Santhosh Mathew, PhD

It's impossible not to think about the profound mysteries of the universe when we hear the name Albert Einstein. What would you be thinking when you see pieces of Einstein's brain dangling in glass jars?

Two slices of Einstein's brain are on display at Wellcome's new exhibition in...

Today, the space shuttle Discovery departed Kennedy Space Center atop a jumbo jet to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, where it will become a museum relic. For many, it's agonizing to watch these wonderful machines of yesteryear turn into mere museum exhibits. However,...

So say physicists, for time was born along with its inseparable twin, space, in a well-known event branded as the "Big Bang," which occurred about 14 billion years ago. Thus, like space, there must have been no time before this cosmic juncture. Though the majority of physicists agree...

In a seminar held today, the scientists from ATLAS and CMS detectors at CERN separately presented results of more than 300 trillion particle collisions made last year. Although it is too early to draw definite conclusions, the message is clear; Higgs bosons have nowhere...

In cosmology, the end of the universe is as inevitable and inescapable as the laws of nature that predicted its birth. The observation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating came as a surprise even to the researchers who discovered it. Now, that discovery has earned the...

A wide variety of explanations were offered by scientists to account for the unexpected result that came out of the OPERA experiment which seems to have violated one of the tenets of modern physics. Strangely, the researchers who reported the discovery made no deliberate attempt to justify the...

Our longstanding desire to become part of a galactic empire by establishing contact with alien kingdoms received a setback. The reason is, as one might expect, not the lack of aliens or their potential habitats in the universe but the cash crunch.

With all due respect,...

For the southern Indian state of Kerala, red is not truly an alien color. The state's powerful leftist organizations often garnish the streets with red flags and signs in an apparent show of strength. But when the red rain arrived in July 2001, it caught everyone off guard. Now, even...

The space shuttle Endeavour's final mission was remarkable in many ways. It was commanded by astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of congresswoman and one of the Arizona shooting victims Gabrielle Giffords. Besides that, it carried one of the most expensive payloads to the international space station...

Nowadays, when you drive around you may encounter billboards saying that May 21, 2011, is the judgment day. You can't avoid this even in small towns like mine. The message is clear: The end of the world is near.

This is not the first time such predictions have been...

While answering a question in the backdrop of his conflict with the Catholic Church, Galileo once remarked, "Bible teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." Now, 400 years after Galileo attempted to know the heavens using his 'spy glasses', our machines can narrate the...

The recent Japanese earthquake and the resulting tsunami caused a renewed "nuclear fear." While there is a need to address and review safety concerns and preparedness periodically, panic and overreactions are rooted in irrational fear.

We are subjected to a small amount of radiation everyday, which varies depending on where...

The speculation that the full moon and its gravitational effect on Earth could trigger earthquakes and other natural disasters is getting attention in some quarters. It is not surprising, given the fact that humans have been looking above rather than below our feet for answers since ancient times.

The coming...

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is saying goodbye to our solar system. The veteran probe is currently more than 10 billion miles from us, and adds a million miles every day to its trip. Yet, the most distant man-made object is not bidding farewell to us as it continues to send...

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al, Optical: ESO/VLT, Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech

It has all the ingredients of an epic story. An awe-inspiring plot, the inconceivable vastness, the ultimate destruction followed by an unimaginable creation. It also offers a flashback. The action begins about 30 years ago...

In many cultures, the stars and planets play a major role in predicting the future of humans and their world. Now, astronomers, with the help of Hubble telescope, say they can predict the future of the stars -- not just for a few years, but for at least...

Mathematicians often bury the beauty of the nature using abstract mathematical symbols, anything from alpha to omega. Traditionally, they love to describe smooth and definite patterns with their equations and shy away from complex and irregular patterns. In that sense, Benoit Mandelbrot, who died on Thursday at the...

When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the Nobel prize in physics for 2010, it wasn't for something like a high- tech lab product or any uncanny theoretical construction. It was meant for a "Scotch tape technique" that created graphene, the thinnest material ever created....

I have just finished reading The Grand Design, the latest book by Stephen Hawking co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, a Caltech physicist. Though all the ideas in the book have been debated earlier in the scientific community, the Hawking effect on the readers and the ensuing attention has already...