Articles by Dipanjan Sinha
Why do spouses cheat? New research holds some unexpected answers
A study conducted in Germany finds the aftermath of infidelity divided along lines of gender, and not in the ways one would think. How far back did the couple’s problems go? The answer is a surprising one there too.

Updated on Mar 11, 2023 03:16 PM IST
Hungry yet? 10 restaurants with long waitlists
For fans of queuing (and great food), here are 10 restaurants that are sold out for months. Book now, for your next life

Published on Mar 10, 2023 11:44 PM IST
Fantastic fungi and where to find them: Mycophiles in India
A new crop of mushroom-lovers are promoting a wide variety in India, as health food, health supplement and even eco-friendly packaging. They want you to know that The Last of Us has it all wrong, so wrong.

Updated on Mar 04, 2023 10:05 PM IST
Field marshals: Meet the team behind the award-winning agro initiative Kheyti
The Hyderabad-based start-up has been helping small farmers set up low-cost greenhouses that use less water, keep pests out and boost harvests. This flagship idea recently won Kheyti the 1-million-pound Earthshot Prize. For the team, it’s a much-needed boost. There’s much to be done, they say.

Updated on Feb 24, 2023 07:54 PM IST
Listicle: 10 kitchen tools for chefs and ambitious cooks
Chefs Urvika Kanoi, Nishant Choubey and Amninder Sandhu pick 10 kitchen appliances that are definitely worth the hype

Published on Feb 11, 2023 12:28 AM IST
Flash forward: Can screening for diseases make your life worse?
Genetic screening can warn you of latent health conditions. But do you really want to know how you could die?

Published on Feb 11, 2023 12:11 AM IST
Rinse, repeat: See how shampoo is helping decode activity on the Sun
A recent study examined how shampoo moves on a vibrating speaker, and came away with a better understanding of how plasma jets form and drive space weather and solar winds.

Updated on Jan 27, 2023 01:21 PM IST
Have you heard the good word? A priest is shattering stereotypes on Instagram
Fr Warner D’Souza aka @pottypadre says he finds the priestly stereotype of a somber, stern man in robes funny. His popular posts touch upon his love of cooking, culture, travel, history and DIY crafts.

Updated on Jan 21, 2023 04:36 PM IST
New in science: The riveting history of how cats have travelled the world
Domestic felines only go back 10,000 years; by contrast, dogs were first domesticated 23,000 years ago. What changed the human-cat bond, intriguingly, was settled agriculture. Amid fields and stores and granaries, rodents were a looming threat. Cats became precious, pampered; they even travelled the world.

Updated on Jan 13, 2023 07:05 PM IST
A case of claw and order: Why the universe seems to want crabs
Over and over, through millions of years, creatures that were nothing like the crab have evolved into crab-like form. Some fade away, die out; a new form begins its sideways shuffle. Researchers are now studying how often this has happened, and why.

Updated on Dec 24, 2022 08:43 PM IST
Paw patrol: Ullas Karanth talks to Wknd about his life and new book,Among Tigers
He was the first person in India to fit a radio collar onto a tiger, in 1990. He pioneered the use of camera traps, bringing hard data into the big cat census. ‘We’ve come further than I could have imagined as a young,’ Karanth says. ‘But not as far as some would have you believe.’

Updated on Dec 09, 2022 07:46 PM IST
The biting truth: A study looks at how mosquitoes choose
Have you wondered why some people are mosquito magnets and get bitten so much more than others? A study led by researchers at New York’s Rockefeller University has found why certain odours of the human skin act like a strobe light to mosquitoes

Updated on Nov 26, 2022 12:49 AM IST
Baby, is it cold outside?: Heat may cause hate spikes on Twitter, study finds
The number of hate tweets rose by about 22% in extremely hot weather and by 12.5% on extremely cold days, researchers at Germany’s Potsdam Institute have found.

Updated on Oct 22, 2022 03:33 PM IST
This is us: Meet the people archiving family legacies
Revolutionary great-grand-uncles, pioneering ancestors, homes with vivid pasts. Archiving services are breathing life into family histories, turning scraps and half-remembered memories into illustrated novels, photo albums, videos

Updated on Sep 30, 2022 10:57 PM IST
Track changes: How Sumit Gupta went from a failed exam to a new world record
The 32-year-old bank clerk from Delhi travelled relentlessly for 12 weeks to break the Guinness record for longest domestic journey by public transport. He began his quest after a failed civil service test, when he found himself asking, what am I doing with my life?

Updated on Sep 24, 2022 06:00 PM IST
Trying to spot a liar? Give them something to do as they fib, a new study finds
Since lying taxes the brain more than telling the truth does, an added task — a sort of cognitive load; numbers to remember or a list to memorise — could make it harder for a smooth talker to lie convincingly, a new study out of Portsmouth suggests.

Updated on Sep 23, 2022 07:41 PM IST
Lore enforcers: Meet the artists taking folk icons to a new generation, via NFTs
A children’s writer and an illustrator are bringing Kerala’s folklore icons to life as NFTs, so that new generations can meet the Santa-like patron deity of villages, the traditional jester.

Updated on Aug 20, 2022 04:59 PM IST
Is Assam’s NH715 our deadliest highway? Ask the local animals
A study has found that a single 64-km stretch of this highway saw 6,036 deaths in one year. Take a look at the consequences, when a road goes where it has no business going.

Updated on Aug 06, 2022 08:51 PM IST
Motor imagery: Can the mind flex the muscle?
Studies show that imagining an exercise, in great detail, over and over, can actually affect muscle performance. Olympic athletes have been using this kind of motor imagery practice since the 1980s. Now, it’s being used in sports medicine, motor rehabilitation, even to ease phantom limb pain.

Updated on Jul 15, 2022 06:23 PM IST
Inside Kerala’s goal mine: A new documentary tracks the state’s football frenzy
An academy funded by the church, an octogenarian who still coaches, a man who rides 200km to watch local games — Misha Kumar’s Malayalam film focuses on the people in the stands, on the pitches, behind the commentators’ mics.

Updated on Jul 09, 2022 01:26 PM IST
In a rare event, Tagore art work turns up at auction, fetches ₹9.36 lakh
Most of Rabindranath Tagore’s art works are preserved at national institutes. Bird, an undated painting in ink on brown paper, is from the private collection of another illustrious artist, the late Nandalal Bose.

Updated on Jun 24, 2022 10:22 PM IST
Remembering Ali Peter John: Veteran film journalist known for his compassion for ‘strugglers’
John was well-known among the film fraternity — actor Anupam Kher referred to him as the “Dilip Kumar of film journalism” on a condolence post on Twitter on Wednesday

Published on Jun 10, 2022 12:27 AM IST
Expert ease: Meet the researcher raising a hue and why about colour
Fashion-trend analyst and colour researcher Kaustav Sengupta is on a journey to explore India’s relationship with colours. What makes brands averse to certain hues? How does this differ from country to country?

Updated on Jun 04, 2022 04:28 PM IST
Ruskin to the rescue: Lessons on life and love, from Ruskin Bond’s new book
From his home in the mountains, the writer offers advice on heartbreak, ambition, writing. Think of How to Live Your Life as a letter addressed to young people everywhere.

Updated on Jun 03, 2022 08:25 PM IST
A new sea monster: See how light pollution is disturbing the ocean depths
Coastal megacities and LED lights emerge as the biggest disruptors in a new world atlas of oceanic light pollution. See which regions are worst-affected.

Updated on Apr 09, 2022 06:51 PM IST
Flash drive: Meet the mother and son touring India anew every summer
Last year, Mitra Satheesh and her 10-year-old son Narayan drove for 51 days, across 28 states, living only in villages. Now, they’re on the road again.

Updated on Apr 02, 2022 03:35 PM IST
Le Petit Bengali: A newspaper that offers a Franc look at the past
The French-language daily was published over 140 years ago, in what was then the French colony of Chandernagore. It was recently rediscovered by an Indian researcher in Paris. It’s a window into a past that looks distinctly different and decidedly familiar, he says.

Updated on Mar 04, 2022 06:30 PM IST
At a boiling point: Meet the IIT Patna professor who is a bubble whisperer
Rishi Raj, an associate professor with the department of mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna, is using AI and machine learning algorithms to predict when a boiler is set to explode

Updated on Feb 25, 2022 10:52 PM IST
Updating the doggie dictionary: A ruff guide to language
New research suggests that dogs can respond consistently to an average of 89 words, with service dogs responding to more words than house pets, and some breeds being more “proficient” than others.

Updated on Jan 29, 2022 12:52 PM IST
War, peace and faith in the US: An atheism study
To what extent is the sustained practice of a faith linked to following cues from those that came before? Fresh research is finding surprising answers.

Updated on Dec 18, 2021 05:29 PM IST