Science

Australia’s two most populous states are trialling facial recognition software that lets police check people are home during COVID-19 quarantine, expanding trials that have sparked controversy to the vast majority of the country’s population. Little-known tech firm Genvis said on a website for its software that New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, home to Sydney,

Blood tests are vital for diagnosis and monitoring a number of diseases. In many rural areas, people have to travel a significant distance to reach the nearest health care facility to get their blood samples tested. Sometimes, this results in a delay in detecting serious diseases. But if two Indian researchers have their way, this

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 is scheduled for launch on September 15 at 8:02pm EDT (5:32am IST on September 16). Netflix will livestream the lift-off of the all-civilian mission starting 7pm EDT (4:30am IST on September 16). The livestream will be shown via Netflix’s YouTube channel. SpaceX will take four people onboard its spacecraft and will orbit the

A new discovery in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) takes inspiration from one of the simplest marine creatures in the world — the sea slug. AI is in a constant state of growth, trying to improve and be more efficient. A simple sea slug has helped researchers break new grounds. Researchers from Purdue University,

For decades, people across the world have wondered if there was a possibility to bring back the hundreds of species lost to extinction. Now, a group of scientists and entrepreneurs has come together to create a company that will work on technology to achieve this. Software entrepreneur Ben Lamm, who is known for his penchant

SpaceX is set to launch four people into space Wednesday on a three-day mission that is the first to orbit the Earth with exclusively private citizens on board, as Elon Musk’s company enters the space tourism fray. The Inspiration4 mission caps a summer that saw billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos cross the final frontier, on

The eternal question lurking in the minds of every space enthusiast is — does life exist outside Earth? Despite numerous space expeditions, we have been unable to find any trace of life outside our planet so far. However, every once in a while we hear about a UFO seen in some part of the world.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has now collected two rock samples, with signs that they were in contact with water for a long period of time boosting the case for ancient life on the Red Planet. “It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for the mission,

Scientists in Chile’s Atacama Desert have unearthed the fossil remains of a so-called “flying dragon,” a Jurassic-era dinosaur previously known only to the northern hemisphere. The flying reptile belonged to a group of early pterosaurs that roamed the earth 160 million years ago. It had a long pointed tail, wings and sharp, outward pointing teeth.

About 90 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, a gigantic dinosaur with ‘shark-like’ teeth prowled in present-day Uzbekistan, says a new study. The meat-eating dinosaur was 7.5-8 metres long and weighed 1,000 kg – which would make it a little longer than an African elephant and heavier than two fully grown water buffaloes. Researchers

A group of physicists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently achieved a feat that could pave the way for practical carbon-free power. The achievement was three years in the making . It is a result of intensive research and design work, project leaders say. For the first time, researchers built a large high-temperature superconducting

The James Webb Space Telescope, which astronomers hope will herald a new era of discovery, will launch on December 18, NASA said Wednesday. The $10 billion (roughly Rs. 73,700 crores) observatory, which is a joint project by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will blast off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Spaceport

A new study has warned that a super solar storm, which occurs once in about a century, could plunge the world into an “Internet apocalypse”, keeping large swathes of the society offline for weeks or even months. The Sun constantly bombards the Earth with electromagnetic particles. These particles — that make the solar wind — are

Last year, a large group of scientists had gathered for a two-day conference to discuss whether biotechnology could make people younger. The conference was organised at a mansion owned by Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner in Los Altos Hills, California, US. Experts took to the stage to explain and discuss radical attempts at “rejuvenating” animals. Eventually,

Since Elon Musk-owned SpaceX announced that it was aiming for September 15 to launch the first all-civilian spaceflight mission, curiosity has been building about those who have signed up for this potentially historic sojourn. Four private citizens will fly to space and will spend three days there as part of the aptly named “Inspiration4” space mission,

The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared a stunning image on Instagram of a rare celestial event, known as a Herbig-Haro object, occurring in a dark alley of the incredibly vast universe. It shows a bright beam of light appearing to move with rapid speed and penetrating the clouds. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope,

An asteroid named 2021 NY1 could come close to hitting the Earth this month. The asteroid has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It has also been classified as a near-Earth object owing to its predicted close pass by our planet. It is estimated to pass within

India’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft has completed more than 9,000 orbits around the Moon, and imaging and scientific instruments on board have been providing excellent data, officials said on Monday. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is holding a two-day Lunar Science Workshop 2021, which began on Monday, to commemorate the completion of two years of operation

With artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) making inroads into what were hitherto exclusive human domains — like writing and driving — it was only a matter of time that artists too began experimenting with it. Many exhibition centres and auction houses around the world have begun taking interest in art pieces created with

Virgin Galactic is launching its first commercial research mission named “Unity 23” along with the Italian Air Force to the edge of space, it said on Thursday. The space travel company has set late September or early October as the time for the mission that will carry three paying crew members from the Air Force and