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• Poetry Editors’ pickNew Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day This poem explains why the sea rises twice a day, not once. ReadNew
• Stories Editors’ pick My Phone Died at 20 Per Cent in Spiti At the top of Kunzum Pass, at the exact moment I wanted a photo, my phone gave up. An hour later it came back, looking innocent. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Editors’ pick There Is No Such Thing as Chemical-Free This argument says the most common label in the shop is the only one guaranteed to be false, and that the right question was asked five hundred years ago. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Editors’ pickNew Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars) We tested the most popular camera on the planet. It has been on the market for a very long time and it shows. ReadNew
• Deep Dives Editors’ pick Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space The blue dot on your map depends on atomic clocks, the speed of light, a fourth satellite you didn't know you needed, and a correction from Einstein. ReadNew
• Unpacked New How an Old Ball Swings the Wrong Way Arjun learned to swing the ball by tilting the seam. Then he watched a Test match where the bowler did everything the same and the ball went the other way. Here's what happens when the boundary layer turns turbulent on both sides. Best after “The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing” ReadNew
• Deep Dives New How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone Nearly every phone, laptop and satellite begins as a lump of quartz. Getting from one to the other is one of the strangest supply chains in the world. ReadNew
• Unpacked New Why the Sea Bulges Away From the Moon Our poem about the tides said the far side of the Earth swells too. Here is the full reason, and what tides are quietly doing to the Earth and the Moon. Best after “Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day” ReadNew
• Rhetoric New Aristotle Was Wrong for 2,000 Years, and That's Good News This speech argues that being wrong, carefully and in public, is the most useful thing a scientist can do. ReadNew
• Stories New The Rajma That Defeated My Grandmother On a family trip to Leh, a pot of rajma refuses to soften, and a pressure cooker suddenly makes sense. ReadNew
• Deep Dives Your Fridge Is Secretly Heating Your Kitchen Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. Your fridge spends all day forcing it the other way. Here's how. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed) Nobody has ever read them. Everybody has agreed to them. ReadNew
• Stories My Sister Versus the Thunderstorm It starts with a power cut, a thunderstorm and a little sister who won't come out from under the blanket until somebody can tell her exactly how far away it is. ReadNew
• Poetry The Moon You See Is One Second Old When you look up, you see the past, from a Moon that is one second out of date to a galaxy whose light set off before there were people. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Guess How Many Times Your Heart Will Beat This speech argues that every student should be taught to make good guesses, on purpose. ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Measles Needs Almost Everyone Vaccinated The vaccine piece said a vaccine shows your immune system a wanted poster. But the poster protects people who never saw it, too. Here's the one-line equation that says how many of us need to look. Best after “A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ” ReadNew
• Stories My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria Every night, Ammi saves one spoonful of curd. It takes a week away, a cold December windowsill and two ruined batches for anyone to ask why. ReadNew
• Poetry Trees Are Made of Thin Air This poem asks where a tree actually comes from, and the answer isn't the soil. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds The forward was in red letters, with three exclamation marks and a photo of a tower. Scientists were not consulted. Then they were. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Give Every School a Telescope This speech argues that the cheapest science lesson no school is teaching is pointed at the sky, and that it has almost nothing to do with zoom. ReadNew
• Unpacked Your Brain Is Hiding a Hole in Your Eye Our review of the human eye said every eye ships with a blind spot. Here's how to find yours in thirty seconds, and what your brain is doing to hide it. Best after “Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars)” ReadNew
• Stories The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold Nani swears matka water is the only water that tastes like water. In Jodhpur, her pot beats the heat by eleven degrees. In Mumbai, in July, it barely tries. ReadNew
• Poetry Most of You Was Made Inside a Star This poem traces where your atoms came from, and why the stars that made them stopped at iron. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Local Man Furious That Antibiotics Did Nothing for His Cold "I took the whole strip," says a local man, who is still sneezing. ReadNew
• Rhetoric No, It's Not "Just a Theory" This opinion piece takes on the most misunderstood word in science. ReadNew
• Deep Dives The Sky Is Blue Because Air Is Picky The same tiny effect explains the blue of noon and the orange of evening, and why the sky on Mars does the opposite. ReadNew
• Unpacked One Ultraviolet Photon Beats a Billion Radio Ones The nephew told the family group that a million feathers won't break a window the way one stone will, and got removed. Here's the experiment that proved him right, and won Einstein his Nobel Prize. Best after “Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds” ReadNew
• Stories The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing Arjun polished the ball like a fast bowler on television. It went perfectly, disappointingly straight, and the reason was in his fingers. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer The statement was released this morning and reached Earth eight minutes and twenty seconds later. It contained an apology, a physics lesson and a correction about summer. ReadNew
• Poetry Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops Everyone draws the same raindrop. This poem shows the shape that actually falls, and why the rain never hits harder than it does. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Yes, a Tomato Is a Fruit. No, It Doesn't Go in Fruit Salad This argument settles the lunch-table debate with help from the US Supreme Court, a strawberry that isn't a berry, and the lesson that a definition is a tool. ReadNew
• Deep Dives Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June A season's worth of weather arrives within a week or so of the same date every year. Here's the engine behind it, and why it partly runs on its own rain. ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Fast Charging Slows Down at 80 Per Cent The charging piece pictured lithium being marched uphill into the graphite. So why does the march race to 80 per cent and then crawl? Because the last few seats in a crowded hall are the hardest to fill. Best after “Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill” ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Bacteria Form Union, Demand Credit for Idli "Every night we work," said a spokesperson, one thousandth of a millimetre long. "Then somebody's mother gets all the compliments." ReadNew
• Poetry The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood The octopus is the most overengineered animal in the sea, with three hearts, blue blood, arms that taste, and eyes wired the sensible way round. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Your Grandmother's Remedies Deserve a Fair Test This argument says that checking a home remedy properly is the most respectful thing you can do with it, and that a ship's doctor showed how in 1747. ReadNew
• Deep Dives Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill Plug in your phone and nothing seems to happen. Inside, billions of billions of lithium ions are being forced to move house, from a comfortable home to a cramped one, and that is where the energy is stored. ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Water in Leh Gives Up at 88 °C The rajma in Leh refused to cook at 88 °C. Here's the full science of why, and how explorers once used boiling water to measure mountains. Best after “The Rajma That Defeated My Grandmother” ReadNew
• Stories The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas My brother hid three green bananas and a bunch of grapes in Mummy's mango box. Two days later the bananas had overtaken the whole bunch. The grapes had not moved. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying "I organised my whole life around that saying," said a man holding an umbrella, standing in the one spot he believed was safe. ReadNew
• Poetry Salt Is a Metal That Explodes and a Poison Gas The most ordinary thing on the dinner table is made from a metal that bursts into flame in water and a gas that makes you choke. ReadNew
• Rhetoric Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either This speech argues that what happened to Pluto in 2006 was science at its best, and that it had happened once before, to a world nobody has made a T-shirt about. ReadNew
• Deep Dives A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ Your immune system is a brilliant detective that starts every case days behind. A vaccine hands it the description in advance, and it never forgets a face. ReadNew
• Unpacked Never Shelter Under the Tallest Tree Mr Bhalerao, having given up on the roof, chose the tallest tree in the society garden as his new safe spot. Here's exactly how a bolt chooses where to land, and why that tree is one of the worst places he could stand. Best after “Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying” ReadNew
• Stories How We Found North in a Power Cut The lights went out across the whole campsite, and the only phone with any battery went with them. Our instructor pointed at the sky and asked for our fists. ReadNew
• Satire & Humour Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him His mother said it would ruin his hands. He has brought a study, a second study, and an MRI video. ReadNew
• Poetry Ice Floats, Which Is Lucky for Fish This poem follows the one liquid that breaks the rule almost everything else obeys, and the fish that owe their winters to it. ReadNew
• Deep Dives Bread Is Held Up by Billions of Tiny Fungi Every loaf is a sponge full of gas made by living things. The holes are where the gas was, and the walls between them are made of a protein net you built with your hands. ReadNew
• Unpacked Why the Bottom of a Frozen Lake Stays at 4 °C The ice poem promised that the fish below swim on at four degrees all day. Why four, and not zero? The answer involves two forces fighting inside every drop of cold water, and a lake that flips itself over every autumn. Best after “Ice Floats, Which Is Lucky for Fish” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Stars Stop Making Elements at Iron The stardust poem says stars fuse their way up to iron and stop, "for when it fuses iron, the profit's gone". Here's the single curve behind that line, which also explains nuclear power stations and why a star's death takes less than a second. Best after “Most of You Was Made Inside a Star” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why You Can't Crack the Same Knuckle Twice Mr Joshi has timed it many times: twenty minutes before the same knuckle will crack again. His wife confirms it. Here's what is happening inside the joint during those twenty minutes, and what it has in common with a bottle of soda. Best after “Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him” ReadNew
• Unpacked The Pole Star Is Only Visiting Ms Kulkarni called Polaris "the only star in the sky that is not going anywhere tonight". The word that matters is "tonight". Over thousands of years, the Earth's axis wanders, and the job of Pole Star passes from star to star. Best after “How We Found North in a Power Cut” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Rain Doesn't Hit Like a Bullet The raindrop poem says rain "can sting, but never cuts you deep", because drag matches weight long before the ground. Without air, a drop from a cloud two kilometres up would arrive at about 700 km/h. Here's the maths of the brake. Best after “Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops” ReadNew
• Unpacked The Sun's Core Is Less Intense Than a Compost Heap In its statement, the Sun said its protons occasionally tunnel through a barrier, and called it Tuesday. Here's the rest of the chain, the ghostly particles it fires through you every second, and the reason the Sun doesn't explode. Best after “Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why the Grapes Never Ripened Rohan's bananas ripened in the mango box. The grapes beside them, in the same cloud of ethylene for two days, didn't change at all. Mummy said grapes are picked when they're ready, and that's that. Here's why she's right. Best after “The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Humid Heat Can Be Deadlier Than Dry Heat Nani's matka beat the Jodhpur heat by eleven degrees. The one in Mumbai managed two. Your body is a matka too, and the same number that measures a clay pot's limit measures yours. Best after “The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Octopus Blood Is Blue and Yours Is Red The octopus poem says its blood is blue because "copper lends a bluish shade". Here's why copper and iron give different colours, why your veins look blue when your blood never is, and why an octopus gets out of breath. Best after “The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why the Monsoon Arrives From the South-West The monsoon piece said moist ocean air flows in towards hot land. Then why doesn't it come straight from the south? Because on a spinning planet, nothing travels in a straight line, and the equator flips which way it bends. Best after “Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June” ReadNew
• Unpacked Your Head Is Older Than Your Feet The GPS piece said satellite clocks run fast by 38 millionths of a second a day, and that engineers simply correct for it. That sounds like an excuse for a broken clock. Here's why it isn't, and how scientists measured time running faster at the top of a staircase. Best after “Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space” ReadNew
• Unpacked How One Atom in a Million Turns Sand Into a Switch The silicon piece ended with nine-nines purity as "a blank page". Here's what chipmakers write on it: a few atoms of phosphorus and boron, placed with extraordinary care, which turn a crystal of rock into billions of tiny switches. Best after “How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone” ReadNew
• Unpacked How to Weigh Pluto Without Touching It The Pluto speech says early guesses made Pluto as big as Earth, and that it kept shrinking. What finally settled it was a smudge on a photograph in 1978, and one line of algebra any student can do. Best after “Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either” ReadNew
• Unpacked Meet the Bacteria Living in Your Curd A spoonful of old curd turned warm milk into new curd overnight, and a cold windowsill stopped it dead. Here's who was doing the work, and why they work best as a team. Best after “My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria” ReadNew
• Unpacked Why Thunder Rumbles Instead of Going Bang Meher's thunder came "rolling over the building like furniture being dragged across the floor upstairs". A bang made in a few millionths of a second shouldn't roll for ten. Here's why it does. Best after “My Sister Versus the Thunderstorm” ReadNew
• Unpacked The Oxygen You Breathe Came Out of Water The tree poem says a leaf frees oxygen "from water, not the air". It sounds like a mistake. It isn't, and the way we found out involved purple bacteria, rotten-egg gas and a heavy kind of oxygen. Best after “Trees Are Made of Thin Air” ReadNew
• Unpacked Astronauts Are Falling All the Time and Missing Gravity's terms and conditions said astronauts float because they're falling "with very good aim". That sounds like a trick. Here's the exact aim required, worked out with a cannon Isaac Newton never fired. Best after “Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed)” ReadNew
• Unpacked How to Win the Guess-the-Sweets Jar The heartbeat speech argued that good guessing can be taught. Here's a chance to prove it at the next school fair, with one sum, one number to remember, and a crowd to help you. Best after “Guess How Many Times Your Heart Will Beat” ReadNew

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