Articles by Dipanjan Sinha
How we earned our stripes: The story of the hidden lines on human skin
Under ultraviolet rays, stripes emerge on each of us. One theory: they’re patterns formed by the original embryonic cells, as our bodies took shape in the womb.

Updated on Aug 12, 2023 06:05 PM IST
Shutter island:See how one studio is reviving the alchemy of photos without film
The core of Studio Goppo’s philosophy is an unusual one, in a time of social media: A photograph ought to have meaning and purpose.

Updated on Jul 22, 2023 05:35 PM IST
Paper view: Finally, clues to some of the mysteries of crumpling
Crumpled paper is unusually weight-resistant. Its patterns are entirely unpredictable. Even with the same sheet, they’re impossible to replicate. See why.

Updated on Jul 15, 2023 02:23 PM IST
Flash drive: Meet Emil George, of the fastest solo car expedition across India
He grew up dreaming of a life of rugged jeeps and rutted roads. Now 35 and a businessman dealing in car parts, he just set a new record on the road.

Updated on Jul 27, 2023 04:20 PM IST
Why don’t I remember that?: Unlocking the mysteries of taste memory
There’s a theory that the reason one can drink endless glasses of cola a day is that it has no ‘taste memory’. What is that and how does it work? Take a look.

Updated on Jul 28, 2023 01:02 PM IST
Four more shots, please: Indie directors share their paths to success
Independent films are telling new stories from India, winning new fans abroad. See how four debut filmmakers charted their own paths to global success

Updated on Jul 19, 2023 07:43 PM IST
Listicle: Exercise gadgets that promised but did not deliver
From exercise bikes to fat-loss patches, here are 10 fitness gadgets we bought in hope and discarded in despair

Updated on Jul 19, 2023 07:11 PM IST
Endless interview process?Appeal to a hire power
Two interviews, a Zoom call with the CEO, a pilot project, a chat with HR to “test compatibility”, another Q/A. Why is landing a job such a circus right now?

Updated on Jul 24, 2023 06:24 PM IST
Why do spouses cheat? New research holds some unexpected answers
A study finds the aftermath of infidelity divided along lines of gender. How far back did the couple’s problems go? The answer is a surprising one there too.

Updated on Aug 04, 2023 04:59 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

Updated on Jul 24, 2023 07:26 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.

Updated on Aug 18, 2023 01:52 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 won the 1-million-pound Earthshot Prize

Updated on Aug 12, 2023 03:52 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

Updated on Jul 24, 2023 07:57 PM 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?

Updated on Jul 24, 2023 07:49 PM IST
Rinse, repeat: See how shampoo is helping decode activity on the Sun
A study examining how shampoo moves on a vibrating speaker explains how plasma jets form and drive space weather and solar winds

Updated on Aug 12, 2023 04:39 PM IST
Have you heard the good word? A priest is shattering stereotypes on Instagram
Fr Warner D’Souza finds the priestly stereotype of a somber man in robes funny. His popular posts touch upon his love of cooking, culture, travel and history

Updated on Aug 04, 2023 12:50 AM IST
New in science: The riveting history of how cats have travelled the world
Domestic felines only go back 10,000 years. What changed the human-cat bond was agriculture. Cats became precious, pampered; they even travelled the world.

Updated on Aug 10, 2023 06:03 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