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Imagine a place where the air temperature can drop to minus forty (-40) Celsius and the winds can bolt atspeeds of 40 meters per second? Antarctic penguins live in a place that exactly fits the description. They routinely hop in…

If you look at an MRI scan of the brain, you will see a wave pass through the entire brain like a heartbeat once every few seconds! It’s an ultra-slow rhythm recognised decades ago, but no one did quite know…

Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran once remarked that people would never understand each other unless their language is reduced to half a dozen words. The truth is that often we need only that many words (a small amount of information) for…

One of the most prominent theories in modern science is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Bertrand Russell said there is nothing uncertain about it, but let it pass. The point is uncertainty is a natural part of all scientific research. At the…

Iron replaced bronze as the prime material for tool and weapon production during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The replacement was gradual — at different times in different regions. There were things made of iron…

Some elite Paralympic sprinters face an unsettling hurdle. Before stepping on the track in an authorised race, they need to “remove their legs and swap them out with ones that make them shorter”. This is the outcome of a recent…

Both historical documents and genetic data agree upon that the eggplant, better known as brinjal in Indian kitchens and cookery books, was first domesticated somewhere in the region of China and India. Surprisingly, many wild relatives of the presently cultivated…

Both astronauts and cancer patients have a decrease in muscle mass, bone demineralisation and changes in heart function. Astronauts may have trouble focusing or they get a little forgetful (space fog), and this experience is similar to what is called…

Around 43,000 years ago, the first frontmen of Homo sapiens colonised Europe. They replaced the Neanderthals in the region approximately 3,000 years later — violently, per French palaeontologist Marcellin Boule (the first person to analyse a Neanderthal). One hypothesis about…

A study of Nobel-winning economists by Bruce Weinberg and David Galenson identifies two different life cycles of creativity — a surge in the mid-20s or in the mid-50s, depending on distinct attributes of personality. The sudy has it that those…

A squeeze in the arm, a pat on the shoulder, or a slap in the face — touch is an important part of the social interaction between people. Nobody needs to drive the point home in the days of social…

A condenser turns a substance from its gaseous state to its liquid state — by cooling it. Historically, condensers were always oriented vertically so as to allow water to drain by gravity. But then, about five years ago, Virginia Tech…