Find the latest news and updates from the world of science.
| Photo Credit: AP

From figuring out why galaxies created during the cosmic down appear to be mature and more massive to ancient human footprints in New Mexico that can be dated back to the last Ice Age, here are this week’s new discoveries and developments from the world of science.

Nobel Prize winners announced for 2023

This week the Nobel Prize winners of 2023 were announced for Medicine, Physics and Chemistry. The Medicine or Physiology Prize was awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for their “discoveries concerning nucleoside base modification that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”. The Prize for Physics was shared between three scientists—Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier—for developing new tools and exploring the world of electrons. The Chemistry Prize was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.

Scientists untangle mystery about the universe’s earliest galaxies

The James Webb Space Telescope has provided an astonishing glimpse of the early history of our universe, spotting a collection of galaxies dating to the enigmatic epoch called cosmic dawn. But the existence of what appear to be massive and mature galaxies during the universe’s infancy has baffled scientists and defied expectations. A new study has now found that these galaxies may have been relatively small, as expected, but might glow just as brightly as genuinely massive galaxies do – giving a deceptive impression of great mass – because of brilliant bursts of star formation.

BlueWalker 3 satellite outshines most stars in the night sky

An international team of scientists have published a paper in Nature journal, detailing the impact of the prototype BlueWalker 3 satellite on astronomy. The BlueWalker 3 is a prototype satellite, part of a satellite constellation planned by its owner AST SpaceMobile, intended to deliver mobile or broadband services anywhere in the world. Observations of the BlueWalker 3 showed it was one of the brightest objects in the night sky, outshining all but the brightest stars

ISRO to begin unmanned flight tests for Gaganyaan; gearing up for TV-D1

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which is planning to commence uncrewed flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission, has started to make preparations for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1). Though the space agency has not announced the date for the TV-D1, it is expected to take place by the end of October 2023 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The Gaganyaan mission aims to demonstrate the capability to launch human beings (three crew members) to low earth orbit and bring them back safely to earth by landing them in either the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea.

New malaria vaccine is more efficacious and inexpensive

A malaria vaccine — R21/MatrixM — developed by the University of Oxford, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India and tested in a phase-3 trial at five sites in four countries — Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Tanzania — in Africa was recommended (but yet to be prequalified) by the WHO on October 2. At above 75%, the vaccine efficacy of R21/MatrixM is much higher than the first malaria vaccine — RTS,S/AS01 that has been recommended by the WHO in 2021 — which had a vaccine efficacy of 56% at the end of one year in children aged 5-17 months. The results indicate that the vaccine was more efficacious in places where malaria was seasonal than when it was perennial.

New tests confirm antiquity of ancient human footprints in New Mexico

Humans trod the landscape of North America thousands of years earlier than previously thought, according to new research that confirms the antiquity of fossilised footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico using two further dating approaches. The footprints date to about 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating techniques, researchers said on Thursday, showing that our species Homo sapiens already had a foothold in North America during the most-inhospitable conditions of the last Ice Age

First fossilised snake traces discovered in South Africa

Scientists have described the first snake trace in the fossil record found on South Africa’s Cape south coast. It dates to the Pleistocene epoch. Their studies have shown that it was probably made between 93,000 and 83,000 years ago, almost certainly by a puff adder (Bitis arietans). The trace fossil was found in the Walker Bay Nature Reserve ), just over 100 kilometres south-east of Cape Town. The newly described puff adder traces help fill a gap in the Pleistocene trace fossil record from the region. More than 350 vertebrate tracksites have been identified, of mammals, birds and reptiles.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, U.S.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

From finding traces of carbon dioxide and methane on an alien planet to discovering tiny jellyfish that can learn from experience, find all the latest news, discoveries and findings that happened in the field of science this week.

What will ‘cosmic detective’ OSIRIS-REx bring back?

Debris from an alien world will land on the Earth on September 24. NASA’s asteroid-hunting spacecraft OSIRIS-REx – short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer – will drop a capsule containing pristine asteroid material in the Utah desert. OSIRIS-REx, which is currently winging its way towards the earth after a close encounter with Bennu, a near-earth asteroid (NEA), “is a cosmic detective.” Many scientists believe that along with comets, carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu may have seeded the earth with primordial life as they smashed into the young planet more than four billion years ago.

No signals from Vikram and Pragyan, says ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which was hoping to awaken the Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover on Friday, says it has not received any signals from either of the two, despite continuing efforts to establish communications. On September 2, the rover was put into sleep mode; two days later, on September 4, the lander was also put to sleep, following the end of one lunar day.

Astronomers have found carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of an alien world

Scientists in the United Kingdom and the United States have just reported some very interesting chemical traces in the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b, which is about 124 light-years from Earth. In particular, they may have detected a substance which on Earth is only produced by living things. The new study found a lot of carbon dioxide and methane. This is interesting as this is like what is found on Earth, Mars, and Venus in our Solar System – rather than Neptune. The only process we know that creates dimethyl sulfide on our planet is life. In particular, marine life and plankton emit it in the form of flatulence.

Genomic clues suggest humans’ ancestors nearly went extinct 9L years ago

In a recent paper in Science, researchers from China used a new computational technique to analyse about 3,000 present-day human genomes from 10 African and 40 non-African populations. They concluded that the modern human population likely originated only from about 1,200 founding ancestors from a bottleneck. The finding challenges previous estimates that predicted this number to be about 100,000. The scientists also found that our ancestors went through this bottleneck about 900,000 years ago and that the drastic reduction lasted for over 100,000 years.

Six out of nine planetary boundaries breached

A recent study published in Science Advances found that human activities have pushed the Earth past the ‘safe limits’ in six of nine planetary boundaries, which scientists have used to measure the planet’s health. Crossing the ninth boundary could be altogether disastrous, jeopardising the precarious balance of the earth’s ecosystems. The nine planetary boundaries are climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, synthetic chemicals and plastics, freshwater depletion, nitrogen loss, ocean acidification, particle pollution, and dust in the atmosphere and ozone depletion.

Tiny jellyfish can learn from experience

The Caribbean box jellyfish, or Tripedalia cystophora, is known to be able to navigate through murky water and a maze of submerged mangrove roots. Despite this considerable disadvantage, the Caribbean box jellyfish responds to what is called “operant conditioning”. These gelatinous, fingernail-sized creatures are capable of learning from visual cues to avoid swimming into obstacles — a cognitive ability never before seen in animals with such a primitive nervous system. Their performance of what is called “associative learning” is comparable to far more advanced animals such as fruit flies or mice, which have the notable benefit of having a brain.

In a first, RNA is recovered from extinct Tasmanian tiger

The Tasmanian tiger, a dog-sized striped carnivorous marsupial also called the thylacine, once roamed the Australian continent and adjacent islands, an apex predator that hunted kangaroos and other prey. In a scientific first, researchers said on Tuesday they have recovered RNA – genetic material present in all living cells that has structural similarities to DNA – from the desiccated skin and muscle of a Tasmanian tiger stored since 1891 at a museum in Stockholm. While not the focus of this research, the ability to extract, sequence and analyse old RNA could boost efforts by other scientists toward recreating extinct species.

Aditya L1, India’s first ever solar mission, was launched by the ISRO on Saturday at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikotta in Andhra Pradesh. The spacecraft will be positioned within a ‘haloo orbit’ around Lagrange point 1 (L1) in the Sun-Earth system, located approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth. Study will be conducted of Chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections and flares.
| Photo Credit: Raghunathan SR / The Hindu

With the success of Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon, ISRO has set its sights on the Sun. On September 2, it launched Aditya-L1 which is programmed to study the Sun. Read about this week’s latest studies and discoveries from the field of science here.

ISRO launches Aditya-L1 to study the Sun

India’s first solar observatory mission — Aditya-L1 — was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on September 2. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 59th flight with the Aditya-L1 onboard, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 11.50 a.m. About 63 minutes after take-off, the separation from the satellite took place with the PSLV launching the Aditya-L1 spacecraft in a highly eccentric orbit around the Earth at 12.53 p.m. This was among the longest flights of ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle in recent times.

Pragyan safely parked and set into sleep mode: ISRO

ISRO said on September 2 night that Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan had completed its assignments and had been safely parked and set into sleep mode. The lander and the rover, with a mission life of one Lunar day (14 Earth days), have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface. Since its landing on the Moon on August 23, they have carried out many in-situ measurements and taken pictures. The battery is fully charged and the solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, it added.

Rare blue supermoon brightened the night sky this week in the closest full moon of the year

Stargazers were in for a double treat this week: a rare blue supermoon with Saturn peeking from behind. On Wednesday night, a second full moon of the month rose which is dubbed a supermoon because it was closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. This will be the closest full moon of the year, just 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometres) or so away. That’s more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) closer than the August 1 supermoon. As a bonus, Saturn was also visible as a bright point 5 degrees to the upper right of the moon at sunset in the east-southeastern sky, according to NASA. The ringed planet will appear to circle clockwise around the moon as the night wears on.

Scientists in Japan scared flies to understand fear

Previous research has shown that flies exhibit defensive responses that resemble fear-like emotional states. Now, a group of scientists in Japan built a virtual reality arena – a mini theatre for flies – fit with lights, cameras, screens, and a scary action scene to understand fear. Researchers found that the flies would turn away from the scary stimuli. Some flies froze or jumped, but most turned and ran away from the threat. The research also identified a cluster of 20-30 neurons in the visual regions of the fly’s brain is responsible for this behaviour.

Oldest yet fossils of a plant-eating dinosaur found in Rajasthan

In a paper published recently in Scientific Reports, scientists from IIT Roorkee have characterised dinosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic period, found in the Thar desert near the Jaisalmer Basin by the Geological Survey of India. They discovered that they had uncovered remains of a sauropod dinosaur, which is the same clade as the long-necked herbivores in Jurassic Park – only these happened to be the oldest known fossils of this particular kind of sauropod.

Cyclone frequency may rise over Indian coast from the warming of Pacific: study

Tropical cyclones that originate near the Equator, while being devastating, have been unusually subdued in recent decades. The last major cyclone of this kind in the Indian neighbourhood was the 2017 Cyclone Okchi which devastated Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. However, a combination of global warming and a cyclical event called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that repeats every 20-30 years, could make such cyclones more frequent in the coming years, a new study revealed.

New study establishes link between greenhouse gases and polar bear survival

Fifteen years after polar bears were listed as threatened, a new study says researchers have overcome a roadblock in the Endangered Species Act that prevented the federal government from considering climate change when evaluating the impacts of projects such as oil and gas drilling. Researchers estimated the relationship between how long bears fasted and each gigaton of cumulative emissions, which they said allowed them to calculate the impact of emissions from specific projects on future polar bear cub survival.

This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water.
| Photo Credit: AP

Indian Space Research Organisation charted history this week as Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon’s surface, making it the fourth country to do so and the only country to do so at the south pole. Find this week’s latest findings and discoveries from the field of science.

Chandrayaan-3 lands on the south pole of Moon

At 6.03 pm IST on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the moon’s surface, in the south polar region. The landing followed a 19-minute sequence in which the spacecraft used its engines, thrusters, and a suite of sensors to guide itself from an altitude of around 30 km and a speed of 1.7 km/s down to the ground. The success made India the fourth country to have soft-landed a robotic instrument on the moon and the first to have done so in the moon’s south polar region. This elite stature also boosts other countries’ confidence in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which built, launched, and now operates the Chandrayaan-3 instruments.

Sun-observing spacecraft sheds light on the solar wind’s origin

New observations by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft may provide an answer to the origin of solar winds. Researchers have said that the spacecraft has detected numerous relatively small jets of charged particles expelled intermittently from the corona – the sun’s outer atmosphere – at supersonic speeds for 20 to 100 seconds. The jets emanate from structures on the corona called coronal holes where the sun’s magnetic field stretches into space rather than back into the star. They are called “picoflare jets” due to their relatively small size. Scientists think that these jets could actually be a major source of mass and energy to sustain the solar wind.

New findings suggest that LK-99 is probably not a superconductor

In July 2023, a group of scientists in South Korea uploaded two preprint papers claiming that a lead apatite material called LK-99 was an ambient condition superconductor. The group’s two papers elicited a mixture of surprise and scepticism in the scientific community – surprise because of the apatite, and scepticism because of the history of superconductivity. A group from India from the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, was one of the first to report that it didn’t find any signs of superconductivity in LK-99. As far as current evidence suggests, LK-99 is not a superconductor.

Missed childhood TB cases impede achieving 2025 goal

With childhood TB continuing to remain a “staggering problem” in India, “eliminating” TB by 2025 might be extremely challenging. Nearly 0.34 million children <15 years of age in India are estimated to get TB disease every year. While children in this age group are estimated to contribute about 13% of the total TB caseload, only 6% are notified. As per the 2022 WHO global TB report, last year, children aged less than 15 years across the world accounted for 11% of the total estimated incident TB cases. Notwithstanding the 56% estimated TB detection gap in children globally, India contributes nearly one-third to the global childhood TB caseload.  

The ‘weird’ male Y chromosome has finally been fully sequenced

Scientists have finally been able to sequence the Y chromosome in its entirety. The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether – as predicted – it will disappear in a few million years. The Y chromosome is male-determining because it bears a gene called SRY, which directs the development of a ridge of cells into a testis in the embryo. The embryonic testes make male hormones, and these hormones direct the development of male features in a baby boy. Without a Y chromosome and a SRY gene, the same ridge of cells develops into an ovary in XX embryos.

Tropical forests may be getting too hot for photosynthesis

A small percentage of leaves on trees in tropical forests may be approaching the maximum temperature threshold for photosynthesis to work, suggests a study published in Nature. An estimated 0.01% of all leaves currently surpass this critical temperature but there are uncertainties in the range of potentially critical temperatures in tropical trees. Modelling suggests that tropical forests can withstand up to a 3.9 degree C increase over current air temperatures before a potential tipping point, therefore action is needed to protect the fate of tropical forests under future climate change.

No emperor penguin chicks survived last year due to melting of Antarctic ice

The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers said. Researchers used satellite imagery to look at breeding colonies in a region near Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea. The images showed no ice was left there in December during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, as had occurred in 2021. Researchers said it is likely that no chicks survived in four of the five breeding colonies they examined. Penguin chicks don’t develop their adult waterproof feathers until close to the time they usually fledge, in late December or January, scientists say.

This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water.
| Photo Credit: AP

Indian Space Research Organisation charted history this week as Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon’s surface, making it the fourth country to do so and the only country to do so in the south polar region. Find this week’s latest findings and discoveries from the field of science.

Chandrayaan-3 lands on the south pole of Moon

At 6.03 pm IST on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the moon’s surface, in the south polar region. The landing followed a 19-minute sequence in which the spacecraft used its engines, thrusters, and a suite of sensors to guide itself from an altitude of around 30 km and a speed of 1.7 km/s down to the ground. The success made India the fourth country to have soft-landed a robotic instrument on the moon and the first to have done so in the moon’s south polar region. This elite stature also boosts other countries’ confidence in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which built, launched, and now operates the Chandrayaan-3 instruments.

Sun-observing spacecraft sheds light on the solar wind’s origin

New observations by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft may provide an answer to the origin of solar winds. Researchers have said that the spacecraft has detected numerous relatively small jets of charged particles expelled intermittently from the corona – the sun’s outer atmosphere – at supersonic speeds for 20 to 100 seconds. The jets emanate from structures on the corona called coronal holes where the sun’s magnetic field stretches into space rather than back into the star. They are called “picoflare jets” due to their relatively small size. Scientists think that these jets could actually be a major source of mass and energy to sustain the solar wind.

New findings suggest that LK-99 is probably not a superconductor

In July 2023, a group of scientists in South Korea uploaded two preprint papers claiming that a lead apatite material called LK-99 was an ambient condition superconductor. The group’s two papers elicited a mixture of surprise and scepticism in the scientific community – surprise because of the apatite, and scepticism because of the history of superconductivity. A group from India from the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, was one of the first to report that it didn’t find any signs of superconductivity in LK-99. As far as current evidence suggests, LK-99 is not a superconductor.

Missed childhood TB cases impede achieving 2025 goal

With childhood TB continuing to remain a “staggering problem” in India, “eliminating” TB by 2025 might be extremely challenging. Nearly 0.34 million children <15 years of age in India are estimated to get TB disease every year. While children in this age group are estimated to contribute about 13% of the total TB caseload, only 6% are notified. As per the 2022 WHO global TB report, last year, children aged less than 15 years across the world accounted for 11% of the total estimated incident TB cases. Notwithstanding the 56% estimated TB detection gap in children globally, India contributes nearly one-third to the global childhood TB caseload.  

The ‘weird’ male Y chromosome has finally been fully sequenced

Scientists have finally been able to sequence the Y chromosome in its entirety. The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether – as predicted – it will disappear in a few million years. The Y chromosome is male-determining because it bears a gene called SRY, which directs the development of a ridge of cells into a testis in the embryo. The embryonic testes make male hormones, and these hormones direct the development of male features in a baby boy. Without a Y chromosome and a SRY gene, the same ridge of cells develops into an ovary in XX embryos.

Tropical forests may be getting too hot for photosynthesis

A small percentage of leaves on trees in tropical forests may be approaching the maximum temperature threshold for photosynthesis to work, suggests a study published in Nature. An estimated 0.01% of all leaves currently surpass this critical temperature but there are uncertainties in the range of potentially critical temperatures in tropical trees. Modelling suggests that tropical forests can withstand up to a 3.9 degree C increase over current air temperatures before a potential tipping point, therefore action is needed to protect the fate of tropical forests under future climate change.

No emperor penguin chicks survived last year due to melting of Antarctic ice

The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers said. Researchers used satellite imagery to look at breeding colonies in a region near Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea. The images showed no ice was left there in December during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, as had occurred in 2021. Researchers said it is likely that no chicks survived in four of the five breeding colonies they examined. Penguin chicks don’t develop their adult waterproof feathers until close to the time they usually fledge, in late December or January, scientists say.