The Scientific Human

Smartphones, rather drastically, have revolutionized our day-to-day life by enabling us to perform complex tasks and functions at the tip of our fingertip. Since its inception in 1973 when Motorola built the first ever mobile phone, smartphones have been our constant companion. In the recent past, with radical developments being made in on-chip hardware and software systems, smartphones have paved the way for the next generation of medical devices that promise wide availability and accessibility, convenient handling and lower cost! When we think of seeing a doctor, probably the first thing that comes to our mind is the stethoscope – a device that is used by the doctor to listen to the patient’s heart and lungs beating and draw clinical conclusions on the patient’s general health. Recently, M3DICINE came up with a cellphone based stethoscope – here, the microphone of the smartphone is used to record one’s heart and lungs beating and then by using a smartphone’s internal electronics and ...

Since the inception of space exploration with Neil Armstrong’s venture to the Moon on July 20 th 1969 followed by the first ever space shuttle Columbia launched on April 12 th 1981, mankind has always been inquisitive about learning about the outer world. Over the last few decades, with the astounding developments in technology, there have been multiple attempts to build rockets and space shuttles to traverse to the space. One of the first successes came on Nov 20 th 1998 that marks the birth of International Space Station – the first module of which, called Zarya, was taken to the space by a Russian rocket. Though there have been occasional failures with the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on Jan 28 th 1986 and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster on Feb 1 st 2003, the proportion of success has been overwhelming – so much so that we are currently looking at commercialization of space flights – i.e. anyone can take a flight to space just like we fly on the Earth from one locat...

Since the formation of earth about 4.5 billion years ago, nature has undergone several layers of evolution. Along this entire process one thing has remained constant – mankind has always tried to figure out a way on how they could take lessons from nature to foster innovations in different forms and shapes. Right from the advent of the Stone-Age when humans started to ignite fire by rubbing two rocks, to the birth of the aeroplane on Dec 17 th , 1903 when the Wright brothers took inspiration from the wings and flight dynamics of birds, to some of the most recent scientific developments being made – nature has played a crucial role in inspiring these innovations through a process known as Biomimetics . It is a combination of science, architecture and design that allows researchers to develop materials and technology that could mimic nature – this includes surface morphology, physical and mechanical properties, or even the chemical behavior.            ...

Undoubtedly, most of the attention in 2020 went to the calamitous COVID-19 pandemic that challenged the global healthcare system and tested mankind’s willpower - across the different strata of the society and across geographies. Nonetheless, there were other radical developments that were made in science and technology in the same year. While the entire healthcare community have been up on their toes relentlessly trying to tame the coronavirus – from developing rapid test kits, to arranging quarantine centers to eventually coming up with the vaccine, there are quite a few scientific discoveries outside the COVID domain, that were given birth to.                              Physicists, for the first time, came up with the development of a room temperature superconductor . In general, a superconductor is a device that allows the flow of electric current without any resistance, i.e. a 100% lossless transmission of ...