SciShorts: Cape Town’s Water Crisis is Pushed Back to 2019

Cape Town was set to face Day Zero – the day when all water runs out – in March or April this year. Due to the timeless effort of the residents, Cape Town will not be running out of water till August 27 this year. The better news is that August is the month of […]

SciShorts: Australia may Soon Become the First Country to Eliminate a Type of Cancer

A study shows that Australia might soon eliminate cervical cancer completely, making the country the first in the globe to do so. The successful elimination is due to the distribution of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for free in schools. This sexually transmitted virus is the cause of 99.9% of cervical cancer cases, bringing 270,000 […]

Scishorts: Kenyan Doctors Performed Invasive Brain Surgery on the Wrong Patient

Kenya’s Daily Nation just reported that staff from the Kenyatta National Hospital mixed up two patients’ identification tags just before a surgery. This caused the doctors to perform invasive brain surgery on a patient who needed treatment only for brain swelling. It took them hours to realize that the blood clot they were looking for […]

SciShorts: Chandrayaan 2 to be Cheaper than Interstellar

India’s flagship space project Chandrayaan 2 is set to be cheaper than Hollywood movie Interstellar. Unlike NASA’s missions, this project by the Indian Space Research Organisation aims at landing at the South Pole of the Moon. After landing, the rover will analyse rocks which are billions of years old and send back valuable data through […]

How Much Radioactivity will Kill You?

The word “radiation” hits us as something formidable almost instantly. We are quite aware of what radiation could do to us – it creates mutations that are largely detrimental (yes, we are not going to become superheroes) and can lead to lifelong complications. Radiation exists everywhere – from the air we breathe to […]

SciShorts: Researchers Develop Drones to Navigate through Traffic

Researchers at the University of Zurich and the National Centre for Competence in Research have developed an algorithm which allows drones to navigate through traffic. By utilising drone cameras, DroNet (the algorithm) can recognise obstacles and can make the drone avoid them. The highly advanced algorithm uses deep learning to analyse the image and move […]

SciShorts: SpaceX to Provide High-Speed Internet All Over the World

Following the launch of the Falcon Heavy earlier this month, SpaceX has moved on to its next venture – high-speed internet for the masses. Informally called Starlink, the project drives towards endowing the world with internet through satellites. SpaceX is to launch a Falcon 9 on Thursday, aboard which there will be two experimental satellites […]

SciShorts: NASA Discovers 95 New Planets

On Feb 16th, NASA revealed a colony of 95 new planets. This feat was accomplished with the Kepler telescope. Scientists went through the immense amounts of data sent by the telescope; dating all the way back to 2014. Since then, there have been about 275 “candidate” signals, which implies that each of them could have […]

SciShorts: Tesla Roadster in Space will Probably Collide with the Earth

A research from the University of Toronto states that the payload of the Falcon Heavy – a Tesla Roadster that is now floating in space – might collide with Earth or Venus. However, this will not happen anytime soon. Researchers ran simulations of what would become of the car hovering aimlessly in space. The outcome […]

Universal Basic Income: Free Salary for Everyone

With hundreds and thousands of human jobs being automated, experts are starting to advocate Universal Basic Income – a monthly unconditional sum of money given to everyone. How far is this model viable? What is Universal Basic Income (UBI)? UBI is probably the most ambitious social policy till date. Under a UBI model, […]