Is anyone out there?

The Hawking-Milner initiative promises to offer the quest for alien intelligence a new lease of life

No sweat over this shirt

A fabric developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, promises to keep sweat from being a bother

Making furniture from eucalyptus wood

Though scientists have developed a way to saw eucalyptus wood without cracking or twisting it, furniture makers aren't convinced of its utility.

Small invasions

A new surgical technique that involving only small incisions has been used for removing a cyst from under the lung

The great science robbery

A Kazakh neuroscientist triggers the 'who owns public-funded science' debate by taking on a publishing giant

On the verge of a breakthrought

The electronics industry is poised for a quantum jump as a group of Indian scientists claim to have developed a silicon-based, light-emitting diode.

Boom time for lab bloomers

India hopes to earn Rs 200 crore every year exporting flowers mass produced in laboratories

Is brain science romanticised?

Jasanoff's book takes on the enduring mystique about the human brain being abstract, sovereign and piecemeal

Making sex count

In the annals of modern medicine, medical research experiments have always been sexist. The tide is finally turning

Secret life of plants

A new book reinforces the fact that plants have intelligence and a complex sensory network

Maps of the world

Geographical Information Systems is revolutionising the present and portend a happier future. Or so we hope in the maps of our minds.

New cholera strain strikes India

A cholera epidemic in the Indian subcontinent is nothing unusual. But now, another bacterial strain that can cause the disease has surfaced.

Unmasking the monsoon

Putting together the finer pieces of the monsoon puzzle remains a challenge as new key drivers have emerged

Lasers add zing to alignment systmes

Indian engineers have developed a laser-based alignment system, which have the high level of precision essential for installing sophisticated …

Putting faith back in science

Pope Francis may have just succeeded in creating a kind of middle ground, albeit a slippery one

Humanity's puzzling past

The 4.5 million year blind leap from "almost human" to Homo sapiens continues to baffle palaeontologists, but 2 new finds offer a new …

Binary blunders

The gender spectrum is a consequence of the complex interplay between culture and highly-nuanced and protean brain

Trial by hire

Laissez-faire in clinical research has unleashed a ruthless profit-making machine blind to notions of justice or equity. It is time to rein in …

A reprieve for the paper industry

Jute fibre, which could provide a solution to the increasing crisis in procuring wood pulp, could be science's gift to the paper industry.

Let's take a less bigoted view of history

With DNA adding to the slippery narratives about the past; historians, archeologists, and geneticists need to collaborate if we are to take a …

Science Tales

Writings on the interplay of science, history, gender, culture and politics

Scientific stutter

Do animals have a language, and hence a mind, of their own?

Tongue-twisting in easy steps

A software package allows material in unfamiliar Indian languages to be read in 10 others

A river with a difference

The rise of the machines

Artificial Intelligence is riding on both hope and fear. Here's why