A Manchester student who died from cancer at the age of 21 has formally begun the process that could eventually lead to him becoming the Catholic Church’s first saint from Gen Z.The Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford announced it had officially opened the cause for the beatification and canonisation of Pedro Ballester, marking…
From a small rural hut in India to invitations to high-level NASA-linked programmes, Dr Anand Megalingam’s journey does not feel like a straight academic success story. It feels more like something stitched together through setbacks, sudden turns, and long stretches of uncertainty. A tractor driver’s son who once walked kilometres to school, later dropping out…
One frustrating dog walk helped George de Mestral invent Velcro. Image credit – Wikimedia Velcro, the billion-dollar fastener used by NASA, has an unremarkable origin story. In 1941, Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral went out on a walk and observed that there were burrs caught on his dog’s hair and his clothes. The average person…
For those unfamiliar, there’s a website called Jmail that has repurposed Jeffrey Epstein’s emails into a Gmail format, so it appears that one is actually browsing the late paedophile’s inbox. It is a treasure trove of nonsensical information which showed just how deeply entrenched a former high school teacher with no formal graduation degree had…
Queensland’s waterways pass through rainforests, floodplains, mangrove systems and heavily populated coastal regions, creating habitats where snakes remain active throughout much of the year. Warm temperatures and frequent rainfall support large populations of fish, frogs and small mammals, which naturally attract predators into rivers, lakes and tidal channels. Some species stay close to freshwater environments…
A satellite survey in Sudan’s Atbai Desert has uncovered 280 large stone burial monuments. These findings unveil the social complexity of a long-lost society of cattle herders. The study, published in the African Archaeological Review, explores these structures known as ‘Atbai Enclosure Burials’ (AEBs). Dating back to the Middle and Late Holocene, with diameters reaching…
In a discovery that feels almost unreal, scientists have revived a microscopic organism that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for around 24,000 years. The tiny creature, often referred to in media reports as a ‘zombie worm,’ was thought to be long dead. Instead, it returned to life in a laboratory setting and showed signs…
Bran Castle, the inspiration for Dracula, is entering a new era of international tourism under American ownership. Image Credit: Wikipedia The mountains encased in mists that make up the Carpathian Mountains have long guarded their secrets. Bran Castle, the famed stone castle that inspired the fascination of all people with the character of Count Dracula….
US senator Eric Schmitt derides India’s ‘visa temple’ in his tirade against H-1B visa program. Senator Eric Schmitt who is a staunch critic of the H-1B visa and the OPT (Optional Practical Training) targeted India’s Chilkoor Balaji temple in his latest tirade against visa fraud and said American workers should not have to compete against…
In a discovery that mirrors the cinematic history of its location, archaeologists have unearthed a hidden tomb containing the remains of 12 people and a mysterious ceramic chalice beneath the Treasury at Petra. The archaeologist Pearce Paul Creasman, of the American Centre of Research, revealed a chamber filled with complete skeletal remains and grave goods…