NewsBytes

ISRO on Sunday successfully carried out the first Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-01) to validate the parachute-based deceleration system for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission. An ISRO official told PTI that the end-to-end demonstration was conducted near Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The exercise was jointly executed by ISRO, the Indian Air Force, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard. The Gaganyaan project aims to demonstrate India's capability to send humans into space and safely return them to Earth. Planned as the country's first human spaceflight programme, it will also involve precursor unmanned missions to test systems critical for crew safety. The parachute-based deceleration mechanism is a key component to ensure the safe recovery of the crew module during re-entry and landing.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has decided to create an all-women commando team for conducting specialised counter-terrorist operations, officials said on Sunday. A group of 100 women personnel deployed across the country as part of the aviation security group (ASG) guarding civilian airports are the first to be trained for the task. The about 1.70 lakh-strength CISF is primarily tasked to guard 69 civil airports, the Delhi Metro and a number of other vital installations in the government and private domain. The personnel will be trained in physical fitness and weapons training, live-fire drills under stress, endurance-building exercises like running, obstacle courses, rappelling, survival training in forests, and a 48-hour confidence-building exercise designed to test decision-making and teamwork under adverse conditions, he said.

Indian shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar dished out a dominant show to win the gold medal in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions competition at the Asian Shooting Championship here on Sunday. In the junior men's 3P event, Adriyan Karmakar claimed the gold medal with an Asian junior record of 463.8 in the final. Aishwary shot 462.5 to finish on top. China's Wenyu Zhao won the silver medal with 462 points, while Japan's Naoya Okada claimed bronze with a score of 445.8. Aishwary led the field for a major part of the competition. The 24-year-old Olympian had an excellent outing in kneeling position and though he could not replicate that in prone, Aishwary did enough in the standing round to emerge winner after entering the final phase of the competition with a lead of more than 1.5 points. The other Indian shooters in the fray, Chain Singh finished fourth, while Akhil Sheoran ended fifth in the final.

Most people know they should drink more water, but our new research reveals an unexpected consequence of falling short: it could be making everyday stress significantly harder to handle. Our study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that people who drank less than 1.5 litres daily showed dramatically higher levels of cortisol – the body's primary stress hormone – when faced with stressful situations. The finding suggests that chronic mild dehydration may amplify stress responses in ways we're only beginning to understand. We tested healthy young adults by dividing them into two groups based on their usual fluid intake. One group drank less than 1.5 litres daily, while the other exceeded standard recommendations of roughly two litres for women and 2.5 litres for men. After maintaining these patterns for a week, participants faced a laboratory stress test involving public speaking and mental arithmetic. Both groups felt equally nervous and showed similar heart rate increases. But the low-fluid group experienced a much more pronounced cortisol surge – a response that could prove problematic if repeated daily over months or years. Chronic elevation of cortisol has been linked to increased risks of heart disease, kidney problems and diabetes. Surprisingly, the under-hydrated participants didn't report feeling thirstier than their well-hydrated counterparts. Their bodies, however, told a different story. Darker, more concentrated urine revealed their dehydration, demonstrating that thirst isn't always a reliable indicator of fluid needs. The mechanism behind this stress amplification involves the body's sophisticated water management system. When dehydration is detected, the brain releases vasopressin, a hormone that instructs the kidneys to conserve water and maintain blood volume. But vasopressin doesn't work in isolation; it also influences the brain's stress-response system, potentially heightening cortisol release during difficult moments.