Category: Technology

Researchers were successful in decoding the genetic molecule ribonucleic acid (RNA) of a Tasmanian tiger that lived over a hundred years ago, allowing scientists to seek a better understanding of the species’ genetics. The hundred-year-old animal’s specimen was in the collection of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and the findings were published in the journal Genome Research. A lead study author Emilio Mármol Sánchez, a computational biologist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics and SciLifeLab in Sweden said: “RNA gives you the chance to go through the cell, the…

The head of WhatsApp refuted a Financial Times (FT) report on Friday that claimed the messaging service, which is owned by Meta Platforms, was considering the addition of adverts to boost revenue. Will Cathcart addressed the issue on Elon Musk-owned X, formerly known as Twitter while reposting the report by FT and saying: “This @FT story is false. We aren’t doing this.”  According to FT sources that are familiar with the situation, Meta’s teams were debating whether to display advertisements in WhatsApp chat lists with contacts, but no decisions have been made.  The report also suggested…

The US space agency Nasa officially joined the search for unidentified flying objects (UFOs) on Thursday, but in keeping with the stigma associated with the subject, it refused to name the head of the new programme entrusted with doing so. The official’s appointment is the result of a year-long Nasa fact-finding report into what Nasa calls “unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).” “At Nasa, it’s in our DNA to explore — and to ask why things are the way they are,” Nasa chief Bill Nelson said. An independent team of 16 researchers…

India announced on Tuesday that it is developing its first human submersible to research the deep oceans and evaluate marine biodiversity, days after the nation successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon. The initiative is just another indication that India aims to strengthen its position as a leader in science and technology, particularly in space and other uncharted territories, on a global scale. Kiren Rijiju, the Earth Sciences Minister, posted photos of the submersible on X, saying the mission will send three people to a depth of six kilometers (about…

Researchers discovered in their new study that black holes do not only eat the whole star at once that come closer to being pulled into the singularity, but some of them feed upon the chunks of stars, as large as the size of our Earth, opening a new window of understanding about how these enormous deep space objects engage with each other in a destructive relationship. Black holes are massive objects present in nearly the centre of nearly every giant galaxy. It also forms when a giant star dies and…

Scientists successfully generated oxygen on Mars from its carbon dioxide-abundant atmosphere using the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) that was carried to the red planet by Nasa’s Perseverance rover in 2021. The Perseverance rover was assigned to search for traces of life on Mars and now the results of generating have exceeded the expectations of scientists giving a boost to a plan of settling on another planet. The instrument created oxygen for more than two years. The experiment also showed that not only life-sustaining gas but also rocket…

Amid a probe into Starship’s explosion in April during its first test flight, Elon Musk is required to wait until all the preventive measures are taken to preclude any failure on its next flight, as the space vehicle is being ready to carry Nasa’s Artemis III crewed mission to the moon in 2025. SpaceX’s Starship is more potent than Nasa’s all-powerful Space Launch System (SLS) generating 16 million pounds of thrust during liftoff with 33 Raptor engines. As the Artemis III mission date approaches, SpaceX has launched only one integrated…

Apple users beware! Researchers at digital watchdog group Citizen Lab on Thursday revealed they found spyware linked to Israeli firm NSO that exploited a newly discovered flaw in Apple devices. While inspecting the Apple device of an employee of a Washington-based civil society group last week, Citizen Lab said it found the flaw had been used to infect the device with NSO’s Pegasus spyware, it said in a statement. “This shows that civil society is once again serving as the early warning system about really sophisticated attacks,” said John Scott-Railton,…

Japan achieved a significant milestone in its space exploration journey on Thursday, September 7, with the successful launch of an H2-A rocket carrying the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM).  The launch, initially postponed three times due to adverse weather conditions, took place at 8.42am local time from Tanegashima in southern Japan.  The primary objective of this mission is for SLIM to land precisely within 100 meters of a specific target on the Moon’s surface. The precision landing is a considerable advancement, as previous lunar landers typically touched down several…