Science & technology

A study on 16 breeds through physical fitness and behavioural tests is underway How do you measure a chicken’s happiness? Is it in the way it runs for food? How much time it spends preening? To size up what might make chickens happy in their brief lives, researchers at the …

Street artist and social commentator Banksy has apparently popped up in Wales, leaving a new artwork on a garage in Port Talbot that refers the town’s air pollution. A video posted to his official Instagram account on Wednesday afternoon had close-ups of the piece. With the children’s song Little Snowflake …

The development of the indigenously-designed heavy artillery gun, the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), has advanced to a stage where user-assisted trials of the gun are likely to start by June and the Army has begun finalising the Preliminary Specifications Qualitative Requirements (PSQR), a defence official said. “Two guns …

How easy is it to access a bottle of monocrotophos pesticide, which was allegedly used to poison the ‘prasada’ served to devotees at the Sulwadi temple in Chamarajanagar district that claimed 15 lives? A farmer can simply knock on the door of the local pesticide dealer, who is not too …

A newly-discovered blind amphibian from Panama will be named after Donald Trump in recognition of the U.S. President’s stance on climate change, according to a media report. EnviroBuild, a U.K.-based sustainable building materials company, announced on Tuesday that it would be using Dermophis donaldtrumpi as the name for the amphibian …

Japanese scientists have detected evidence of water in 17 asteroids for the first time using data from the infrared satellite AKARI. Researchers from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and University of Tokyo found that water is retained in asteroids as hydrated mine- rals, which were produced by chemical reactions of …

Elon Musk on Tuesday took a break from futuristic electric cars and private space travel to unveil a low-cost tunnel he sees as a godsend for city traffic. The billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX late on Tuesday put the spotlight on a 1.8 km tunnel created by his Boring Company …

A silent revolution has transformed driving in Norway. Eerily quiet vehicles are ubiquitous on the fjord-side roads and mountain passes of this wealthy European nation of 5.3 million. Some 30% of all new cars sport plug-in cables rather than gasoline tanks, compared with 2% across Europe overall and 1-2% in …

There was not a single country out of 149 assessed by the World Economic Forum where women on an average made more or as much as men It could take 202 years for women to earn as much as men because the global pay gap is so vast and the …

Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa said on Wednesday that the launch of satellite GSAT-7A would enhance the networking and communication capabilities of the Air Force. Big push “We have several platforms (aircraft) which have capabilities of communication through satellite. The communication to the platform (aircraft) through the satellite will be …

A team of scientists from the Fatigue and Fracture Laboratory and the Advanced Seismic Testing and Research Laboratory, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC), Chennai, conducted a crucial qualification test of the fuel drop tank of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). The laboratory designed and developed the test in consultation …

Officials from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and Food & Drug Administration on Wednesday (FDA) visited some facilities of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to take samples of baby powder to test them for the presence of cancer-causing asbestos. This follows a recent Reuters report on the presence of …

An anxious ISRO Chairman K. Sivan on Wednesday watched the flight path of the GSLV-F11 intently as it soared into the evening sky carrying communication satellite GSAT-7A, meant to enhance the communication infrastructure of the Indian Air Force. Three key factors had weighed on the minds of the launch team …

A one-month-old on a remote island in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu became the first child to be immunised in a trial of drone-delivered vaccines, UNICEF said on Tuesday. If successful, the initiative could be replicated in isolated and far-flung areas around the world, the UN agency said.AFP Source : …

Scientists have discovered the most-distant body ever observed in our solar system — located over 100 times farther than Earth is from the Sun. The new object has been nicknamed “Farout”. Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-life/most-distant-solar-system-object-ever-discovered/article25778079.ece

Climate change is driving glaciers in the Himalayas to melt more rapidly than at any point in the last 10,000 years, and could soon cause water supply shortage in parts of India, Pakistan, and Nepal, a study has warned. Researchers from Ohio State University in the U.S. showed that climate …

“It was like living with two hearts,” 54-year-old Loganathan of Namakkal summed up how his life has been for the last few years. The non-stop pulsating sound in his right ear resounded with that of his heart. Little did he or his surgeon realise that it was the brain that …

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the creation of “Space Command”, a new organisational structure within the Pentagon that will have overall control of military space operations. The command will be separate from Mr. Trump’s goal to build an entirely new branch of the military called “Space Force,” which …

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can successfully predict whether a patient is at risk of developing a serious, and possibly life-threatening infection after surgery. Staphylococcus epidermidis is an ubiquitous coloniser of healthy human skin, but it is also a notorious source of serious infections with indwelling …

Scientists have developed an ingestible capsule controlled using Bluetooth wireless technology, which can be customised to deliver drugs or monitor health over long periods of time. The capsule can reside in the stomach for at least a month, transmitting information and responding to instructions from a user’s smartphone. Source : …