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November 19, 2025 12:51 PM

Breakthrough in rare-earth magnetism promises more efficient quantum technologies

In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers have discovered a new form of magnetism in a rare-earth compound - an advance that could pave the way for faster, more energy-efficient quantum and spintronic technologies. A team from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) has shown for the first time that single-crystal thin films of neodymium nitride (NdN) exhibit ferromagnetism driven not by electron spin, as seen in conventional magnets, but by the electron’s ...

November 19, 2025 11:21 AM

Indian scientists help rewrite 50-year-old biological rule

Indian scientists, in collaboration with researchers from Rutgers University, have challenged a fundamental biological concept that has shaped textbook understanding of bacterial gene regulation for nearly five decades. Their findings could open new possibilities for developing antibiotics and studying bacterial evolution. For years, biology textbooks have described the “sigma cycle,” a model based primarily on Escherichia coli σ70, which suggested that sigma factors bind to RNA polymerase...

November 16, 2025 3:23 PM

RNA recovered from Siberian mammoth that died 39,000 years ago

Scientists have recovered the oldest-known RNA, a molecule necessary for most biological functions, from a woolly mammoth that inhabited Siberia about 39,000 years ago, showing it can last longer than previously known and promising a new path for studying organisms that lived long ago. The RNA, successfully isolated and sequenced, was extracted from muscle tissue in the left front leg of a juvenile male mammoth, perhaps five to 10 years old, whose carcass was discovered in 2010 in the Siberian ...

November 10, 2025 11:09 AM

As Typhoon Kalmaegi wreaks havoc in Southeast Asia, scientists say rising temperatures are to blame

As the year's deadliest typhoon sweeps into Vietnam after wreaking havoc in the Philippines earlier this week, scientists warn such extreme events can only become more frequent as global temperatures rise. Typhoon Kalmaegi killed at least 188 people across the Philippines and caused untold damage to infrastructure and farmland across the archipelago. The storm then destroyed homes and uprooted trees after landing in central Vietnam late on Thursday, killing at least five people. Kalmaegi's pat...

November 6, 2025 12:28 PM

Scientists in Brazil starve trees of water to test Amazon’s limits

Under Brazil's Amazon rainforest canopy, hundreds of transparent plastic panels hang between tree trunks to starve a hectare of land of half the water it normally receives. Scientists are creating this artificial drought in Querencia municipality close to the southeastern edge of the world's largest rainforest to better understand the limits of the Amazon's resistance to extreme dry conditions that are predicted by climate change models. In the experiment, called Seca Limite, or Limit Drought,...

October 14, 2025 10:59 PM

Morning coffee inspires breakthrough in detecting toxic dyes in food and water

A phenomenon as simple as a coffee stain on a table may hold the key to detecting dangerous toxins in food and water at extremely low concentrations. Scientists at Raman Research Institute (RRI), supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, have developed a powerful and cost-effective technique that uses the coffee-stain effect to identify harmful dyes such as Rhodamine B at concentrations as low as one part per trillion. When a coffee droplet dries, it leaves a d...

September 29, 2025 7:44 PM

IISc scientists develop siphon-powered desalination breakthrough to turn seawater into drinking water

In a boost to global water security, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a siphon-powered thermal desalination system that converts seawater into clean drinking water faster, cheaper, and more efficiently than conventional methods. Traditional solar stills, which replicate the natural water cycle, often face two challenges — salt buildup on evaporator surfaces and scaling limits that restrict water flow to just 10–15 cm. The IISc team has overcome both issue...

August 11, 2025 3:15 PM

Scientists find possible artefacts of oldest known Wallacean hominids in Indonesia

Scientists have found a series of stone tools on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island they say may be evidence of humans living 1.5 million years ago on islands between Asia and Australia, the earliest known humans in the Wallacea region. Archaeologists from Australia and Indonesia found the small, chipped tools, used to cut little animals and carve rocks, under the soil in the region of Soppeng in South Sulawesi. Radioactive tracing of these tools and the teeth of animals found around the site were d...

August 7, 2025 10:22 AM

UK scientists find genes linked with chronic fatigue syndrome

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh said on Wednesday they have discovered differences in the DNA of people with chronic fatigue syndrome that should help dispel the notion that the debilitating condition is psychological or driven by laziness. Their study found eight areas of genetic code that are different in people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) than in healthy volunteers. The finding provides “the first robust evidence that genes contribute to a p...

July 30, 2025 10:22 PM

EU climate goals at risk as ailing forests absorb less CO2, scientists say

Damage to European forests from increased logging, wildfires, drought and pests is reducing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, putting European Union emissions targets at risk, scientists warned on Wednesday. The European Union has committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The target includes the expectation that forests will suck up hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions and store it in trees and soil, to compensate for pollution from industry. But that assumption is now...