Number of words: 3,506 I am a writer. Writing books is my profession but it’s more than that, of course. It is also my great lifelong love and fascination. And I don’t expect that that’s ever going to change. But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my … Read more

Number of words: 676 A study published in the journal eLife has thrown some light on how a spontaneous cellular event could give rise to highly variable motivated behaviour among sea slugs. According to Björn Brembs, a professor of neurogenetics at the University of Regensburg, Bavaria, the study addresses a longstanding question in neuroscience: how … Read more

Number of words: 2,624 My son and the iPhone were born three weeks apart in June 2007. So while those early adopters were lined up outside, waiting to get their hands on this amazing new gadget, I was stuck at home with my hands full of something else that was sending out constant notifications — … Read more

Number of wods: 1,904 It’s August 5, 2010. A massive collapse at the San José Copper Mine in Northern Chile has left 33 men trapped half a mile — that’s two Empire State Buildings — below some of the hardest rock in the world. They will find their way to a small refuge designed for … Read more

Number of words: 1,300 The idea that dogs are pack animals who require a pack leader was introduced in the 1940s. It became known as dominance theory, and eventually alpha theory. But it wasn’t until many decades later that the idea of the pack leader became a staple of the American dog owner’s vocabulary and … Read more

Number of words: 489 Each day, the station loses more than 250 grams (0.6 pounds) of air each day during its 15.5 orbits around Earth, but that’s not always the case, as evident in the case of this leak The International Space Station is a potential hazard due to many reasons, with its age being … Read more

Number of words: 1,616 We’re at a critical moment. Our leaders, some of our great institutions are failing us. Why? In some cases, it’s because they’re bad or unethical, but often, they’ve taken us to the wrong objectives. And this is unacceptable. This has to stop. How are we going to correct these wrongs? How … Read more

Number of words: 730 K Thilagarajan spent two days with an old coconut tree climber at Sholavandan learning to make a “bug that buzzes”. The 50-year-old school teacher from Madurai is a populariser of toys made from palm and coconut leaves. He travels across the State sharing with children the joys of making fans, fish, … Read more

Number of words: 721 Reddit is a great forum for raising scientific questions, but the fact that it’s discussion-based makes it difficult to know when a debate has settled on the best answer, objectively speaking. Exhibit A concerns the value of lying down with your eyes closed. How much does it do for you compared … Read more