Junior Digest

Oct 05,2026: American scientist Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their pioneering discoveries on light and optogenetics that have helped understand ⁠how the brain works.

The Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university said on Monday that Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, and Nagel, 73, were honoured “for their discovery of a molecular switch for nerve cells”.
Optogenetics involves controlling nerve signals with light, and helps researchers understand how specific cell types contribute to behaviours like learning, fear, addiction and movement.

“Optogenetics has fundamentally altered our understanding of the brain. Every day brings new discoveries, helping to solve one of humanity’s great mysteries: how our incredible brain works,” the Nobel Assembly said.

Thomas Perlmann, the secretary-general of the ⁠Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute, added that optogenetics “makes it possible to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain”.

“This method is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries,” Perlmann added.

“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said in a statement.

Researchers also hope optogenetics could improve cochlear implants, allowing more precise stimulation of the auditory nerve than current electrical devices.

Deisseroth, 54, is a professor at Stanford University in the US, while Hegemann, 71, is a neuroscience professor at Humboldt University of Berlin. Nagel, 73, is a biophysics professor at the University of Wurzburg. The three of them will share a prize sum amounting to 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2m).

“All three said the same thing: that they ⁠thought it was absolutely wonderful to receive the prize with the other two who they call their friends – that it’s such an honour to receive the prize together,” Perlmann said.

Nobel laureates are chosen by expert committees appointed by the prize-awarding institutions. The physiology or medicine prize traditionally opens the annual Nobel announcements, with the Nobel Prize for physics announced on Tuesday, followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday and the literature prize on Thursday.

But perhaps the most keenly anticipated award is that due on Friday, the peace prize – the only Nobel to be awarded in Oslo.
Laureates receive their awards on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death, in ceremonies attended by Sweden’s and Norway’s royal families, with banquets held in their honour.

Chennai, Mar 19,2025: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA)’s SpaceX Crew-9, comprising India born Woman Astronaut Sunita Williams and three others, completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS), splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America on early Wednesday morning at 0327 hrs (IST).

In a press release on its website, NASA said its astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth at 5:57 p.m. EDT.

Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft and its crew.

Upon returning to shore, the crew will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and reunite with their families.

“We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home after their months-long mission conducting vital science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance aboard the ISS”, said

NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro.

“Per President Trump’s direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to pull the schedule a month earlier. This international crew and our teams on the ground embraced the Trump Administration’s challenge of an updated, and somewhat unique, mission plan, to bring our crew home. Through preparation, ingenuity, and dedication, we achieve great things together for the benefit of humanity, pushing the boundaries of what is possible from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars”, it said.

Hague and Gorbunov lifted off at 1:17 p.m. September 28, 2024, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The next day, they docked to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module. Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, 2024, from Space Launch Complex 41 as part of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test.

The duo arrived at the space station on June 6. In August, NASA announced the uncrewed return of Starliner to Earth and integrated Wilmore and Williams as part of the space station’s Expedition 71/72 for a return on Crew-9.

The crew of four undocked at 1:05 a.m. Tuesday to begin the trip home.

Williams and Wilmore traveled 121,347,491 miles during their mission, spent 286 days in space, and completed 4,576 orbits around Earth.

Hague and Gorbunov traveled 72,553,920 miles during their mission, spent 171 days in space, and completed 2,736 orbits around Earth.

The Crew-9 mission was the first spaceflight for Gorbunov. Hague has logged 374 days in space over his two missions, Williams has logged 608 days in space over her three flights, and Wilmore has logged 464 days in space over his three flights.

Throughout its mission, Crew-9 contributed to a host of science and maintenance activities and technology demonstrations.

Sunita Williams conducted two spacewalks, joined by Wilmore for one and Hague for another, removing a radio frequency group antenna assembly from the station’s truss, collecting samples

from the station’s external surface for analysis, installing patches to cover damaged areas of light filters on an X-ray telescope, and more.

She now holds the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut, with 62 hours and six minutes outside of station, and is fourth on the all-time spacewalk duration list.

The American crew members conducted more than 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations between them, with over 900 hours of research.

This research included investigations on plant growth and quality, as well as the potential of stem cell technology to address blood diseases, autoimmune disorders, and cancers.

They also tested lighting systems to help astronauts maintain circadian rhythms, loaded the first wooden satellite for deployment, and took samples from the space station’s exterior to study whether microorganisms can survive in space.

The Crew-9 mission was the fourth flight of the Dragon spacecraft named Freedom.

It also previously supported NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4, Axiom Mission 2, and Axiom Mission 3.

The spacecraft will return to Florida for inspection and processing at SpaceX’s refurbishing facility

at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, where teams will inspect the Dragon, analyze data on its performance, and begin processing for its next flight.

The Crew-9 flight is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and its return to Earth follows on

the heels of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 launch, which docked to the station on March 16, beginning another long-duration science expedition.

The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low Earth orbit.

The program provides additional research time and has increased opportunities for discovery aboard humanity’s microgravity testbed for exploration, including helping NASA prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Washington, Jan 21,2026: NASA astronaut of Indian origin, Sunita “Suni” Williams has retired from the US space agency after 27 years of service, bringing to a close one of the most accomplished careers in human spaceflight.

NASA announced that her retirement became effective on December 27, 2025.

Williams, a veteran of three missions to the International Space Station (ISS), leaves behind a legacy marked by record-setting achievements and leadership roles that helped shape modern space exploration.

Over the course of her career, she spent a total of 608 days in space, the second-highest cumulative time logged by any NASA astronaut.

“Suni Williams has been a trailblazer in human spaceflight,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, praising her leadership aboard the space station and her role in advancing science and technology critical for future Artemis missions to the Moon and eventual missions to Mars.

Among her many milestones, Williams ranks sixth among American astronauts for the longest single spaceflight, having logged 286 days during NASA’s Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Crew-9 missions, a record she shares with astronaut Butch Wilmore.

She also completed nine spacewalks totalling 62 hours and six minutes, the most by any woman and the fourth-highest cumulative spacewalk time in history. Williams was also the first person to run a marathon in space.

Williams launched for the first time aboard space shuttle Discovery with STS-116 in December 2006 and returned aboard space shuttle Atlantis with the STS-117 crew. She served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 14/15 and completed a then-record-breaking four spacewalks during the mission.

In 2012, Williams launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a 127-day mission as a member of Expedition 32/33. She also served as space station commander for Expedition 33. Williams performed three spacewalks during the mission to repair a leak on a station radiator and replace a component that gets power from the station’s solar arrays to its systems.

Most recently, Williams and Wilmore launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June 2024 as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission. She and Wilmore went on to join Expedition 71/72, and Williams again took command of the space station for Expedition 72. She completed two spacewalks on the mission and returned to Earth in March 2025, as part of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, described Williams as a “pioneering leader,” highlighting her contributions from space station operations to her role in the Starliner test flight programme.

Beyond space missions, Williams held several key leadership and training roles within NASA, including deputy chief of the Astronaut Office and director of operations in Star City, Russia. She also played a role in developing helicopter training programmes to prepare astronauts for future lunar missions.

“Anyone who knows me knows that space is my absolute favorite place to be,” said Williams. “It’s been an incredible honor to have served in the Astronaut Office and have had the opportunity to fly in space three times. I had an amazing 27-year career at NASA, and that is mainly because of all the wonderful love and support I’ve received from my colleagues.”

“The International Space Station, the people, the engineering, and the science are truly awe-inspiring and have made the next steps of exploration to the Moon and Mars possible. I hope the foundation we set has made these bold steps a little easier. I am super excited for NASA and its partner agencies as we take these next steps, and I can’t wait to watch the agency make history,” she added.

A native of Needham, Massachusetts, Williams is a retired US Navy captain, an accomplished pilot with over 4,000 flight hours, and a graduate of the US Naval Academy and Florida Institute of Technology.

Washington, Sept 14,2026: US entrepreneur Elon Musk believes that his company SpaceX will launch artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 into orbit as early as next year.

“I am highly confident that SpaceX will be launching Nvidia VR NLV72 AI computers in space next year,” Musk said on X.

Media previously reported on Musk’s plans to launch next-generation satellites that would function as orbital data centres.
SpaceX (SPCX) is accelerating its most ambitious infrastructure bet beyond Earth. Elon Musk confirmed on Aug. 24 that SpaceX and Nvidia had designed a space-optimized system for the company’s first Starmind AI satellite, targeted for launch in late 2027.

Nvidia (NVDA) separately said the satellite will extend the same accelerated-computing architecture used in terrestrial AI factories into orbit. The timing is significant because SpaceX only began trading in June 2026.

Nov 8,2025: James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity, ushered in the age of genetics and provided the foundation for the biotechnology revolution of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 97.
In his later years, Watson’s reputation was tarnished by comments on genetics and race that led him to be ostracized by the scientific establishment.
Even as a younger man, he was known as much for his writing and for his enfant-terrible persona – including his willingness to use another scientist’s data to advance his own career – as for his science.

His 1968 memoir, “The Double Helix,” was a racy, take-no-prisoners account of how he and British physicist Francis Crick were first to determine the three-dimensional shape of DNA. The achievement won the duo a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and eventually would lead to genetic engineering, gene therapy and other DNA-based medicine and technology.

Crick complained that the book “grossly invaded my privacy” and another colleague, Maurice Wilkins, objected to what he called a “distorted and unfavorable image of scientists” as ambitious schemers willing to deceive colleagues and competitors in order to make a discovery.

In addition, Watson and Crick, who did their research at Cambridge University in England, were widely criticized for using raw data collected by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin to construct their model of DNA – as two intertwined staircases – without fully acknowledging her contribution. As Watson put it in “Double Helix,” scientific research feels “the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play.”

In 2007, Watson again caused widespread anger when he told the Times of London that he believed testing indicated the intelligence of Africans was “not really … the same as ours.”

Accused of promoting long-discredited racist theories, he was shortly afterwards forced to retire from his post as chancellor of New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Although he later apologized, he made similar comments in a 2019 documentary, calling different racial attainment on IQ tests – attributed by most scientists to environmental factors – “genetic.”
‘TOUGH IRISHMAN’

James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago on April 6, 1928, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a zoology degree. He received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he focused on genetics. In 1951, he joined Cambridge’s Cavendish Lab, where he met Crick and began the quest for the structural chemistry of DNA.

Just waiting to be found, the double helix opened the doors to the genetics revolution. In the structure Crick and Watson proposed, the steps of the winding staircase were made of pairs of chemicals called nucleotides or bases. As they noted at the end of their 1953 paper, “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”

That sentence, often called the greatest understatement in the history of biology, meant that the base-and-helix structure provided the mechanism by which genetic information can be precisely copied from one generation to the next. That understanding led to the discovery of genetic engineering and numerous other DNA techniques.

Watson and Crick went their separate ways after their DNA research. Watson was only 25 years old then and while he never made another scientific discovery approaching the significance of the double helix, he remained a scientific force.

“He had to figure out what to do with his life after achieving what he did at such a young age,” biologist Mark Ptashne, who met Watson in the 1960s and remained a friend, told Reuters in a 2012 interview. “He figured out how to do things that played to his strength.”

That strength was playing “the tough Irishman,” as Ptashne put it, to become one of the leaders of the U.S. leap to the forefront of molecular biology. Watson joined the biology department at Harvard University in 1956.

“The existing biology department felt that molecular biology was just a flash in the pan,” Harvard biochemist Guido Guidotti related. But when Watson arrived, Guidotti said he immediately told everyone in the biology department – scientists whose research focused on whole organisms and populations, not cells and molecules – “that they were wasting their time and should retire.”

That earned Watson the decades-long enmity of some of those traditional biologists, but he also attracted young scientists and graduate students who went on to forge the genetics revolution.

In 1968 Watson took his institution-building drive to CSHL on Long Island, splitting his time between CSHL and Harvard for eight years. The lab at the time was “just a mosquito-infested backwater,” said Ptashne. As director, “Jim turned it into a vibrant, world-class institution.”
GENOME PROJECT

In 1990, Watson was named to lead the Human Genome Project, whose goal was to determine the order of the 3 billion chemical units that constitute humans’ full complement of DNA. When the National Institutes of Health, which funded the project, decided to seek patents on some DNA sequences, Watson attacked the NIH director and resigned, arguing that genome knowledge should remain in the public domain.

In 2007 he became the second person in the world to have his full genome sequenced. He made the sequence publicly available, arguing that concerns about “genetic privacy” were overwrought but made an exception by saying he did not want to know if he had a gene associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Watson did have a gene associated with novelty-seeking.

His proudest accomplishment, Watson told an interviewer for Discover magazine in 2003, was not discovering the double helix – which “was going to be found in the next year or two” anyway – but his books.

“My heroes were never scientists,” he said. “They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood – you know, good writers.”

Watson cherished the bad-boy image he presented to the world in “Double Helix,” friends said, and he emphasized it in his 2007 book, “Avoid Boring People.”

Married with two sons, he often disparaged women in public statements and boasted of chasing what he called “popsies.” But he personally encouraged many female scientists, including biologist Nancy Hopkins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I certainly couldn’t have had a career in science without his support, I believe,” said Hopkins, long outspoken about anti-woman bias in science. “Jim was hugely supportive of me and other women. It’s an odd thing to understand.”

May 20,2025: Recipient of the prestigious civilian honour, Padma Vibhushan, veteran nuclear scientist M R Srinivasan, dies at 95

At 95, he was fit and active enough to be re-inducted as member of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) earlier this year. But age finally caught up with M R Srinivasan on Tuesday.

Among the first generation of nuclear technologists in India, Srinivasan was one of the key people who built the country’s nuclear power programme. Joining the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in 1955 at the age of 25, Srinivasan rose to become its Chairman in 1987 and also headed the AEC. A mechanical engineer, his most important contribution was in the refinement and adaptation of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors, which went on to become the backbone of nuclear power in India.

President Droupadi Murmu expressed grief and said, “Deeply saddened by the passing of Dr M R Srinivasan whose contribution to India’s nuclear energy development program has been extraordinary. His contribution to India’s energy security and scientific development will always be remembered. His legacy will continue to inspire future generations of engineers and scientists.”

Condoling the passing of “a stalwart of India’s nuclear energy programme”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “His instrumental role in developing critical nuclear infrastructure has been foundational to our being self-reliant in the energy sector. He is remembered for his inspiring leadership of the Atomic Energy Commission. India will always be grateful to him for advancing scientific progress and mentoring many young scientists.”

Srinivasan was part of the team that built Apsara, India’s first research reactor in the 1950s, and was involved with every nuclear power plant built thereafter.
“If I have to identify one person who has been the most influential in guiding India’s nuclear power sector, it will have to be Dr Srinivasan. He was one of the early pioneers, and remained active till his last,” Anil Kakodkar, one of his successors as Chairman of DAE and AEC, said.
Kakodkar said Srinivasan used to regularly attend the meetings of AEC and other places where he was invited. “He was amazingly active, and interested in nuclear issues. Of course, you cannot defeat age,” he said.

Srinivasan had become the head of the Nuclear Energy Board in 1984. The Board managed and operated all nuclear power plants before it was transformed into the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) in 1987. Srinivasan was the obvious choice for the position of its founder-director.
“The nuclear power stations now operating at Kalpakkam, Rawatbhata, Kaiga, Kakrapar, and Narora are all shining testimonies to his yeoman contributions to nation-building,” former Union minister Jairam Ramesh said.

“Picked by Homi Bhabha himself, he played a pivotal role in the setting up of India’s very first nuclear power plant at Tarapur in the late 60s. Later he led the team that established India’s extensive nuclear power complex at Kalpakkam. It was under his inspiring leadership that India resolutely and successfully withstood the withdrawal of Canadian association after India’s nuclear test of May 1974,” he said.

CM M K Stalin said Srinivasan was “a pillar of India’s atomic energy programme” who was a “true nation builder”.

Srinivasan was one of the first from his generation to initiate public engagement on nuclear energy and write in newspapers, and spoke in public, something that his colleagues in the nuclear establishment at that time were reluctant to do.

Festive offer

Chennai, June 26,2025: Creating history, the Four astronauts have started their research mission after entering the International Space Station (ISS) today.
In an update NASA said on Thursday, the hatch opened between the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the International Space Station following the arrival of Axiom Mission 4.
The spacecraft docked at 6:31 a.m. EDT (1600 hrs IST) to the space-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary now are aboard the space station after launching at 2:31 a.m EST (12.01 pm IST) yesterday on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the fourth private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory, Axiom Mission 4.

The private astronauts plan to spend about two weeks aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting a mission of science, outreach, and commercial activities.
Shukla became the first Indian astronaut to enter the ISS and second astronaut to fly to space after Rakesh Sharma in 1984.
The Ax-4 crew arrived and docked at the International Space Station and were greeted by NASA’s Expedition Crew for the welcome ceremony.
Once aboard the station, Expedition 73 crew members, including NASA astronauts, Nicole Ayers, Anne McClain, and Jonny Kim, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky welcomed the astronauts by hugging, triggering celebrations at ISS.

The crew is scheduled to remain at the space station, conducting microgravity research, educational outreach, and commercial activities for about two weeks before a return to Earth and splashdown off the coast of California.

The International Space Station is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy. NASA’s goal is to achieve a strong economy off the Earth where the agency can purchase services as one of many customers to meet its science and research objectives in microgravity.

This begins their 14-day mission on the orbiting laboratory conducting microgravity research, technology demonstrations, and outreach engagements.

Oct 9,2025: Scientists, spanning continents, win Chemistry Prize for bridging metals and organics.
An Australian, a Japanese and a Jordanian-American scientist were announced winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering and creating a class of materials, called metal-organic frameworks (MOF).

Metallic and organic substances are as far apart in the chemical world as Australia and the United States geographically, and it was inconceivable that stable, useful products could be made out of materials formed by integrating them. But beginning with Richard Robson’s initial conception of them in the mid 70s, sparked from a science project for his Melbourne University students; to Susumu Kitagawa’s dogged determination, in Kyoto University, at creating porous molecules — despite knowing that they were “useless” — but tinkering with them until he created the right kind of structures that were useful enough to work as a filter whilst remaining flexible and pliant; to finally Omar Yaghi at the University of California, Berkley, making a variety of metal-organic frameworks, as he named them, that were — among other things — capable of drawing water vapour out of desert air at night and releasing them as water in the day.

The three will equally shared the prize of 11 million Swedish kroner, about ₹1 crore.

Following the laureates’ groundbreaking discoveries, chemists have since built tens of thousands of different MOFs. Some of these may contribute to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges, with applications that include separating PFAS (a family of chemicals that are believed to be toxic) from water, breaking down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment, capturing carbon dioxide or harvesting water from desert air, a press statement noted.
Researchers have developed a molecular kit with a wide range of different pieces that can be used to create new MOFs. These have different shapes and characters, providing incredible potential for the rational — or AI-based — design of MOFs for different purposes.
First of the block and inspired by a project to make wooden block representations of chemical bonds, Mr. Robson began by testing the inherent properties of atoms in a new way. He combined positively charged copper ions with a four-armed molecule; this had a chemical group that was attracted to copper ions at the end of each arm.

When they were combined, they bonded to form a well-ordered, spacious crystal. It was like a diamond filled with innumerable cavities.

Mr. Robson immediately recognised the potential of his molecular construction, but it was unstable and collapsed easily. However, Mr. Kitagawa and Mr. Yaghi provided this building method with a firm foundation; between 1992 and 2003, they made, separately, a series of revolutionary discoveries. Mr. Kitagawa showed that gases can flow in and out of the constructions and predicted that MOFs could be made flexible. Mr. Yaghi created a very stable MOF and showed that it can be modified using rational design, giving it new and desirable properties.

Initially, it was challenging for the broader scientific community to appreciate MOF, as they didn’t seem to be much better than a class of materials called zeolites. But things changed when they succeeded in developing soft MOFs — a step up over zeolites that were hard. One of those who was able to present a flexible material was Kitagawa himself. When his material was filled with water or methane, it changed shape, and when it was emptied, it returned to its original form. The material behaved somewhat like a lung that can breathe gas in and out, changeable but stable.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 6,2026: Belgian-American particle physicist Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for ground-breaking work creating an observatory to detect some of the universe’s most elusive particles, high-energy neutrinos, and how they ​are created.

Halzen realised that ice at the South Pole could be used to track neutrinos, sometimes known as ‘ghost particles’ ‌for the way they pass through the Earth and our bodies without a trace, and only interact with matter extremely rarely.

“The messengers bring information from the cosmos,” Eva Olsson, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a press conference. “They open the door to distant galaxies and tell us about the processes ​of exploding stars.”
HALZEN HAILED FOR DETECTING ‘MESSENGERS FROM THE COSMOS’

The neutrino interactions collected by the IceCube observatory in Antarctica provide researchers ​with knowledge about how high-energy neutrinos are created, potentially even revealing previously unknown cosmic phenomena, the body said.

“Francis ⁠Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a fantastic instrument,” Mark Pearce, chair of ​the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in a statement.

“His tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.”

In ​2014, the US-based Smithsonian magazine, dubbed Halzen “Neutrino Man” when giving him one of its ingenuity Awards, acclaiming him for an “amazing experiment (that) heralds the beginning of a new era in astronomy”.

It even published a comic illustrating his life: “How One Physicist’s Pursuit of the Cosmos Took Off in Antarctica”

The winners of the Nobel physics prize ​are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and receive a prize sum totalling 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), which is ​shared among the winners if there are several.

Physics occupied a prominent place in Nobel’s will and the prize remains one of the discipline’s highest distinctions. Over the decades it has recognised discoveries that have fundamentally reshaped humanity’s understanding of the universe.

Among past ​laureates are some of the ​most celebrated figures in science, ⁠including Albert Einstein, Marie and Pierre Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, whose work helped establish the foundations of modern physics.

Last year’s physics prize was awarded to US-based scientists John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for experiments ​that demonstrated the principles of quantum physics in action, research seen as helping to advance the ​next generation of ⁠computing and other digital technologies.

Sriharikota, (Andhra Pradesh), Jan 29,2025: In a record and historic 100th launch mission from SHAR Range for ISRO, the GSLV-F15 Rocket, with the indigenous cryogenic third stage,successfully precisely injected the NVS-02 Navigation satellite into the desired orbit on Wednesday morning.
After a smooth 27 hr countdown, the heavier launch vehicle, took off majestically from the Second Launch pad after after a flight duration of 19 minutes, injected the 2,250 kg satellite.
Union Minister of State (I/C) for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh lauded ISRO for successfully accomplishing the landmark milestone of 100th mission from the SHAR Range on Wednesday morning and said this quantum leap instilled confidence that “sky is not the limit after the space sector was unlocked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

In a post on X minutes after GLSV-F15 successfully and precisely injected the Navigation Satellite NVS-02 into the precise Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, he said.

The space sector was unlocked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

From a humble beginning by Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan and few others, it has been an amazing journey and a quantum leap after the Prime Minister unlocked the space sector, he added.

“Congratulations @isro for achieving the landmark milestone of #100thLaunch from #Sriharikota.”

“It’s a privilege to be associated with the Department of Space at the historic moment of this record feat”, he wrote.

“Team #ISRO, you have once again made India proud with successful launch of GSLV-F15 / NVS-02 Mission”, he said.

Dr Jitendra Singh said “From a humble beginning by Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan and few others, it has been an amazing journey. And a quantum leap after PM Sh @narendramodi “unlocked” the Space sector and instilled the confidence that “sky is Not the limit”.

Oct 07,2026: Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis,” the award-giving body said on Wednesday.
“So this year’s prize is about foundational chemistry. Many molecules occur in two different versions. Like my hands. They are one another’s mirror image, they look alike, but they are not identical. I cannot put my hands on top of one another. Such molecules are called chiral, from the Greek word for hand, Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said.
The statement of the Nobel Committee is as follows:
“They made chemistry choose a mirror image

Some molecules, such as amino acids, exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image. However, living organisms only contain one of these mirror images. How chemical asymmetry such as this could have emerged was long a mystery to chemists. Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 for discovering a solution to this puzzle.

Life’s chemistry is what chemists call homochiral, after the Greek words for “same” and “hand”. Like hands, all amino acids exist as two mirrored variants, but only one of them is found in the proteins in your cells. The other is rarely found in nature.

For a long time, chemists wondered how homochirality can emerge. When they began to experiment with chemical reactions that can form two mirrored molecules, they always obtained equal proportions of both in their test tubes. However, chemists strived to produce only one of these mirror images, because in the development of molecules that will interact with living beings – such as in pharmaceuticals – only one mirror image will have the desired effect.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 recognises discoveries that have enabled chemists to drive chemical reactions that lead to homochirality.

“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular,” says Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Henri Kagan took the first decisive step in 1986, when he discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions. This allowed him to create a greater excess of one of the mirror images than had previously been thought possible.

Kenso Soai took the next step. In 1995, a key publica­tion describes how he designed the first ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral. In 2003, he finally succeeded. He presented a reaction in which only one of the two possible mirror images was formed. Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat.

Thanks to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai, we now know how homochirality can emerge. Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals”.
The laureates will receive their medals from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. The awards are followed by a lavish banquet at Stockholm City Hall.

They also share 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), as well as the fame of winning arguably the world’s most prestigious science award.

March 7,2025: SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.

Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed.

The failure of the eighth Starship test comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosive failure. The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a program Musk had sought to speed up this year.

The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system is central to Musk’s plan to send humans to Mars as soon as the turn of the decade.

The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued ground stops at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of “space launch debris.” It said it had opened a mishap investigation into the incident.

The rocket lifted off about 6:30 p.m. ET (2330 GMT) from SpaceX’s sprawling Boca Chica, Texas, rocket facilities. The Super Heavy first stage booster flew back to Earth as planned and was successfully grabbed in midair by a SpaceX crane.

But minutes later, SpaceX’s live stream showed the Starship upper stage spinning in space, while a visualization of the rocket’s engines showed multiple engines shut down. Then the company said it had lost contact with the ship, and announcers immediately drew a connection to the previous flight.
SpaceX said there were no toxic materials among the debris.
Starship was aiming to make nearly a full orbit around Earth and re-enter over the Indian Ocean for a splashdown, simulating a landing sequence that SpaceX wants to soon carry out on land as a key next phase of the rocket’s development.

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 15,2025: In a major milestone for India’s space programme, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully developed the C-32 cryogenic propulsion system, reinforcing the country’s capabilities in advanced space technology.

The achievement comes alongside ISRO’s successful demonstration of docking and undocking technology, placing India in an elite group alongside the United States, Russia, China, and SpaceX.

Announcing the breakthrough, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan told reporters here on Saturday that the C-32 stage, powered by a 20-ton thrust cryogenic engine, marks a significant advancement in India’s human spaceflight and deep-space exploration capabilities. Designed for prolonged operational efficiency, the system was successfully tested using an indigenous nozzle protection mechanism, allowing for extended test durations—an innovation critical for future heavy-lift missions.

“This is yet another critical milestone in our journey towards self-reliance in space technology. Cryogenic propulsion was once denied to India, but today, we have successfully developed and tested three cryogenic stages, including the C-32, demonstrating our capability to push the boundaries of space exploration,” Dr Narayanan said.

In addition, ISRO’s successful docking and undocking demonstration, conducted on January 16, places India among the few nations to have mastered this complex technology. The 125 simulations carried out before the actual attempt ensured that the undocking process succeeded on the very first attempt at 9.21 am, further strengthening India’s credentials in space docking technology—an area where SpaceX has made significant advancements in recent years.

“This achievement will be crucial for India’s future space missions, including the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, and strengthens our position as a spacefaring nation,” Dr Narayanan added.

With dedicated efforts from ISRO scientists, industrial partners, and academic collaborators, India is rapidly progressing towards its goal of becoming a global leader in space technology, in line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the country a developed nation by 2047, he said.

Oct 9,2025:Scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance”, the award-giving body said on Monday.

The winners for medicine are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university and receive a prize sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.7 million), as well as a gold medal presented by Sweden’s king.
Scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance”, the award-giving body said on Monday.
“Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” the prize-awarding body said in a statement.
Ms Brunkow and Mr Ramsdell are based in the United States, and Mr Sakaguchi in Japan.

CAPE CANAVERAL, January 30, 2025: Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.

The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost right from the start.

“That’s the kind of environment that could have been essential to the steps that lead from elements to life,” said the Smithsonian Institution’s Tim McCoy, one of the lead study authors.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams (4 ounces) of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after another space rock. It remains the biggest cosmic haul from beyond the moon. The two previous asteroid sample missions, by Japan, yielded considerably less material.

Small amounts of Bennu’s precious black grains — leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago — were doled out to the two separate research teams whose studies appeared in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. But it was more than enough to tease out the sodium-rich minerals and confirm the presence of amino acids, nitrogen in the form of ammonia and even parts of the genetic code.

Some if not all of the delicate salts found at Bennu — similar to what’s in the dry lakebeds of California’s Mojave Desert and Africa’s Sahara — would be stripped away if present in falling meteorites.

“This discovery was only possible by analyzing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth,” the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yasuhito Sekine, who was not involved in the studies, said in an accompanying editorial.
Combining the ingredients of life with an environment of sodium-rich salt water, or brines, “that’s really the pathway to life,” said McCoy, the National Museum of Natural History’s curator of meteorites. “These processes probably occurred much earlier and were much more widespread than we had thought before.”

NASA’s Daniel Glavin said one of the biggest surprises was the relatively high abundance of nitrogen, including ammonia. While all of the organic molecules found in the Bennu samples have been identified before in meteorites, Glavin said the ones from Bennu are valid — “real extraterrestrial organic material formed in space and not a result of contamination from Earth.”

Bennu — a rubble pile just one-third of a mile (one-half of a kilometer) across — was originally part of a much larger asteroid that got clobbered by other space rocks. The latest results suggest this parent body had an extensive underground network of lakes or even oceans, and that the water evaporated away, leaving behind the salty clues.

Sixty labs around the world are analyzing bits of Bennu as part of initial studies, said the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the mission’s chief scientist who took part in both studies.

Most of the $1 billion mission’s cache has been set aside for future analysis. Scientists stress more testing is needed to better understand the Bennu samples, as well as more asteroid and comet sample returns. China plans to launch an asteroid sample return mission this year.

Many are pushing for a mission to collect rocks and dirt from the potentially waterlogged dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus also beckon as enticing water worlds. Meanwhile, NASA has core samples awaiting pickup at Mars, but their delivery is on hold while the space agency studies the quickest and cheapest way to get them here.

“Are we alone?” McCoy said. “That’s one of the questions we’re trying to answer.”

Pune, May 20,2025: Eminent astrophysicist and science writer Dr Jayant Vishnu Narlikar died at his residence here on Tuesday following cardiac arrest, family sources said.Narkilkar, a Padma Vibhushan awardee, was 86.

He passed away in his sleep.

Narlikar was born on July 19, 1938, in Kolhapur. His father Vishnu Vasudev Narlikar, was a famous mathematician and head of the Mathematics Department of Banaras Hindu University, while his mother Sumati was a Sanskrit scholar.

After completing his schooling in Varanasi, Jayant Narlikar obtained a degree in science and then went to Cambridge in the UK for higher education. He completed his PhD degree from Cambridge, and also won the Wrangler degree, Tyson Medal in astronomy, Smith Prize and several other awards.

Narlikar drew the attention of scientists around the world by proposing the ‘Conformal Gravity Theory’ along with Sir Fred Hoyle.

He also received India’s second and third highest civilian honours, Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan respectively for his valuable contribution in the field of astrophysics.

He not only contributed as a science researcher but also spread science through his writings.

Some of his famous scientific books are ‘Antaralatil Bhasmasur’, Antarala and Vigyan, Akashashi Jadle Nate and Suryacha Prapok. His Marathi autobiography ‘Char Nagarantele Maje Vishwa’ won the Delhi Sahitya Akademi Award.

He also got the Maharashtra Government Award for his book ‘Denagi’, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Literature from the American Foundation, and the Rashtra Bhushan Award from the Phi Foundation, Ichalkaranji.

WASHINGTON, Nov 5,2025: Scientists are observing the most energetic flare ever seen emanating from a supermassive black hole, apparently caused when this celestial beast shredded and swallowed a huge star that strayed too close.

The researchers said the flare at its peak was 10 trillion times brighter than the sun. It was unleashed by a black hole roughly 300 million times the mass of the sun residing inside a faraway galaxy, about 11 billion light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
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Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape. Most galaxies are thought to have one at their center. The black hole in this research is extremely massive – more so, for instance, than the one at the center of our Milky Way that possesses roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun.
The researchers said the most likely explanation for the flare is a large star being pulled into the black hole. As material from the ill-fated star falls inward, it causes a flare of energy when it reaches the black hole’s point of no return.

The researchers believe the star was at least 30 times, and perhaps up to 200 times, the mass of the sun. It may have been part of a population of stars orbiting in the vicinity of the black hole and somehow was sent too close through some interaction with another object in the neighborhood, the researchers said.
“It seems reasonable that it was involved in a collision with another more massive body in its original orbit around the supermassive black hole which essentially knocked it in,” said Caltech astronomer Matthew Graham, lead author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal.
“It was put on a much more elliptical orbit, which brought it much closer to the supermassive black hole at its closest pass – too close, it turns out,” Graham added.

Supermassive black holes are surrounded by a disk of gas and dust being drawn inward after being caught by their gravitational strength.
“It was put on a much more elliptical orbit, which brought it much closer to the supermassive black hole at its closest pass – too close, it turns out,” Graham added.

Supermassive black holes are surrounded by a disk of gas and dust being drawn inward after being caught by their gravitational strength.
“However it happened, the star wandered close enough to the supermassive black hole that it was ‘spaghettified’ – that is, stretched out to become long and thin, due to the gravity of the supermassive black hole strengthening as you get very close to it. That material then spiraled around the supermassive black hole as it fell in,” said astronomer and study co-author K.E. Saavik Ford of City University of New York Borough of Manhattan Community College and Graduate Center.

The flare would be the result of the gas from the shredded star heating up and shining as it falls into oblivion.

The star thought to be involved was unusually massive.

“Stars this massive are spectacularly rare both because smaller stars are born more often than massive ones, and because very massive stars live very short lives,” Ford said.

The researchers suspect that stars that orbit near a supermassive black hole can increase in mass by attracting some of the material swirling around the black hole, making them abnormally large.

The researchers observed the flare using telescopes in California, Arizona and Hawaii. They considered other possible causes such as a star exploding at the end of its lifetime, a jet of material streaming outward from the black hole or a phenomenon called gravitational lensing that could have made a fainter event look more powerful. None of these scenarios fit the data.

Because of the time it takes for light to travel, when astronomers observe faraway events like this they are looking back in time to an earlier epoch of the universe.

The flare brightened by a factor of 40 during the observations, apparently as more and more material from the star fell into the black hole, and peaked in June 2018. It was 30 times more luminous than any previously observed black hole flare. It is still ongoing but diminishing in luminosity, with the entire process expected to take about 11 years to complete.

“The flare is still fading,” Graham said.

Oct 8,2025: Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 is out, and the winners are John Clarke, Michel H Devoret, and John M. Martinis, all three working in the USA, “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”
This is the second time in three years — after 2022 — that the Physics Nobel has been given for work in the field of quantum mechanics.
John Clarke
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Michel H. Devoret
Yale University, New Haven, CT and
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
John M. Martinis
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA and Qolab, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Their experiments on a chip revealed quantum physics in action
A major question in physics is the maximum size of a system that can demonstrate quantum mechanical effects. This year’s Nobel Prize laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.

Quantum mechanics allows a particle to move straight through a barrier, using a process called tunnelling. As soon as large numbers of particles are involved, quantum mechanical effects usually become insignificant. The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale.

In 1984 and 1985, John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis conducted a series of experiments with an electronic circuit built of superconductors, components that can conduct a current with no electrical resistance. In the circuit, the superconducting components were separated by a thin layer of non-conductive material, a setup known as a Josephson junction. By refining and measuring all the various properties of their circuit, they were able to control and explore the phenomena that arose when they passed a current through it. Together, the charged particles moving through the superconductor comprised a system that behaved as if they were a single particle that filled the entire circuit.

This macroscopic particle-like system is initially in a state in which current flows without any voltage. The system is trapped in this state, as if behind a barrier that it cannot cross. In the experiment the system shows its quantum character by managing to escape the zero-voltage state through tunnelling. The system’s changed state is detected through the appearance of a voltage.

The laureates could also demonstrate that the system behaves in the manner predicted by quantum mechanics – it is quantised, meaning that it only absorbs or emits specific amounts of energy.

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” says Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

The transistors in computer microchips are one example of the established quantum technology that surrounds us. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.

Jan 27,2025: The CIA has announced that it believes the COVID-19 pandemic “more likely” originated from a laboratory leak than a natural event.

The CIA’s “low confidence” assessment comes after John Ratcliffe was on Thursday sworn in as director of the top intelligence agency under United States President Donald Trump.

The “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible”, a spokesperson said on Saturday.

“We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”

US media reported that the assessment had been ordered under the administration of former US President Joe Biden and was completed before Ratcliffe took up his post.

The assessment was also based on existing intelligence, not new information, according to the reports.

Following the CIA’s announcement, three US agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy, have now publicly backed the theory that COVID-19 most likely escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

China’s embassy in Washington, DC, rejected the CIA assessment, which it said “concocts misleading conclusions, throws dirty water on China, and engages in framing”.

“It is still an old routine of political manipulation of tracing the source and has no credibility. The source of the virus is a complex scientific issue, and scientists and experts should find the answer through rigorous and meticulous scientific research, rather than being judged by politicians,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said.

“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories.”