World

Valery Legasov was the Soviet scientist who exposed the failures behind the Chernobyl disaster and became a symbol of truth, accountability, and scientific integrity A technician inside a nuclear control room looks at a radiation meter that reads exactly 3.6 Roentgen (Unit of measurement for gamma-ray exposure) per hour. Moments after the catastrophic explosion tore…

Manus aurita’s museum specimen. Photocredit: Narayan Koju. In 1836, a young British diplomat and naturalist named Brian Houghton Hodgson was stuck in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, far from Europe’s great museums but close to the forests and hills where strange animals still lived largely unseen. One day, he came across a creature that looked almost like…

Kiran Kaur jailed for 3 years. A mother of Vickrum Digwa has been jailed for helping conceal the knife used to kill teenager Henry Nowak after taking the weapon from her son and hiding it at their Southampton home, BBC reported.Kiran Kaur, 53, was sentenced to three years in prison at Southampton Crown Court after…

At least eight people are dead and 34 remain missing after a rain-triggered landslide buried residential buildings in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality on Friday.The landslide struck at around 9.08 am in Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County, after local officials reported sporadic rockfalls about an hour earlier and began evacuating residents. Despite the early warning,…

USCIS says there will be no second round of lottery for H-1B. In a major update, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that there will be no second lottery for FY2027. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000…

For centuries, shellfish poisoning has been a threat to humans, and we have had no way to stop it. The ‘red tide’ algal blooms found on the Pacific coast are deadly contributors, producing one of the most vicious neurotoxins known: saxitoxin (STX). Eat the wrong shellfish, and paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) follows. There is no…

Haven or trap? Study finds sinkholes protect endangered tree at evolutionary cost China’s huge sinkholes, known as tiankengs (“heavenly pits” in Chinese), are both helping and harming one of the region’s most endangered plants at the same time. They protect the rare Magnolia aromatica tree from climate change, but they also keep its populations isolated,…

Gilgit-Baltistan (AP photo) Is Pakistan preparing to make Gilgit-Baltistan its fifth province? Amid ongoing unrest in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the Gilgit-Baltistan assembly has passed a resolution urging Islamabad to grant the region provisional provincial status, a move that could majorly redefine its administrative structure.The Gilgit-Baltistan assembly on Thursday passed a resolution, backed by both ruling and…

During the Second World War, a small, uninhabited island off Scotland’s north-west coast became the site of one of Britain’s most secret military experiments. In 1942, Gruinard Island was deliberately contaminated with anthrax spores as part of a classified biological warfare programme designed to test whether the deadly bacterium could be used against enemy livestock….

For years, China’s empty subway stations became some of the internet’s favourite examples of “ghost cities” and questionable urban planning. Images of polished platforms, escalators and station entrances surrounded by fields appeared to show infrastructure built far ahead of demand. Among the most famous examples was Caojiawan Station in Chongqing, which seemed to stand alone…