China has relaxed its family planning policy to allow couples to have three children after a census data showed a steep decline in birth rates, state media reported, in a major policy shift to boost birthrate in the world’s most populous nation. For nearly 40 years, China enforced a controversial “one-child policy” – one of […]
Hariman Sharma, a farmer from Himachal Pradesh, has developed an innovative self-pollinating apple variety that does not require long chilling hours for flowering and fruit setting. This cultivation has spread to plain, tropical, and subtropical areas in various parts of India, where the temperature is as high as 40 to 45ºC during summer. Hariman Sharma, […]
Researchers from Vienna’s Austrian Academy of Sciences have grown a bundle of human stem cells into a tiny artificial “heart” the size of a sesame seed. The pulsating mass is the first self-organizing miniature organ to resemble the human heart, including a hollow chamber enclosed by a wall of cardiac-like tissue. Significantly, unlike previous versions […]
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer told the Indian government on Wednesday that their Covid-19 vaccine can be administered to everyone aged 12 and above, and can also be stored at 2-8 degree temperature for a month. Seeking fast-track approval for its Covid-19 vaccine, Pfizer has told Indian authorities that the vaccine has shown “high effectiveness” against […]
WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court against the government’s new digital rules that take effect today (Wednesday), saying these would compel it to break privacy protections to users. The Facebook-owned messaging service filed its petition on Tuesday against the rules that will require it to “trace” the origin of messages sent […]
The first lunar eclipse of 2021 will occur on May 26. What will make this even more special is that it will coincide with a supermoon and a red blood moon all at once! According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US, the total lunar eclipse would start at 4:47:39 am […]
Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, months before China disclosed the Covid-19 pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report. The report came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected […]
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) will be investigating the possibility of holding the World Cup every two years instead of four, for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. The organisation will launch a feasibility study into the ramifications of such a decision after a proposal was put forth by the Saudi Arabia Football Federation […]
An iceberg the size of the Spanish island of Majorca has broken off the coast of Antarctica, with measurements taken from satellites and planes confirming it’s now the world’s largest. The finger-shaped iceberg, which is about 4320 square kilometres in size, isn’t thought to have been caused by anthropogenic climate change. By comparison New York […]
Cyclone Tauktae that intensified into an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’ made a landfall on Gujarat coast late on Monday evening with windspeed between 150kmph and 160kmph, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Tauktae (pronounced Tau’te) means “gecko” in Burmese. Gecko is a highly vocal lizard in Burmese dialect. The […]