The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Over 200 subatomic (or fundamental) particles have been detected so far. Each appears to have an antiparticle, which possesses the same mass as the particle but manifests the opposite side of one other common quality such as the electric charge. For instance, an electron which is negatively charged will have …
IN Tins age of information, telecommunications is evolving at a breakneck pace. While a few years ago, even movie channel through a TV cable was something of a novelty, the technological pundits are today close to realising their vision of sending 500 cable channels into each home, simultaneously. Though this …
Natural musk from the musk deer is now being replaced by an artificial variety made by Chinese scientists working on this project since 1976. Musk is an ingredient in 295 Chinese medicines, with the industry using 4,000-5,000 kg every year. The musk deer is an endangered and protected species in …
MODERNITY meets tradition at the General Informations Service Terminal-National Informatics Centre (gistnic) -- a database on traditional science and technologies of India -- located at the National Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi. Here, information on disciplines, ranging from Indian medicine to ancient agricultural practices, can be accessed. This knowledge has …
JAPANESE researchers claim to have developed a high-strength, fatigueresistant spring designed for motor vehicles, which could be used in clutch torsional dampers of pickup trucks. To make the spring, scientists from Nippon Steel, Japan, used a high-strength steel which is formed by adding special elements to a material based on …
Since the '70s, camera makers and photography enthusiasts have dreamt of a 1-chip camera that does everything. Thanks to the efforts of 3 scientists from nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, this dream may soon be a reality. The team, led by Eric …
California-based Apple Computer Inc has recently introduced a software technology called AppleScript that allows users to work with several Indian languages on Macintosh PCs. AppleScript, says Alok Sharma, education and development services programme manager, Apple Computer Inc, is a software tool that recognises graphics, thereby enabling the computer to respond …
Biologists use vibrating blades to neatly slice tissue for microscopic examination. While scientists thought of this technique only about 50 years ago, a biological version has existed for millions of years, sayl a team of scientists led by Jurgen Tautz of the University of Wurzburg, Germany (Science. Vol 267, No …
THE universe was born in 4004 BC -- so proclaimed the 18th century English Bishop James Ussher. But that was theology. The following century saw scientists "trespassing" into divine territory and challenging Biblical truths, notably the universe's birthday. The debate spilled over into this century. Only, now theologians don't figure …
Alchemists have succeeded in fashioning the high-tech version of the Philosopher's Stone: they can now make diamond films out of soot and a gas named argon. Chemist Dieter M Gruen's magic recipe: flash light on a mixture of pure soot -- buckyballs, which contain 60 carbon atoms arranged in a …
SOCCER heroes may soon be displaced from their pedestals by a team of robots. In the first week of September, 22 teams of mechanical engineers paraded their star players before a spellbound audience in Osaka, Japan. The event in progress was the Techno-soccer Challenge, held for the second year in …
THERE is a growing interest worldwide in synthetic substitutes for enzymes -- substances produced by living organisms that catalyse or speed up certain chemical reactions in their bodies -- which can save energy required for several industrial processes. Recently researchers J K M Sanders, Mary McPartlin and their colleagues from …
A UK power company, Eastern Electric, has pioneered a technique to prevent fresh fruit from ripening and decaying in storage. Normally, fruits stored in refrigerated warehouses continue to ripen because the warehouse is not quite air tight. Moreover, whenever the warehouse is opened, the sudden increase in oxygen accelerates decay. …
A NEW batch of occupants has moved into Biosphere 2 -- the glass and steel structure enclosing 3 ha in Oracle, Arizona, where scientists are trying to create a miniature earth complete with rain forests, savannahs, a marsh and an "ocean" (Nature, Vol 368, No 6467). Unlike the earlier occupants, …
DO YOU prefer the natural light that floods the room, but abhor the heat that it invariably brings along, especially on hot summer afternoons? Now, a system devised by a Queensland University of Technology lecturer, will not only help you cut lighting costs, but obviate the need for expensive airconditioning …
INTERNATIONAL Business Machines Inc, the market leader for the large and powerful mainframe computers, is adapting its machines to the growing demand for smaller, more flexible and less costly computers. The new technology developed over five years by IBM at the cost of over $1 billion, will allow these computers …
TWO mathematicians from Dublin's Trinity College have found a new solution to the age-old conundrum of how to pack a given space without wasting it. They have designed an object that has broken a 107-year-old record for the most efficient filler of 3-dimensional space. The problem of finding identical objects, …
GAMBLING, of all our many sins, has finally gone and redeemed itself. Darts, as often a game of chance as of aim and calculated trajectories, has provided theoretical mathematicians -- who casually play ball with tesseracts and other hypothetical objects of more than three dimensions -- a new method of …
THE Chinese need no longer tot up on English to operate Microsoft Corp's famous user-friendly Windows programme. The Beijing Stone Group Co has developed Chinese-language software that can be used with this programme, which also includes wordprocessing. Tentatively named Mate for Windows, or Win-Mate, the software will retail for about …
A JAPANESE company has developed a device to discourage pigeons from perching on statues, temples and other buildings and control the menace of pigeon droppings. Called a "bird stopper", the device works on a recent discovery that the homing characteristics of pigeons are influenced by the earth's magnetic field (New …
