revealed that the woman had undergone…

Every living organism inherits a unique combination of traits, from eye colour and blood type to resistance against certain diseases. These characteristics are determined by genes, but genes themselves can exist in different forms. These alternative versions are known as alleles. While one allele may produce a particular trait, another may result in a different…

A school science project has turned into an award-winning innovation for 17-year-old Edward Kang, a student from New Jersey who developed an artificial intelligence tool capable of screening for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by analysing retinal images. Called RetinaMind, the experimental AI examines photographs of the back of the eye to…