latest news

What do you need to make your garden grow? As well as plenty of sunshine alternating with gentle showers of rain – and busy bees and butterflies to pollinate the plants – you need good, rich soil to provide essential minerals. But imagine you had no rich soil, or showers of rain, or bees and butterflies. And the sunshine was either too harsh and direct or absent – causing freezing temperatures. Could plants grow in such an environment – and, if so, which ones? This is the question that…

A few months ago, I quit my job at Google after 10 years to join a 40 person startup (Replit). At the time, I had a hard time expressing why I needed to make the change, even though I knew with certainty. Writing this helped me sort it out. I left because I needed to fix my work-life balance. I joined Google in early 2011. Larry Page was beginning his second stint as CEO. Everybody was talking about a secret project named Emerald Sea. TGIF was on Fridays, and…

One of the useful features of search engines like Google is the autocomplete function that enables users to find fast answers to their questions or queries. However, autocomplete search functions are based on ambiguous algorithms that have been widely criticized because they often provide biased and racist results. The ambiguity of these algorithm stems from the fact that most of us know very little about them — which has led some to refer to them as “black boxes.” Search engines and social…

A hundred kilometers away from the city of La Rioja, Argentina — and a thousand away from the capital Buenos Aires — lies the Los Colorados provincial reserve, which holds a Martian landscape filled with red soil and orange canyons. In this area, the Solar54 project will carry out a series of studies and tests of the different variables that will determine the human colonization of Mars. It seeks to recreate the environment of Mars so that space agencies from all around the globe can run tests…

After the restoration of regular foreign flights, Indians who do not have a transit or regular Schengen visa will be denied boarding at the origin in India on European Union (EU) carriers such as Lufthansa, Air France, and KLM who are supposed to go to the United Kingdom via these airlines’ hubs in Frankfurt or Munich, Paris and Amsterdam, respectively.According to top airline officials, the EU has reportedly decided to “punish" the UK by requiring non-EU citizens to get a transit Schengen visa in order to fly to the UK…

Maharashtra, which was one of the first states in the country to design and notify an Electric Vehicles policy, has now decided to put the policy on hold for a year.As said in the policy draft: “Starting April 2022, all new govt. vehicles (owned/leased) operating within the major cities to be electric.”Various government departments objected to the proposal, citing lack of suitable charging stations for these vehicles across the state and raising concerns about how the EVs would perform in isolated areas, where road…

Hybrid electric vehicles combine the advantages of petrol engines and electric motors. They can be built to achieve a variety of objectives, such as improved fuel economy or increased power.Most hybrids use advanced technologies like regenerative braking, electric motor drive or assist, as well as automatic stop and start.However, now four-wheeler manufacturers are introducing hybrid electric options in the mid-size vehicle class.ChoicesFor example, in India, Honda has unveiled a hybrid version of its City sedan, with a…

By 2030, India wants 30% of private automobiles, 70% of commercial vehicles, 40% of buses and 80% of two- and three-wheelers to be electric. But way before that, India is likely to get the world’s longest EV roadway by the end of 2022 or early 2023.Currently, the world’s largest EV highway, which is 109-km long, is located in Germany’s Berlin.India’s Agra-Delhi-Jaipur 500-km highway, named Atal Harit Vidyut Rashtriya Mahamarg (AHVRM), is currently under construction and is likely to be renamed during inauguration.The…

Since last year, there have been talks of Tata Group’s plans for getting into the semiconductor field. But it is only recently that N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons Pvt, at an event in Mumbai on April 29 clearly stated the organisation’s plans. Chandrasekaran said that in addition to making chips, plans to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) will be announced soon.It is noteworthy that in Tata Motors Limited’s annual report, he also mentioned evaluating partnerships for cell and battery manufacturing…

To reduce worries of money laundering, uncertainty in the skill gaming sector, the Centre is reportedly considering a proposal to create a regulator to stimulate investment and protect player interests. It is learnt that the industry is also in favour of such a move. According to a recent report, people familiar with the matter said while the government is considering possibilities for regulating such organisations, it is of the opinion that the task should not be entrusted to any financial sector regulator because the…