Biology
- Unpacked Why Measles Needs Almost Everyone Vaccinated The vaccine piece said a vaccine shows your immune system a wanted poster. But the poster protects people who never saw it, too. Here's the one-line equation that says how many of us need to look. Opens once you've read “A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ”
- Unpacked Your Brain Is Hiding a Hole in Your Eye Our review of the human eye said every eye ships with a blind spot. Here's how to find yours in thirty seconds, and what your brain is doing to hide it. Opens once you've read “Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars)”
- Unpacked One Ultraviolet Photon Beats a Billion Radio Ones The nephew told the family group that a million feathers won't break a window the way one stone will, and got removed. Here's the experiment that proved him right, and won Einstein his Nobel Prize. Opens once you've read “Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds”
- Unpacked Why You Can't Crack the Same Knuckle Twice Mr Joshi has timed it many times: twenty minutes before the same knuckle will crack again. His wife confirms it. Here's what is happening inside the joint during those twenty minutes, and what it has in common with a bottle of soda. Opens once you've read “Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him”
- Satire & Humour Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars) We tested the most popular camera on the planet. It has been on the market for a very long time and it shows.
- Unpacked Why the Grapes Never Ripened Rohan's bananas ripened in the mango box. The grapes beside them, in the same cloud of ethylene for two days, didn't change at all. Mummy said grapes are picked when they're ready, and that's that. Here's why she's right. Opens once you've read “The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas”
- Unpacked Why Humid Heat Can Be Deadlier Than Dry Heat Nani's matka beat the Jodhpur heat by eleven degrees. The one in Mumbai managed two. Your body is a matka too, and the same number that measures a clay pot's limit measures yours. Opens once you've read “The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold”
- Unpacked Why Octopus Blood Is Blue and Yours Is Red The octopus poem says its blood is blue because "copper lends a bluish shade". Here's why copper and iron give different colours, why your veins look blue when your blood never is, and why an octopus gets out of breath. Opens once you've read “The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood”
- Stories My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria Every night, Ammi saves one spoonful of curd. It takes a week away, a cold December windowsill and two ruined batches for anyone to ask why.
- Poetry Trees Are Made of Thin Air A poem about where a tree actually comes from.
- Unpacked Meet the Bacteria Living in Your Curd A spoonful of old curd turned warm milk into new curd overnight, and a cold windowsill stopped it dead. Here's who was doing the work, and why they work best as a team. Opens once you've read “My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria”
- Satire & Humour Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds The forward was in red letters, with three exclamation marks and a photo of a tower. Scientists were not consulted. Then they were.
- Satire & Humour Local Man Furious That Antibiotics Did Nothing for His Cold "I took the whole strip," says man, still sneezing.
- Rhetoric No, It's Not "Just a Theory" An opinion piece on the most misunderstood word in science.
- Unpacked The Oxygen You Breathe Came Out of Water The tree poem says a leaf frees oxygen "from water, not the air". It sounds like a mistake. It isn't, and the way we found out involved purple bacteria, rotten-egg gas and a heavy kind of oxygen. Opens once you've read “Trees Are Made of Thin Air”
- Rhetoric Yes, a Tomato Is a Fruit. No, It Doesn't Go in Fruit Salad An argument to settle the lunch-table debate, featuring the US Supreme Court, a strawberry that isn't a berry, and the lesson that a definition is a tool.
- Satire & Humour Bacteria Form Union, Demand Credit for Idli "Every night we work," said a spokesperson, one thousandth of a millimetre long. "Then somebody's mother gets all the compliments."
- Poetry The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood A poem about the most overengineered animal in the sea: three hearts, blue blood, arms that taste, and eyes wired the sensible way round.
- Stories The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas My brother hid three green bananas and a bunch of grapes in Mummy's mango box. Two days later the bananas had overtaken the whole bunch. The grapes had not moved.
- Rhetoric Your Grandmother's Remedies Deserve a Fair Test An argument that checking a home remedy properly is the most respectful thing you can do with it, and that a ship's doctor showed how in 1747.
- Satire & Humour Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him His mother said it would ruin his hands. He has brought a study, a second study, and an MRI video.
- Deep Dives A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ Your immune system is a brilliant detective that starts every case days behind. A vaccine hands it the description in advance, and it never forgets a face.
- Deep Dives Bread Is Held Up by Billions of Tiny Fungi Every loaf is a sponge full of gas made by living things. The holes are where the gas was, and the walls between them are made of a protein net you built with your hands.