A volunteer donates blood during the World Blood Donor Day, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. (PTI Photo) Can blood be created in a laboratory for transfusion? The answer may eventually be yes, but not yet.In November 2022, scientists in the United Kingdom carried out the world’s first transfusion of lab-grown blood as part of a clinical…
Blaise Pascal (Image: Wikipedia) Not every disagreement begins with a lack of facts.Sometimes two people know the same information and still walk away with completely different views. It happens among friends discussing a career choice. It happens between parents and children talking about the future. It happens in offices when colleagues look at the same…
For decades, much of what the world knew about human genetics was built from datasets that scarcely reflected the diversity of South Asia. Yet one of the most significant pieces of the human story may have been hiding in plain sight. Across India’s mainland and island communities lies an extraordinary genetic record stretching back tens…
The world’s first trillionaire has promised to take you to Mars, but can he?Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is no longer just looking at Earth, but straight at the little red planet: Mars. The SpaceX founder has an interstellar dream: not just to visit the red planet, but to help build a permanent human…
Quote of the day by Max Planck (Image source: Wikipedia) There are moments in education when everything suddenly feels heavier than expected.A student who once solved problems quickly begins to slow down. Pages take longer to finish. Concepts that once looked familiar stop behaving the same way when the numbers change or the conditions shift….
James Clerk Maxwell (Image: Wikipedia) In 1928, a Scottish farmer named Hugh Fleming noticed something unusual in his laboratory. A dish containing bacteria had been contaminated by mould. Normally, that would have been a reason to throw it away and start again.Instead, he stopped and looked more closely.The scientist, better known to history as Alexander…
Beneath forests, grasslands and even the soil in our gardens lies an extraordinary hidden world that most people never see. Scientists have now mapped a vast underground network of microscopic fungi stretching an estimated 110 quadrillion kilometres across Earth’s topsoil, a distance so immense that it could reach the Sun nearly a billion times. The…
Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Image: Wikipedia) Several years ago, a historian working through a collection of old documents noticed something strange. The same story appeared in book after book, article after article. It had been repeated so often that nobody seemed to question it anymore. Yet when he traced the claim back to its original…
Quote of the day by Alexander Fleming (Image source: Wikipedia) There is an old joke among travellers that the best part of many journeys is the bit that was never in the guidebook. Ask people about memorable holidays and they rarely begin with airport schedules or hotel reservations. Instead, they talk about the small café…
In a quiet corner of northern Finland, a burial that once seemed unremarkable has started to feel like it belongs to several different lives at once. The grave was first uncovered decades ago near the shores of what is now known as Lake Yli-Kitka, a landscape of cold water and forest that rarely gives up…
