Prime Stream
thescian | November 17, 2008My 11 month old daughter loves electric lights. If you visit my home, you may often find me standing near the switch and flicking it on and off while the daughter watches and squeals in delight. Today morning we were playing our switching game and I explained to her with much drama how photons are expelled from the atoms in the filament, how they travel down to her eyes, how the arrow of time and principle of least action guides the photons and the whole world, etc. She, of course, giggled watching my mouth make all the funny sounds.
When my hand reached her eyes, I gave a tickle, then…
thescian | November 13, 2008The latest New Scientist magazine has soundbites from writers like Gibson and Atwood and much else. Give it a read.
E M Forster in Aspects of The Novel, asks a pertinent question: Will the mirror get a new coat of quicksilver? Will the creative process itself alter? (By mirror he means novels, and the creative process is story telling - through words, paint, clay...).
This is the kind of meta question about art that only those who engage in speculative fiction can address, IMO. Science, of course, is the best possible vehicle for speculation because it is more consistent than most other…
thescian | November 10, 2008via BBC.
Learn more:
at Reporters Without Borders
at Committee to protect bloggers
thescian | November 10, 2008The winners have been decided. We have an exceptional story as a winner this year. Picking it as the winner was not hard.
I have been mulling over five stories for the past week - any of them could be chosen for the second prize. These stories are all excellent and I loathe to choose. In the end, I have decided on a story where the author has courageously pitted his head again a classic scifi theme. That said, we will publish all the good stories. Winners, authors of stories we will publish and all other participants can expect an email in the next few days with substantial feedback.
thescian | November 6, 2008Chandrayaan-1 has entered the phase where in two days it'll start circling the moon. ISRO Press release here. Feels good to finally have a piece of India around the moon, is it not!
thescian | October 28, 2008Sunny day in the UK but I can't be oblivious to what's really happening around me: it's raining neutrinos. It's a deluge, in fact.
thescian | October 27, 2008There are many ways one can paint a portrait of the brain: as an organ that evolved from the simple beginnings as a few neuronal tissues in worms to one of the most interconnected mass of tissues anywhere in the universe perched atop a primate body; as the center of consciousness that questions its own reality; as a biological system whose workings are as beguiling as they are fascinating. Mr Adam Zeman in The Portrait of the Brain paints the human brain in all these ways and more.
The chapters of the book are organized by a clever sequence of case studies. From ailments that are caused by…
thescian | October 22, 2008BBC has some reactions by Indians on the launch. One of them is from a fruit vendor Sheila who is quoted as saying: "I don't think it is a good thing. I think this money could be used here for the poor. Look at how expensive things have become! If the money goes away from (our streets) then obviously things will become more expensive."
Sheila's sentiment is probably echoed by many. While it is not accurate - Indians have immensely profited from space capability -, it does point to the problem we have in selling space missions to many Indians. Consider the excitement in US and Europe when a…
thescian | October 22, 2008When we (self and wife) were in Atlanta, Ramya had a dental operation (to remove a painful inner tooth). I was waiting outside the operating room expecting her to come out holding her chin gingerly and saying, ga ma tut puld, and bravely smiling. Instead she came out on a wheelchair with her eyes closed (she was under sedatives) pushed by a grave looking nurse. My heart jumped in its cage, missed a beat and ran berserk for a moment. You may know the feeling. Well, it's more than a feeling. The feeling has physical basis. The heart actually jumps, stomach churns, eyes pop out and finger nails…
thescian | October 17, 2008Destructive re-entry (planned) of Jules Verne ATV. [Click on the link for a must-see ESA Video]
[via APOD]
thescian | October 9, 2008While LHC recovers from it's starting jitters, give a read to a learned article on it by B. Ananthanarayan.
thescian | October 6, 2008I want to point you to a fascinating write-up by Mo at Neurophilosophy. It is about renegade proteins (proteins are long chains of molecules vital to life) that recruit other well-behaved ones into a sinister and fatal plot to pulp animal brains (including humans). These kind of proteins - called Prions - have been implicated in the Mad Cow Disease. Mo writes,
It is now known that the clumps of abnormally folded prion protein can break down into smaller fragments. Thus, if infected tissue is consumed, these fragments act as "seeds", which cause the normal protein in the host cells to adopt…
thescian | September 30, 2008Comprehensive and absolutely rational. If everyone can make decisions this way...
thescian | September 29, 2008Today. Atleast 100 dead at Chamunda Devi temple in the city of Jodhpur.
Previous stampedes.
August 3. 140 dead. 40 children. Stampede at the Nainadevi temple, Himachal Pradesh.
July. 6 dead. Stampede at Jagannath temple, Orissa.
March. 10 dead. Stampede at temple, Madhya Pradesh.
January. 5 dead. Stampede at Durga Malleswara temple, Andra Pradesh.
thescian | September 29, 2008Held a hefty book today that warrants a blog post. The book is American Prometheus, The triumph and tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer.
I referred to this book to check on a certain event in Oppenheimers life. It is this: Oppenheimer, at one time, left a poisoned apple for his tutor Blackett at Cambridge (Blackett apparently and luckily did not eat it). This rather alarming action was the result of Oppenheimer's lack of good experimental hands. Blackett had assigned him seom experiments without knowing Oppenheimer's ineptitude, and boy! What a way to be avenged! Oppenheimer almost got expelled…
thescian | September 23, 2008A C Grayling in his regular column in New Scientist questions the use of Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature (it's like polygraph, for the brain) in a criminal case in Bombay where life sentences were given to accused based on Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature (BEOS) reports from forensic labs.
I choose the following words carefully: the utter irresponsibility involved here, and its attendant outrage of justice, is staggering. It is yet another example of how technology is increasingly misapplied and abused, and represents a major threat to civil liberties.
BEOS profiling is a…
thescian | September 12, 2008We are close! You could be the one and if you are you will be teleported to NYC for a party with people from other dimensions.
It's time to celebrate the conversations we have had all through these years. Come join us Saturday 20 September in London at Calthorpe Arms, a pub near Russell Square and King's Cross (details) from 7:00 pm. Free drinks, food till we run out of money (we have $500 from our Sb overlords).
Bloggers in attendance: Mo Costandi (Neurophilosophy), Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science), Kara Contreary (Pure Pedantry), Nick Anthis (The Scientific Activist) and yours truly.…
thescian | September 9, 2008and today the Large Hadron Collider has begun probing the very stuff that we and our dreams are made of.
thescian | September 4, 2008I am sure this has happened to many. I find catching myself out at times in that strange land where an Explanation has taken the place of Truth. I stand there looking lovingly at the face of Clarity and Certainty with little realization that they are strangling curiosity to death; when they vanish, one is left staring at a void with a dead soul. All this while that we have indulged these deadly twins, we have stopped from going further. When one has 'explained' something satisfactorily (to oneself), that is normally the end of one's quest, and therein lies the danger. The danger is this: the…