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Notes for a ‘The Open Notebook’ report
I was quoted in a new reported feature in The Open Notebook, entitled 'Expanding the Geographical Borders of Your Source List'.
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Analysis
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But on April 26, the National Commission on the
Analysis
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But on April 26, the National Commission on the
Analysis
The gap between language and quantum mechanics
Physics World has a fantastic article about the problem with using a language invented, in Terry Pratchett's words, "to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is", to describe the peculiar but very much real possibilities created by the rules of quantum mechanics. Excerpt: … despite the
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Where do scientists communicate their work?
A group of Spanish researchers analysed the mentions of scientific papers authored by scientists (affiliated with Spain) on the social media, on Wikipedia, and on news outlets, blogs and policy documents to understand where the consumers of such scientific information were located. They selected 3,653 authors, and the following
Analysis
BLR road-widening is a sham
While I'm told that discussions on a plan to widen Bengaluru's Sankey Road, between Bhashyam Circle and Malleshwaram 18th cross – a stretch that's one of the contributors to the city's reputation for horrific traffic – have progressed in the last two months to
Analysis
Nature paper says bad news is good news
'Negativity drives online news consumption', Claire E. Robertson et al., Nature Human Behaviour, March 16, 2023: Here we analyse the effect of negative words on news consumption using a massive online dataset of viral news stories from Upworthy.com—a website that was one of the most successful
Analysis
What's the anomaly in a Nobel for Modi?
I'm sure you've seen the reports doing the rounds today that some person on some Nobel Prize Committee said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was very deserving of the vaunted peace prize, followed by less widely circulated reports that the person was misquoted (or dysquoted) and in
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A vortex in my bucket
One of the taps in my bathroom at home issues water in laminar flow – without any turbulence. Sometimes the flow from the tap to the bucket looks like it's frozen: there are no disturbances on the water's surface to indicate that it is flowing through the
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Hype from Fermilab
Where do you think the following bit of text is from? A wormhole, also known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge, is a hypothetical tunnel connecting remote points in spacetime. While wormholes are allowed by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, wormholes have never been found in the universe. In late 2022,
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On that anti-mRNA vaccines video
The Times of India has published an irresponsible article today on a video by a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claiming with dubious evidence that all mRNA vaccines are harmful. The article quotes from the video at length, effectively offering less-sceptical readers a transcript and encouraging the
Analysis
Should journos pay scientists for their expertise?
I recently came across a question posed on Twitter, asking if experts whom journalists consult to write articles should be compensated for their labour, especially since, in the tweeter's words, "it's quite a bit of effort". The tweeter clarified their position further in some