Prime Stream
thescian | July 5, 2007Science Fiction Writers of the world! Unite, and invade Nature! Nature earlier had (I didn't know, I don't have access to the journals) a science fiction feature called Futures and now it's back again.
Futures is the award-winning science-fiction section of Nature. Contributions are usually commissioned, but unsolicited articles are welcome. Each Future should be an entirely fictional, self-contained story between 850-950 words in length, and the genre should, broadly speaking, be 'hard' (that is, 'scientific' SF) rather than, say, outright fantasy, slipstream or horror. Each item should be…
thescian | July 4, 2007Imagine this: Tie a thread around the earth's equator. Then, say, you let the thread out by 2*Pi metres (Pi=Ï, the mathematical constant) to make a thread circle that stands slightly above the earth's equator. Now, how far above the surface of the equator will the thread stand? In other words, what's the difference between new radius of the thread circle and the original radius (original radius being the earth's equatorial radius)?
This question was posed by Ramanujan, the mathematical genius from India, to a young student he was tutoring in Madras. The answer is so counter-intutive that I…
thescian | July 3, 2007Are we a sane civilization or not, asks Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson in a WIRED interview about his new ecological trilogy.
I'm hoping the scientific community continues to go off like a fire alarm in a hotel, just as they have for the last five years, and that that will do the trick. If they do, the democracies, the political leadership and even big business will all recognize that this is a real threat. And we're seeing enough of the effects, even without catastrophic weather. Take glaciers, for example, which are melting so fast, and it turns out they are the source of…
thescian | June 26, 2007Scientific American July Issue.
In other news, Nature has started Scintilla, a service that keeps you up to date on papers, news and science weblogs. You can also rate and recommend things. You'll have to register to do anything and you can't have a RSS feed (What!! My browser doesn't run on free fuel, you know; I can't take it everywhere. Give me RSS feeds or lose me).
Seed did a great job in spotting the trend early.
thescian | June 26, 2007Intelligent Religion is Religion. This isn't news. The news is: UK Government has said so, shoving witless non-science like Intelligent Design and Creationism back into the holes they came from.
"The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science." -Reported in The Register
thescian | June 25, 2007What are we going to do with the stupid? Assuming, of course, that you and me are not stupid. A contentious and explosive question in its political and moral implications. A New Scientist opinion piece:
They are the individuals who lie at the bottom of the normal range of human intelligence. I'm not talking about people with learning difficulties; these people are generally protected and helped by the state. I mean those too bright to qualify for such assistance but not clever enough to thrive easily in today's knowledge-based society.
The unfairness these people face is shocking. It is…
thescian | June 25, 2007Is NHS (UK's National Health Service) turning into a wonderland? Magical magnets have been approved to screw the desperate - poor and elderly, usually, the ones who need proper treatment and not some wacko prescription.
The accountants at the Prescription Pricing Authority have decided that the "the magnets will save money on bandages and nurses' time by healing the wounds." I dare say they could save even more money by removing all effective treatments. -David Colquhoun at Improbable Science
thescian | June 24, 2007Driving in India is a unique and beguiling experience. There are many lessons to learn, and in the end of it all, you will attain Nirvana, the quintessential Indian state of non-being.
Roads in and around Bangalore are like earth's oceans during the Cambrian period; an explosion of unpredictable shapes and forms slither around; cars of various sizes and personalities, bullock carts, plastic eating cows, buffaloes that shamelessly shit in the middle of the road, cyclists carrying shipping containers, mopeds on a death run, and colorful pedestrians dodging predatorial vehicles.
Bangalore…
thescian | June 20, 2007India, it is, informs beebs. The condom ring, powered by a small battery, vibrates apparently. As expected, the moral police would have no vibrations anywhere near their genital regions and are protesting at this atrocity.
Given the number of AIDS cases in India (around 5 million, official figures are lower), condoms need all the attention they can draw among Indians. Vibrating condoms, condoms that can check for STDs, condoms that can make coffee, condoms that do the dishes.. we need all sorts of innovative products.
thescian | June 20, 2007Scientific Curiosity is a science blog that I chanced upon via India Blogs 1.0. As always I started looking through the posts to find one that had science and sex in it (Don't look at me like that. Isn't sexy posts the reason why you read my blog?). And, sure, I found one: Haig hypothesis.
it relates the development of a baby to the parent's inherent fidelity. The hypothesis, put forth by David Haig, predicts that Mom and Dad have different interests when in it comes to the development of their baby in any non-monogamous species, and hence imprint genes that are involved in growth of the…
thescian | June 19, 2007You be careful when you name your girl child. It may affect what she turns into, Zuska notes.
You may notice many Indian names for girls end with 'a' (rhymes with 'yaaa', Ramya, Priya...). That goes back to Manu Smriti, the tribal codebook of a bunch of pretentious ancient men, which says a girl's name should end in a long vowel as it was considered pleasing and auspicious. The rule is meaningless and only shows what ignorant chauvinistic men can come up with. Sadly, history has a long arm. Meaningless edicts created long ago can have profound cumulative effects on the present day society…
thescian | June 19, 2007 Looks like the Sun has a cold and is oozing plasma.
Saw the video via APOD: "The Sun's photosphere has thousands of bumps called granules and usually a few dark depressions called sunspots. The above time-lapse movie centered on Sunspot 875 was taken last year by the Vacuum Tower Telescope in the Canary Islands of Spain using adaptive optics to resolve details below 500 kilometers across. Each of the numerous granules is the size of an Earth continent, but much shorter lived. A granule slowly changes its shape over an hour, and can even completely disappear. Hot hydrogen gas rises in the…
thescian | June 15, 2007Blow it out and let the new fire ride the smoke stream baby!
Don't see nothing? Watch carefully a few times and let your eyes adjust for the dark. Took this video almost two years ago while I was in Atlanta. I was trying to put together a list of simple science videos for TheScian.com. Got any suggestions for such simple experiments that can be done within a minute?
thescian | June 15, 2007Hey, come back here! I assure you, I am not blogging from the toilet. Just watched Colbert have a very panguttaral (as opposed to cerebral) conversation with Dr Gershon, author of The Second Brain which says how our gut can really do the brain in - with a bloody diarrhea, as the doctor explained.
Via The Daily Transcript.
thescian | June 15, 2007 Bruce Sterling is a science fiction author and design expert (Haven't read him? Start with Holy Fire). Watch him talk about Payphone design at MIT Technology Review website. How would Google design a Payphone? Hilarious and spot on. It's about two minutes into the video.
This month's Technology Review has much to say about design starting with Jason Pontin's (editor of TR) enthusiastic applause for Apple's product designs.
thescian | June 14, 2007Vision is one of the first and most useful applications of bionic systems. Our eyes, while they are wonderful, still suck, and are worse than octopus eyes. For a start, the optic nerves in humans go over the retina obstructing light instead of behind it. They then plunge through the retina creating a blindspot. That's like looking through scratched spectacles with a hole in it without being aware that we are wearing a mediocre and busted equipment. We go on happily wearing it because it has always been that way. Pathetic, really. It's about time we started fixing obvious evolutionary…
thescian | June 13, 2007There's a permanent display in London Science Museum of King George III's collection of scientific instruments in 18th century. Consider Boyle-Hooke Vacuum pump made in 1659.
It is very hard and takes enormous effort to pump air out of the glass container. They sometimes used horses to pump air out. So, the question is: Why is it so hard to create a vacuum by pumping air out of the glass container? Where does the opposing force the prevents air from being removed come from?
Pictures of a Klein bottle, a pegasus computer and Babbage's Difference Engine here.
thescian | June 12, 2007A recent weekend edition of Guardian newspaper promised readers paper plane nirvana. I was one of the reader who dutifully folded enough paper to submerge myself in pieces of origami that looked like crabs having sex and octopus at a disco - many wonderful and weird things but nothing that enjoyed air.
DIY is important, but a working plane - even if bought readymade - may be more important. Although buying it may appear to be an escape route, a plane that works could sustain interest till one of my octopus flies. So, yesterday, while at the Science Museum in London, I bought myself readymade…
thescian | June 7, 2007Saw the news on Beebs and read this article at Technology Review.
Scientists analyzed 500,000 genetic markers in each of 1,700 people, making it the largest such study to date. By comparing the DNA of 2,000 patients with one of seven different diseases--Crohn's disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, and bipolar disorder--with 3,000 healthy controls, researchers identified 24 genetic regions strongly linked to specific diseases: one in bipolar disorder, one in coronary-artery disease, nine in Crohn's disease, three in rheumatoid arthritis,…
thescian | June 7, 2007What happens to a ball when it is fired at 100 KMPH in the opposite direction from a truck moving at 100 KMPH?
[via reddit]
Can you guess why the ball moves in the direction of the truck after bouncing?