Life notes
As some of you might know, I've been having some issues with WordPress.com in terms of their UX, their service as well as a few outages. I've been on the platform for almost a decade now, during which my account has been suspended twice for
Scicomm
I don't know how the author of a piece in the Times of India managed to keep a straight face when introducing a school based on Vedic rituals that would "show the way" to curing diseases like cancer. Even the more honest scientific studies that are
Uncategorized
2017 was a blast. Lots of things happened. The world became a shittier place in many ways and better in a few. Mostly, Earth just went around the Sun once more, and from what we know, it’s going to be doing that for a while. But here’s to
Life notes
2017 was a blast. Lots of things happened. The world became a shittier place in many ways and better in a few. Mostly, Earth just went around the Sun once more, and from what we know, it's going to be doing that for a while. But here'
Scicomm
I’ve been following the story of the SESAME collaboration in the Middle East since I first heard about it seven years ago, and was really thrilled when its synchrotron achieved first light in November 2017. I wrote about the significance of the occasion for The Wire‘s ‘The Year
Life notes
* Identify a simple and well-defined question * Describe the question and answer it * Get the fuck out Writing with these three rules in mind makes for a good science article. You stick to the point, you know what details to include and what to leave out and, most importantly, you set
Op-eds
On December 20, P. Vetrivel, a former MLA and member of the AIADMK party, convened a press meet and released a 20-second video clip purportedly showing former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa lying on a hospital bed shortly before she died on December 5, 2016. Since that day, the
Op-eds
Growing up, watching Friends was a source of much amusement and happiness. Now, as a grownup, I can't watch a single episode without deeply resenting how the show caricatures all science as avoidable and all scientists as boring. The way Monica, Rachael, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey respond to
Life notes
The Washington Post has a review, and introduction therewith, of a curious new book called Ka, authored by John Crowley (acclaimed author of Great Work of Time). It is narrated from the POV of a crow named Dar Oakley, who journeys repeatedly into the realm of the dead with a
Life notes
In April this year, Undark published a piece that caught me by surprise: Nautilus magazine was going broke. Actually, it wasn't a surprise that lasted long. Nautilus, to me, had been doing a commendable job of being 'the New Yorker version of the Scientific American', an
Scicomm
You might have seen news channels on the television (if you do at all, in fact) flash a piece of information repeatedly on their screens. News presenters also tend to repeat things they’ve said 10 or 15 minutes before and on-screen visuals join in this marquee exercise. I remember
Science
The conversion of one form of energy into another is more efficient at higher temperatures.1 For example, one of the most widely used components of any system that involves the transfer of heat from one part of the system to another is a device called a heat exchanger. When