Science

The system is called WHOLISTIC, short form for Whole Organism Live Imaging System for recording Tissue and IntraCellular activity. The body is never truly quiet. Even when an animal appears to be resting, billions of cells are sending signals, responding to changes and coordinating with organs far beyond their immediate surroundings. For scientists, the challenge…

Glacier in Antarctica. Image Credit: Jason Auch/Wikipedia Scientists have directly linked surface meltwater to a sudden increase in the speed of an Antarctic glacier, after drilling deep into Langhovde Glacier in East Antarctica. The study titled ‘Acceleration of an Antarctic outlet glacier driven by surface meltwater input to the base,’ found that water from melting…

PC: Study: Shell-Dense Island Off Culasawani, Vanua Levu Island, Fiji: Midden or Muddle? Archaeologists investigating Fiji’s Vanua Levu have identified a small coastal island whose sediments are made up largely of discarded shellfish remains. The site, near Culasawani on the island’s north coast, covers about 3,000 square metres and contains a shell-rich deposit that makes…

Coconut Husk. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons Royal Society of Chemistry(RSC) Advances published a study which found that green coconut husk waste could remove 95.5% of Congo red dye from water within 80 minutes. The researchers modified the coconut-derived lignin by adding nitrogen-containing groups, creating what they called aminated lignin. Under the best conditions tested, only…

A diver in a kelp forest off the coast of California. Image Credit: Ed Bierman/Wikipedia A school-led restoration project in Orange County, California, has helped bring back kelp forests while turning thousands of students into active participants in marine conservation. Since 2009, the organisation ‘Get Inspired’ has involved schools and volunteer scuba divers in efforts…

In an experiment, scientists shook living earthworms at high frequencies to see how their flexible bodies responded to vibration. What they found was unexpected: the worms developed waves that oscillated at half the frequency of the force driving them. According to the 2019 study published in Nature, titled ‘Excitation of Faraday-like body waves in vibrated…

A feral goat. Image Credit: Scott Bauer/Wikimedia commons The introduction of goats to Seychelles islands created a long-term conservation problem, with one of the earliest eradication efforts recorded on Aride Island in 1920. The study titled ‘Introduced mammals on Western Indian Ocean islands’ documents how introduced mammals became targets of conservation programmes across the Western…

Elephant in Tanzania. Image Credit: Nevit Dilmen/Wikimedia Commons In parts of Tanzania, small farms are increasingly coming into contact with African elephants, leading to a hard conflict between wildlife conservation and rural livelihoods. A 2026 study, published in the ‘International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation’ found that most of the reported crop raids in the…

Charles Darwin, the English naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection transformed our understanding of life, also left behind observations that extended beyond biology. One of his most memorable reflections was on the value of time and how people choose to use it. His words, “A man who dares to waste one hour of…

Spider-tailed horned viper (Image Credit: Omid Mozaffari) The natural world is full of animals that use mimicry to survive, but few examples are as unusual as the spider-tailed horned viper. Native to Iran, this elusive snake has evolved a remarkable tail tip that resembles a spider, complete with a bulbous body and dangling, leg-like structures….

Malaysian students have built a prototype that attempts to recover electricity from one of the most overlooked sources of wasted energy in a home, water flowing down the sink. Developed by three students at Universiti Malaya, WattsUp is an IoT-enabled micro-hydropower system designed specifically for the weak and intermittent flow produced by household wastewater. Rather…

Representative image of Hawaii from Canva In 1902, red mangroves were brought to Hawaii with an apparently practical purpose. Their tangled roots could hold soil in place, reduce erosion and stabilise shorelines around vulnerable coastal areas. At the time, the trees seemed like a useful solution for an island environment shaped by waves, storms and…