Science

A mouse-sized bat that lives for decades appears to have evolved some of the same biological protections that help it resist cancer and viral disease. Researchers comparing eight closely related Myotis species found an extraordinary range of lifespans, from about seven years in some species to nearly 50 years in others. Their genome analysis revealed…

David DeMar Jr., a researcher with the University of Washington’s Burke Museum, discovered the unusual nodule while conducting fieldwork in northeastern Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. Sometimes, the most extraordinary discoveries are hiding in things that look utterly ordinary. In 2016, a researcher working in Montana spotted a small, reddish-brown rock while searching for fossils. It…

Train movement produces vibrations along railway tracks, much of which is normally lost to the surrounding environment. Researchers have developed a system that captures some of this wasted energy from heavy-duty freight railway tracks and converts it into electricity. The study, published in ‘Applied Energy‘, describes a vibration energy harvesting system that uses the irregular…

Quote of the day by Isaac Newton (Image source: Wikipedia) Isaac Newton’s quote captures a genuinely striking contrast between the predictability of nature and the real complexity of human behaviour. “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people,” he is said to have remarked. Newton devoted much of his…

Image Credit: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Japan sent rice and koji to the International Space Station in 2025 to test whether sake could be brewed beyond Earth. As part of the DASSAI MOON Project, the ingredients were placed inside Japan’s Kibo module under conditions designed to reproduce the Moon’s gravity. After fermentation, the material was frozen…

Diamondback moth. Image Credit: Wikipedia Diamondback moths exposed to repeated heat for 3 years evolved traits that helped their descendants develop faster and survive extreme temperatures better. A 2026 study titled ‘Experimental evolution to thermal stress indicates climate resilience in a cosmopolitan arthropod’ tested moth populations under different temperatures for dozens of generations. It was…

Jackie Chan supported Save China’s Tigers, a conservation project attempting to restore the South China tiger after the subspecies disappeared from confirmed wild sightings decades ago. Once widespread across southern and central China, the tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) suffered a dramatic decline because of hunting, habitat loss and falling prey numbers. Founded by conservationist Li…

Image Credit: AI generated Scientists found that abandoned mine pools could potentially be reused to cool data centres. They developed a model to estimate how much heat these pools could absorb while maintaining suitable cooling conditions. Their detailed analysis of the Morea mine in eastern Pennsylvania found that its pool could support at least 9.5…

Image: Left/Ninia guytudori/By:Alejandro Arteaga/Right/Alejandro Arteaga/By:Kate Berry / Australia Zoo Alejandro Arteaga went into the cloud forests of Ecuador with a very specific mission, he was searching for reptiles to document for a book on the country’s extraordinary herpetological diversity. Instead, one of his field trips produced something far more significant, a snake that science had…

Image: AI-generated representation of a wood-based sponge that pulls water from air as dry as 15% humidity Water vapour is present almost everywhere, even in places where rivers, lakes and groundwater are scarce. The challenge has always been turning that invisible moisture into usable freshwater efficiently enough to make atmospheric water harvesting practical. Now, researchers…