Author: Ananya Ak

Stress is a common word these days. With challenging economic scenarios and a dwindling work-life balance, it is unsurprising that our generation is facing more stress than our ancestors. Despite this, the science of stress remains poorly understood by most of the global population. Stress comes in different shapes, but its effects are obvious to us, and even to those looking. Sleep deprivation, consistently being on edge, anxiety and even physical illness are some of the more obvious effects of stress. The science behind anxiety is somewhat distinct though, and we’ve covered it separately. With constant worry and fear from…

Until the early 1800s, astronomers were asking a question which might seem a little ridiculous: “Why is the night sky dark with only a few specks of light scattered here and there, and not as bright as the sky during daytime?” The question might be surprising, but it wasn’t unfounded. It was based on the belief that the universe extends infinitely in all directions with an infinite number of stars, meaning that everywhere we look, there should be a star in our direct line of sight. The question was first posed by Kepler in 1610, but it was only in…

On 11th March 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Coronavirus, or Covid-19, a global pandemic. By then, the virus had already affected over 118,000 people in 114 countries across the world, and caused 4291 deaths. While this was a shocking spread in a matter of months, most of humanity failed to accurately judge the severity of the matter. The consequences were quickly within a month from this declaration, with most of the world on lockdown and the total number of deaths exceeding 50,000. Under such dire circumstances with not much in terms of a treatment in sight, let’s take…

It’s a universally acknowledged fact that sleeping is good for you. Even without knowing its health benefits or what harm a lack of proper sleep can do, we all know that if we don’t get enough sleep, we feel terrible. We’re cranky, and there are those ugly dark circles under our eyes and if it’s been too long since we had a good night’s sleep, we even start getting sick. It is often something that we ignore when there’s work to do or when there’s an addictive TV series we have to binge-watch. We all have read or heard somewhere…

Back in November 2016, Stephen Hawking said that humans need to find a new planet to inhabit or risk extinction, and gave a daunting but manageable deadline of 1000 years. A millennium is but a blip in the ripple of time and the universe, but we are a durable race, and a millennium is enough time for us to find a new home. A Century to Live: Stephen Hawking Barely half a year later, in a BBC documentary “Expedition New Earth”, Professor Stephen Hawking drastically revised his earlier deadline from 1000 years to just 100! A millennium is a doable…