Science & technology

The three major forms of treatment for any cancer are surgery (removing the cancer), radiotherapy (delivering ionising radiation to the tumour), and systemic therapy (administering medicines that act on the tumour). Surgery and radiotherapy have been refined significantly over time whereas advances in systemic therapy have been unparalleled. A new …

Once launched into space, NISAR will provide critical information on Earth’s crust, ice sheets, and ecosystems, helping researchers better understand the causes and consequences of land surface changes. Jointly developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), an Earth-observation satellite, called NISAR …

ChatGPT in many ways is being called the end of Google Search, given that conversational AI can give long, essay style and sometimes elegant answers to a user’s queries. Google has finally decided to answer the challenge and threat posed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its AI chatbot, ChatGPT. The search …

Indian astronauts on India’s first human space flight mission Gaganyaan will undergo training with modules developed by IIT-Madras using extended reality (XR), which includes immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) would utilize the advanced technologies created at the newly-established eXperiential Technology …

Indian Petrol Already Contains 10% Alcohol. The Launch of The E20 Pilot Can Help The Country Further Reduce Its Dependence On Fossil Fuels A pilot for ‘E20’, or petrol blended with 20% ethanol, at the ‘India Energy Week’ was launched. Ethanol Blending Ethyl alcohol or ethanol (C2H5OH) is a bio-fuel …

On January 29, several users of the social media platform 4chan, used “speech synthesis” and “voice cloning” service provider, ElevenLabs, to make voice deepfakes of celebrities like Emma Watson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro. These deepfake audios made racist, abusive, and violent comments. Making deepfake voices to impersonate others without …

In a major milestone, the naval variant of the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) landed on the first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, on Monday. This is also the maiden landing of a fixed-wing aircraft on the carrier. The LCA’s feat was followed by the landing and take-off by a twin-engine …

India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) has been setup as an Independent Business Division within Digital India Corporation having administrative and financial autonomy to formulate and drive India’s long-term strategies for developing semiconductors and display manufacturing facilities and semiconductor design ecosystem. Envisioned to be led by global experts in the Semiconductor and …

Missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are likely to be a major future threat, calling for a mitigation strategy as part of an integrated air defence, and underlining the need for a comprehensive air defence solution. That is the biggest takeaway for India from an Army analysis of the war …

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch the Aditya-L1 mission by June or July this year. Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space mission to observe the Sun and the solar corona. ISRO chairman S. Somanath, speaking at the handover ceremony of the Visible Line Emission Coronagraph (VELC) …

Japan is expected to start flushing 1.25 million tonnes of wastewater from the embattled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean this year, as part of a $76-billion project to decommission the facility. The project received the Japanese cabinet’s approval in 2021 and could take three decades to complete. …

On December 14, 2022, the district administration of Ladakh designated six hamlets within the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary as a “dark-sky reserve” — an area whose sky is free of light pollution. The designation meant that the reserve had a responsibility to keep the skies dark, particularly for the astronomical observatories …

It is now clear that all warnings in the Mishra Committee report almost 50 years back went unheeded in the race to develop Joshimath by successive governments since 2001. It was clearly pointed out that Joshimath township is situated on debris of earlier landslides and would slip someday. But development …

Global overturning circulation—the equatorward transport of cold, deep waters and the poleward transport of warm, near-surface waters— controls ocean heat distribution and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus playing a critical role in global climate. It is thought that tectonic changes might have led to the formation of two separate water …

The chess world was rattled in late 2022 when Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion, accused Hans Niemann, a 19-year-old U.S. chess grandmaster, of cheating using a chess-playing artificial intelligence (AI) system. Niemann had defeated Carlsen, prompting Carlsen’s accusation; Niemann asserted that he had defeated Carlsen fairly even though he …

e-NAM, a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare,  has won the Platinum Award in the Digital Empowerment of Citizens Category in Digital India Awards 2022 held in New Delhi today. e-NAM is a digital platform integrating 1260 APMC mandis across 22 States and 3 UTs to …

Access to clean and drinkable water has now not only become a local problem but global as well. Water contamination is one of the world’s leading causes of death and the problem is only getting worse. To tackle this, our team at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), …

The XBB.1.5 Omicron recombinant variant that was first detected in the U.S. (New York and Connecticut) in late October 2022has now spread to at least 29 countries. It is rapidly increasing in number to become the dominant variant in the U.S., particularly in the northeast part of the country. The …

In 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity in mercury. He found that at a very low temperature, called the threshold temperature, solid mercury offers no resistance to the flow of electric current. The BCS theory Scientists later classified mercury as a conventional superconductor because its superconductivity could be …

Talacauvery in Kodagu district of Karnataka, which is the source of the Cauvery river, has emerged as South India’s Hanle, as astronomers have been hosting “star parties” there for some time now. Hanle, located in Ladakh, and known for its pristine skies and minimal light pollution, is also India’s first …