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Scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-waves Observatory (LIGO) recently announced the detection of gravitational waves. This comes exactly 100 years after Einstein had predicted their existence in 1916. This discovery has caused huge ripples of enthusiasm in the arena of astronomy. But what are gravitational waves?

Have you ever noticed that the price tag of daily consumables always comes with a 9 at its end - Like jeans with a price tag of Rs. 999 or mobiles with Rs. 4999? Instead of using 1000 or 5000, the merchants always prefer to choose these prices ending with a 9. Not only in shopping malls, but shops in your locality also use this same tactics to draw your attention.

What you do when you are sick? Obviously you go to a doctor. You tell him/her what your problem is, s/he examines you with a stethoscope to monitor your heartbeat at various regions of your body and then you get some medicines. Now, if your friend goes to the doctor with the same problem, s/he gets similar medicines.

In what could be called a testimony to Bengaluru being the IT capital of India, the Indian Institute of Science’s Computer Science and Automation (CSA) department was ranked 71st in the recently released The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-2017, making it the top institute in India for Computer Science.

As Alfred Nobel quoted in his will, “For the greatest benefit to mankind”, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute, Sweden, has opened this year’s list by announcing the winner for Physiology or Medicine on Monday. Yoshinori Ohsumi from Japan has bagged the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his “Discoveries of mechanism for Autophagy”.

When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is about the world’s smallest machines”, the world had found the answer to another Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman’s question - How tiny can you make machinery? “The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir James Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Lucas Feringa for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”, read a press note from the Academy. The machines developed by these laureates are controllable, nanometer sized objects, a thousand times thinner than a strand of hair, which can move around and perform a task when energy is added. The three winners will split the award equally, with each having played a different role in the development of molecular machines.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel 2016 has been awarded to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström for their contributions to “contract theory”. Both the laureates will share the prize money of 8 million Swedish Krona for the 48th prize, which was instituted in 1969.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences today announced that the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2016 would be awarded to Prof. David James Thouless, Prof. F. Duncan M. Haldane and Prof. J. Michael Kosterlitz ”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”. Prof. Thouless has been awarded half the prize share, while the other half will be shared equally between Prof. Haldane and Prof. Kosterlitz. The scientists have used advanced mathematical methods to explain unusual properties of matter when cooled to very low temperatures.

The Nobel Peace Prize is announced every year to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses", as described in Alfred Nobel’s will. For the year 2016, Colombian presidentJuan Manuel Santos was awarded the prize for his efforts to end his country's 50-year civil war. From 1895 to today, there have been 104 individuals and 26 organizations that have been awarded with this prestigious title.

To most of us, the Himalayas is a snow clad, dry and cold mountain range. But trained eyes see through this apparent homogeneity and interpret the observed variations to understand the local climate and its implications. As a testimony to this, scientists from the Snow & Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE), Him Parisar, Chandigarh and the Divecha Center for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, have recently published a study on the variations in the 'whiteness of snow' across the Himalayas and its relationship with the mean winter air temperature and glacial stability.