Technology & Science

[ad_1] “At Independence, the new Government of India … made the building of big dams a central part of its strategy for transforming India, a commitment to which it adhered for decades,” historian Daniel Klingensmith wrote in his 2007 book ‘One Valley and a Thousand’. The Damodar Valley Corporation, the Bhakra Nangal, and the Hirakud

[ad_1] Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever are an increasing threat to global health. Rapid urbanisation and climate change have created ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed — while expanding global travel has accelerated the spread of these infections to new regions and populations. A new study published last week has now added an unexpected

[ad_1] The story so far: For many decades, one of the great challenges in artificial intelligence (AI) has been teaching machines to reason. Reasoning goes beyond memorising facts or completing sentences. It’s the ability to follow steps, reflect on mistakes, and adjust strategies until the right answer is found. Humans use reasoning for everything from

[ad_1] For years, farmers across India have struggled to protect mango, guava, sapota, and other citrus crops from the attack of fruit flies. Now, after three years of research and trials, scientists at the National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources (NBAIR), Bengaluru, (under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research) have developed a device – ‘Shatpada

[ad_1] Science quiz: Tinkering with storms Visual: Name this 1947 hurricane that became the subject of controversy after its sharp turn to the northeast, into Florida, was blamed on cloud-seeding. START THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Name this 1947 hurricane that became the subject of controversy after its sharp turn to the northeast, into

[ad_1] Ion chromatography, or the process of separating ions from a sample by passing it through a long column, is usually carried out in a laboratory using expensive, sophisticated equipment. Now, scientists at the University of Tasmania in Australia have devised a simpler way to perform the technique out in the field — one that

[ad_1] A Kanizsa triangle. | Photo Credit: Fibonacci (CC BY-SA) A: Our brains fall for optical illusions because of the ways in which they perceive the world, including using contextual information, shortcuts, and predictions. Among other patterns, the brain assumes light comes from above, fills missing edges, and exaggerates contrasts. While these tricks help us

[ad_1] Ice is almost everywhere on the earth — in glaciers, snow, and clouds. Despite being so common, it still hides mysteries about its physical properties. A long-standing puzzle concerns its electrical behaviour. Every water molecule is polar, meaning it has a positive and a negative end. But when water freezes into ordinary hexagonal ice

[ad_1] Examples of Early and Middle Holocene human burials from southern China. This figure shows six human burials from Huiyaotian in Nanning and Liyupo in Long’an, both shell-midden sites located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. | Photo Credit: PNAS 122 (38) e2515103122 Archaeologists working in southeast Asia have long been puzzled by pre-farming burials

[ad_1] While pigments interact with light and their surroundings to produce specific colours, the hex triplet #1099D6 (shown) approximates what manganese blue might have looked like. | Photo Credit: Google Jackson Pollock’s Number 1A, 1948 is one of the most famous examples of action painting, where paint is dripped, splashed, and layered onto a surface.

[ad_1] These days, an inky, sightless night is a rare sight in much of the world. From the harsh glare of streetlamps that make us squint to the gaudy flicker of neon billboards that force sunglass shields, artificial light is blurring the line between day and night. This has meant birds stay active for almost

[ad_1] In a small persimmon orchard in northern Greece, scientists carefully open paper bags to release thousands of flies, in an experiment aimed at blunting the destructive impact of new invasive species. The insects are sterile male Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata), a pest that annually causes significant damage to crops in Naousa, where a

[ad_1] The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls mosquitoes the “world’s deadliest animals”. They have good reason. Small, annoying but dangerous: this disease-carrying insect helps kill more than a million people in the world every year. Now, as the world becomes warmer, their domain could be expanding. Previously, mosquitoes were only a

[ad_1] The story so far: The Supreme Court, in Kattavellai @ Devakar v. State of Tamil Nadu, recently issued guidelines to maintain the integrity of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) samples in criminal cases. The court directed the Director Generals of Police of all States to prepare sample forms of the Chain of Custody Register and all other necessary

[ad_1] A regulator has approved a world-first vaccine to protect koalas from chlamydia infections, which are causing infertility and death in the iconic native species that is listed as endangered in parts of Australia. The single-dose vaccine was developed by the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland state after more than a decade of