The ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India has been devastating in its reach and impact. Among my friends, family, and acquaintances, I doubt there is a single person who hasn’t been affected directly. Some had the disease themselves; others saw a loved one suffer from it, and…
Let us play a game, you and I. I will give you some money – here, have this. Of course, it’s not a joke. You can take that 100$ bill and walk out of here. No one’ll say a thing. Or come after you. Or you could do something nice.…
Life has survived for more than three billion years because it is robust, and almost no mutations can easily outwit the defense mechanisms built up through eons of exposure to potential pathogens. –Lawrence M. Krauss Every second, every minute of your life, your body is under attack. This may be…
The Dinosaur Debacle Picture a day millions of years past, in a land as yet untouched by the vagaries of man. Dense forests stretch in every direction from where you stand, and the air you breathe is hot and humid. Now watch, as a magnificent beast, several feet tall, thunders…
Hi everyone! I started this blog with the aim of bringing to your notice some of the most exciting scientific studies being performed around the world today. Science is a public endeavor, meant for the common good, and hence hiding it behind a wall of jargon and esoteric literature makes little…
The Universe sprang into being about 13.8 billion years ago, expanding exponentially from a point of infinite density and infinite temperature. Such a point is called a singularity, and this event is popularly known as the ‘Big Bang’. Before this point, time and space did not exist, so the word…
Sigmund Freud, the venerable father of psychoanalysis, had a lesser known distinction up his sleeve. He produced one of the first comprehensive scientific analyses of the drug Cocaine, published in 1884 under the title ‘Über Coca’. In this remarkable manuscript, amidst sections such as a detailed description of the cocaine…
If you have ever felt a yearning for a perfect picture of domestic bliss, take one look inside a simple beehive. The life of the social bee is a life of contentment and diligence, of strict order and unfailing discipline, of stratified classes and organized division of labor, and above…
Hello Folks! As promised, here is part II of our roundup of the most interesting breakthroughs in the world of science in the last couple of weeks. If you missed Part I, you can read it here. You will learn about mysterious brain cells of male roundworms, methods for remote-controlling…
Hi everyone! I missed making a post on the last two Sundays, so today I’m bringing you a bunch of interesting discoveries that occurred over the last two weeks. Or rather, I am bringing you half of those stories, because there are simply too many to include in one post.…