TOI correspondent from Washington: In the summer of 1976, a Kanpur-born teenage engineering student from BITS Pilani stood in the lobby of the US embassy in New Delhi after being denied a student visa for the third time. His father, who had accompanied him, refused to leave. He had seen the photo of the consular…
Deep in Utah’s desert near Moab lies one of America’s strangest hidden communities. Known as Rockland Ranch, or “The Rock”, the settlement is home to dozens of families living inside cave-like homes carved into sandstone cliffs. The homes were blasted into the mountainside with dynamite during the 1970s. Over time, the isolated religious community grew…
Raja Krishnamoorthi and Pramila Jayapal Indian-American lawmakers and advocacy groups have criticised US President Donald Trump after he shared a social media post that used derogatory language about Indians and Chinese people, calling it racist and dangerous at a time of rising anti-Asian hate in USThe backlash followed the introduction of a House resolution by…
Some quotes survive because they sound wise. Others survive because they create a small moment of discomfort. They stay in people’s minds because they touch something that still feels real long after the world around them changes. This line linked to Plato belongs in that second category. It does not sound gentle or reassuring. It…
A 37-year-old man has been charged in connection with the fatal shooting of an award-winning young farmer in Derbyshire, more than two years after the incident shocked the local farming community in the UK.According to a BBC report, the body of 23-year-old Charles Kinston was found in a field off Brizlincote Lane in Bretby, near…
In the mid-1960s, inside a research laboratory run by DuPont, Stephanie Kwolek was searching for something fairly practical. The company wanted lightweight yet durable fibres that could eventually replace steel in vehicle tyres and reduce fuel consumption. Synthetic materials were already common in industry by then, but the challenge was finding one that could survive…
For a long time, astronomers treated the early universe as a place where galaxies were still finding their footing, small systems forming stars rapidly, while the larger cosmic structures familiar today had not yet settled into existence. Galaxy clusters, the sprawling cities of the cosmos, were thought to become influential much later. Yet fresh observations…
A technology that could propel crewed missions to Mars and robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system was recently put to the test at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The result was a milestone that engineers and space scientists have been working toward for decades, and one that brings the prospect of humans setting…
At several hundred metres below the surface, the limestone caves around Minamidaito Island are mostly untouched by sunlight, currents, and routine marine surveys. The landscape is narrow, uneven, and difficult to navigate even with modern submersibles. During one of those deep exploratory dives last year, a remotely operated vehicle passed close to a colony of…
Walking through an airport terminal these days, it is hard not to notice how much of the journey now depends on being connected before the aircraft even leaves the gate. People board with phones already loaded, laptops half-open, expecting the same internet they had in the lounge or at home. American Airlines has now put…