March 16, 2026e-Paper

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Vasudevan Mukunth

Vasudevan Mukunth is the Deputy Science Editor of The Hindu. He writes on physics, health, environment, spaceflight, research administration and misconduct, and science policy. He also manages The Hindu’s science and environment coverage. He was previously with a digital science publication he founded in 2020, and has written for various national and international news publications and journals.

Latest from Vasudevan Mukunth

Why do ripening bananas produce such a unique aroma?

Science Snapshots: March 15, 2026

Vasudevan Mukunth
industrial heat currently accounts for around 25 percent of India’s total energy consumption and shifting that load from gas pipes to electric wires would be an profound engineering challenge.

Electrifying industrial heat as a path to India’s thermal independence

Vasudevan Mukunth
A numerical simulation of the earth’s magnetic field. Blue lines are moving into the core and yellow lines are moving out.

Earth’s magnetic flips can last 70,000 years, new study finds

Vasudevan Mukunth
A view of a concentrated solar thermal system at Aavin's Shollinganallur Dairy in Chennai, 2016. The installation was commissioned to help reduce the use of furnace oil.

LPG crisis: why it is important for India to electrify industrial heat

Vasudevan Mukunth
Tamil Nadu’s current expenditure risks rendering it a consumer of green technologies rather than being a creator of the underlying research breakthroughs

Tamil Nadu needs more basic science funding to create green technology

Vasudevan Mukunth
It’s possible to travel faster than light in a particular medium.

Why can’t anything travel faster than light and what would happen if it did?

Vasudevan Mukunth
LPG cylinders being transported in a vehicle for distribution in Visakhapatnam on March 10, 2026, amid public concerns about supply and prices.

What is cheaper to cook with, LPG or induction?

M. Soundariya Preetha,Vasudevan Mukunth
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/John Holmes (CC BY-SA)

What we call animals when they come together

Vasudevan Mukunth
An artist’s impression of an asteroid that orbits closer to the sun than the earth’s orbit, showing its dark side.

Asteroid YR4 will miss the moon, too, NASA says

Vasudevan Mukunth
An indigenous pressurised heavy water reactor under construction at Kakrapar, Gujarat, 2016.

HALEU-Thorium fuel unsuitable for Indian nuclear reactors: study

Vasudevan Mukunth
In one of history’s most controversial raids and which has been called a war crime, Allied bombers firebombed this city in February 1945, incinerating its historic centre and killing at least around 25,000 people. The city name is: Dresden. Credit: Bundesarchiv (CC BY-SA)

Daily Quiz: On firebombings of World War II

Vasudevan Mukunth
Coronae glow on the tips of spruce needles. These weak electric discharges subtly singe the tips of leaves and needles, and new observations indicate they may occur ubiquitously across treetops under thunderstorms.

UV camera snaps treetops glowing as thunderstorm passed overhead

Vasudevan Mukunth
Students carrying umbrellas stand on the dry riverbed of the Jialing Rivera, a tributary of the Yangtze, in China's Chongqing Municipality, August 19, 2022.

Global warming picking up pace, study says

Vasudevan Mukunth
A transmission electron micrograph of Deinococcus radiodurans.

Science Snapshots: March 8, 2026

Vasudevan Mukunth
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