Science

In the 1990s, a predatory flatworm was released in Samoa to control giant African snails An aggressive predatory flatworm introduced to Pacific islands during the 1990s to control agricultural pests has pushed native land snail species toward extinction, turning a planned biological control program into an ecological disaster. The New Guinea flatworm (Platydemus manokwari) was…

A European rabbit in Tasmania. Image Credit: JJ Harrison/Wikipedia In 1937, Australian scientists took an unusual step in the fight against one of the country’s most destructive pests known as ‘rabbits.’ They released rabbits carrying ‘myxoma virus’ on Wardang Island, off South Australia, to see whether the disease could spread naturally. The experiment was part…

Ella Lu. Image Credit: Chris Ayers/Society for Science Ella Lu, a 17-year-old student from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has found a way to bring two different interests of ‘art’ and ‘computer science’ together. As a senior at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics(NCSSM), Lu developed a system that can study how objects are…

European hedgehog (Image Credit: Canva) What was once seen as a useful garden helper in New Zealand has become an unexpected threat to some of the country’s most vulnerable wildlife. European hedgehogs were deliberately introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century, with acclimatisation societies releasing them in the hope that they would help control…

Pythagoras is best known today for the mathematical theorem that bears his name, but the ancient Greek thinker was also associated with a broader philosophical tradition that explored morality, discipline, friendship and the pursuit of a virtuous life. One saying attributed to him offers a timeless reflection on the people we choose to keep close:…

At first glance, the fire salamander appears much as it always has: black skin broken by irregular yellow markings, a pattern long associated with the species’ chemical defences. But under ultraviolet light, that familiar appearance changes. According to the 2026 study published in the Royal Society, titled ‘Glandular biofluorescence in fire salamanders (Salamandra salamandra): first…

A conceptual illustration of CD-35 2722, featuring an object resembling a moon (Credit: ESO) For decades, astronomers have been finding planets orbiting stars far beyond our solar system. More than 6,000 exoplanets are now known.But there is one glaring omission.Not a single moon outside our Solar System has been confirmed with the same level of…

Henrietta Lacks (Image Credit: Wikipedia) In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old African-American woman, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. During her treatment, doctors removed tissue from her tumour for research without telling her or obtaining her permission. The cells behaved unlike any human cells scientists had successfully maintained before: they…

Photo credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) Since NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope first revealed mysterious “little red dots” (LRDs) in 2022, astronomers have been racing to understand what these strange objects really are. Compact, extremely distant and glowing red, they appear throughout the early universe, but…

Representative image of CME (Image credit: Nasa) BENGALURU: Scientists have developed a computer model that could help predict how quickly powerful eruptions from the Sun will travel towards Earth, potentially improving warnings for disruptions to satellites, power grids and communication systems.The three-dimensional model was developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an…