Science News: Latest Science News, Today’s Science News from India and World

Elon Musk’s SpaceX completes 20 years: A look at its important milestones

March 15, 2022 8:04:29 pm

Read more to find out how SpaceX grew from a propulsion engineer's hobby to an industry giant that rivals national space agencies.

Wolves returned to California. So did ‘crazy’ rumours

March 15, 2022 2:34:00 pm

Centuries ago, North America had anywhere from 250,000 to 2 million gray wolves. When settlers arrived, they quickly decimated the wolves’ native prey of bison, elk and deer, and then replaced them with livestock.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced the selections of the industrial team that will design and built an experimental payload to extract oxygen from the regolith (lunar soil) on the surface of the Moon on March 9, after a competition to decide the same.

European Space Agency chooses team to make oxygen on the moon

March 15, 2022 11:54:39 am

The ability to extract oxygen and other useable materials from lunar regolith will be a game-changer for lunar exploration.

Research shows ants can be trained to detect cancer as accurately and faster than dogs

March 12, 2022 4:40:07 pm

During the research, not only was it found that ants can distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous cells, but they could also distinguish between cells from two different cancerous lines.

California startup Astrolab unveils space rover, more than a mere ‘moon buggy’

March 11, 2022 5:23:21 pm

Built around a modular payload system inspired by conventional containerized shipping, FLEX is reportedly versatile enough to be used for exploration, cargo delivery, site construction and other logistical work on the moon

Ancient African DNA reveals complex insights of human migration

Digging Deep: Ancient DNA discovered in Africa reveals human migration insights

March 11, 2022 1:37:23 pm

Archaeological records sit well with the new genetic evidence.

A Vega rocket taking off in French Guyana

Ukraine’s little-known space feats

March 9, 2022 10:56:06 am

The war in Ukraine threatens space development — and not only due to sanctions on Russia. Ukraine plays a little-known, but crucial, role in the world's space scene.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has snapped a picture of a mineral formation that is shaped like a flower. The formation resembles a coral or sea anemone in the picture, but it is just a lifeless structure.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover shares picture of minuscule ‘mineral flower’ on Mars

March 7, 2022 12:25:24 pm

Similar structures have been discovered on Pahrump Hills on Mars were found to be made out of Sulfates.

Researchers at Dartmouth College have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can be used to predict mental disorders using data from conversations on Reddit, according to an article by the university.

Researchers develop AI model that detects mental disorders using Reddit posts

March 6, 2022 4:51:52 pm

The new model suppresses topic-specific biases by being based entirely on emotional states while learning nothing about the topic described in posts.

Two Indian researchers working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have built a low-energy security chip that is designed to prevent side-channel attacks (SCAs) on IoT (Internet of Things) devices. SCAs take advantage of security exploits where information can be gathered from the indirect effects of the functioning of the system hardware rather than attacking a program or software directly.

Indian researchers develop low-energy chip architecture to prevent attacks on IoT devices

March 7, 2022 12:24:56 pm

The researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of side-channel attacks on commercial microprocessors in an earlier paper before developing the new chip.

Digging Deep: Chimpanzees observed applying insects to wounds

March 4, 2022 12:01:26 pm

The new study reports findings from investigating the behaviour of nearly 45 chimpanzees.

Researchers build low-cost solar-powered desalination system that could help provide potable water

March 3, 2022 3:33:03 pm

Unlike most modern innovations in passive solar desalination technologies, this one uses a wick-free system to ensure low running costs and maintenance.

skeleton of the biggest animal to have flown during the Middle Jurassic was found on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. This is one of the best-preserved fossils in UK's history, researchers who discovered it told DW.

Pterosaur, world’s biggest mid-Jurassic flying animal, discovered in Scotland

February 25, 2022 3:24:15 pm

A skeleton of the biggest animal to have flown during the Middle Jurassic was found on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. This is one of the best-preserved fossils in UK's history, researchers who discovered it told DW.

The flavour of any food item is a product of a complex interaction between its genetics and the environment, that renders it a specific chemical composition in terms of sugars/acids and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Digging Deep: What gives each fruit its unique flavour profile?

February 25, 2022 12:53:50 pm

A team of researchers from the University of Florida examined over 100 different tomato and blueberry varieties from the University’s breeding programme

Newly devised human family tree reveals the ‘genealogy of everyone’

February 25, 2022 11:37:41 am

The study helps delineate human genetic diversity and map out how people globally are related to one another, with our species arising in Africa before fanning out worldwide.

A study conducted over three experiments by researchers from Lancaster University and UC Berkeley has found that AI-synthesised (deepfake) faces are indistinguishable from real faces and that people rate the former to be more trustworthy.

Deepfake faces more trustworthy, can’t be distinguished from real faces: Research

February 24, 2022 5:02:15 pm

The participants were able to classify real and synthetic faces with an average accuracy of just 48.2 per cent, which is close to a chance performance of 50 per cent.

A Chinese satellite was spotted in late January grabbing another long-dead satellite and days later throwing it into a "graveyard" orbit 300 km away, where objects are less likely to hit spacecraft.

Chinese ‘space cleaner’ spotted grabbing and throwing away old satellite

February 26, 2022 9:32:35 am

The Chinese SJ-21 satellite was seen on January 22 changing its usual place in the sky to approach decommissioned satellite Compass-G2. A few days later, SJ-21 attached to G2, altering its orbit.

International Space Station to retire by crashing into Pacific Ocean by 2031

February 24, 2022 11:28:16 am

According to NASA's estimates, the space station's operational life will come to an end with a controlled de-orbit in January 2031. The hub for scientific research will be replaced by commercial space platforms.

25 years of Dolly: What’s become of the world’s first cloned sheep?

February 24, 2022 10:42:40 am

Dolly the infamous sheep was cloned 25 years ago. Since then, major progress has been made in stem cell research. And lots of other animals have been cloned ― including, yes, pets.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of the galaxy merger IC 2431 which is happening over 618 million light-years away from the earth in the constellation Cancer, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Hubble captures stunning image of three galaxies merging 681 million light years away

February 24, 2022 12:12:46 pm

When galaxies merge, the clouds of gas and dust that are part of galaxies collide with each other, sometimes resulting in the formation of new stars.

Parasitic Wasp, Ormyrus labotus parasitizes gall wasps

A parasitic wasp unmasked: One species is actually 16 species

February 18, 2022 3:04:18 pm

The paper, the researchers note, is the latest in a string of studies unmasking supposedly generalist parasitic insect species as complexes of many species.

Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens in Europe, Neanderthals, Neanderthals in Europe, European human sites

Digging Deep: Cave discovery in France stretches Homo sapiens’ presence in Europe by 10,000 years

February 18, 2022 7:32:05 pm

The finding implies that the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens indeed shared the same space and time, albeit for just a few decades.

Atmospheric pressure on Pluto’s surface 80,000 times less than that on Earth: Study

February 17, 2022 9:44:47 am

The researchers studied the signal-to-noise ratio of the light curves to arrive at the accurate atmospheric pressure of Pluto.

On Mars, a NASA rover and helicopter’s year of surprise and discovery

February 15, 2022 5:36:09 pm

NASA’s Perseverance rover was accelerating to a collision with Mars, nearing its destination after a 290-million-mile, seven-month journey from Earth.

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon to be among crew of new space mission

February 15, 2022 10:12:57 am

The first mission is named Polaris Dawn, which is targeted to launch no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.