A fermented batter of ground rice and lentils, steamed in little circular moulds, served with a vegetable stew. Well, a decade ago, it was simply the idli. That is how fancy we have become. Every little simple thing has been turned into bizarre, out-of-this-world articles, making everyday life more complicated, …

I heard the first rumblings a decade ago. My siesta was rudely ended by a crash and screech. When I stepped on to the balcony to find the source of the commotion, I came face to face with the gigantic paws of what is called khooni panja in local parlance. …

I first recited St. Francis of Assisi’s poignant prayer (a.k.a. the Peace Prayer) sincerely but without much thought as a teenager at the St. Francis Junior College in Secunderabad. It fell to a brave man to bring alive for me its true meaning, over three decades later. The Hindu temple …

Twins. They had their own ways of doing things; at times barely agreeing with each other. Albeit they were identical, intricacies and layers of complexity defined them. One believed in logic. Calculated efforts. “You must trust only the facts!” was a frequent reminder to the wayward sibling. Neat and ordered …

Some were sitting under the shade of a huge banyan tree like sages in quest of eternal knowledge, eyes downcast, engrossed in the papers lying on their laps. Some looked like the proverbial rebels, as if any time they might stand up and lead a protest march there itself. Beards …

Scientists have developed the world’s smallest optical gyroscope – a device that helps vehicles, drones and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in 3D space. The new gyroscope, described in Nature Photonics, is 500 times smaller than the current best device. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning …

By studying the movement of virtual animals in computer simulation, a research team led by Srinivasa Chakravarthy, Department of Biotechnology, at IIT Madras has unlocked the navigation behaviour in rats moving in two dimensions and bats (3D). They hope to use these clues in engineering autonomous vehicles and drones. Previous …

The spot-necked day gecko and the Anaimudi day gecko, both very distinctly-patterned lizards found only in the higher reaches of the Agasthyamalai and Anamalai hill ranges in the Western Ghats, are the latest additions to India’s reptile fauna. Researchers including Vivek Philip Cyriac of the Indian Institute of Science Education …

One of the reasons why the efficiency of bone marrow transplantation gets compromised is due to fewer hematopoietic stem cells available for transplantation. Researchers from the Pune-based National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) have addressed this by using a novel way to multiply or expand the number of hematopoietic stem …

Researchers have for the first time used a naturally occurring material — aloe vera gel — which inherently has superior oil repelling (oleophobic) property to separate oil from water. So far researchers have only been mimicking the structure of naturally existing materials such as fish scales to achieve super oleophobicity. …

Last week, Britain’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid tweeted about a case of a gang of men (commonly referred to as a “grooming gang”), who had sexually assaulted and abused young girls, and had been found guilty by a court in northern England of over 120 offences. “These sick Asian paedophiles …

An assumed saviour for Croat ethnic identity versus a saviour for all of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who happens to be a Croat — this is the new political fault-line in the racially tense country. For a country with a tripartite presidency to represent each of the three major ethnic …

Sri Lanka’s first ever Northern Provincial Council completed its five-year term last week. About 25 years after the erstwhile North-Eastern Council lapsed, people living in the Tamil-majority areas had propelled their preferred political representatives to power in September 2013, sensing new hope post-war. Just as the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) …

Bangladesh has rediscovered Kamal Hossain, a jurist of international fame, as the face of the political Opposition in the country. From a rally in the northeastern city of Sylhet on October 24, Mr. Hossain, 81, announced a campaign for what he said was the revival of democracy. The rally was …

Veritas , Latin for “truth”, is the motto of America’s oldest and arguably most famous university, Harvard. The motto, presumably signifying a place that seeks truth in matters scientific and philosophical, has special meaning for Harvard these days with a Federal court in Boston hearing a case on discrimination in …