Op-eds
US fusion bhashan
Nuclear fusion? Yay! Climate finance? Shh!
VM
Analysis
Science's humankind shield
"Science benefits all of humanity," they say.
Links
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* Artist Feeds Her Childhood Diary Into an AI Chatbot -- And Has a Moving Conversation With Her Younger Self * Giant satellite outshines stars, sparking fresh concerns for astronomers * Does the Peer Review Process Need Blockchain? * The Ants Have Not Read Kant: Pëtr Kropotkin and Mutual Aid – opening line: "Though
Analysis
The strange beauty of Planck units
What does it mean to say that the speed of light is 1? We know the speed of light in the vacuum of space to be 299,792,458 m/s – or about 300,000 km/s. It's a quantity of speed that's very hard to
Uncategorized
Getting rid of the GRE
An investigation by Science has found that, today, just 3% of “PhD programs in eight disciplines at 50 top-ranked US universities” require applicants’ GRE scores, “compared with 84% four years ago”. This is good news about a test whose purpose I could never understand: first as a student who had
Scicomm
A 'quantum consciousness' absurdity at IIT Mandi
As you go downward, inward, smaller and smaller, you get more vast conscious experience. This is the idea in Indian knowledge systems. At the bottom of it, or the very base of it, at the source, is Brahman. My point is that this is actually very consistent with what we&
Culture
The curious case of the blue coloured ice cream
From an unusual ice cream colour to quantum mechanics to ecology to semiconductors to gastroporn.
Life notes
Saying bye to The Wire
November 30, 2022, is my last day.
Scicomm
A fountainhead of intrigue
Recently, a Chinese-American mathematician named Yitang Zhang claimed to have resolved the Landau-Siegel zeroes conjecture, which is related to the Riemann hypothesis. (Specifically, disproving the conjecture brings us a small stop closer to proving the Riemann hypothesis.) His paper hasn't been validated verified by independent mathematicians yet, but
Analysis
The covering COP27 quandary
"Of the 1,156 publicly-listed companies, regions and cities that have so far made net-zero pledges … [more than half] are little more than vague commitments or proposals," according to a new UN report. Even when proper promises to cut emissions are in the picture, "Audi, Volkswagen, Daimler
Analysis
The ideologues cometh for the IITs
In July 2019, when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its Chandrayaan 2 mission, the spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev was present in the control centre, along with other dignitaries, getting a close view of the launch from a balcony. After the launch, he was seen taking photographs with the
Analysis
The biopolitics of Covaxin
In a new investigation, STAT has reported fresh problems with Covaxin’s approval process in India, including the phase 2 trial dropping its placebo arm in favour of one preordained to make Covaxin look good and Bharat Biotech – the maker – commencing phase 3 trials based on results from animal studies.