thescian | June 20, 2007A timely review of One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel that is keeping me awake for the past few nights. I'd have to leave it there and say no more: cannot do justice to the novel in a blog post, neither do I believe I have the maturity and understanding for it.
thescian | June 19, 2007An old friend of mine forwarded an email with a picture of someone named Mataji Nirmala Devi who had the Indian flag at her feet. She is apparently a spiritual leader. Anyway, the email was the collective nationalistic scream of Indians (atleast the ones who have email access and occupy themselves with forwarded messages).
"It is an insult! Indian Government must take action against this unpatriotic cult", read the email. Hey, here's a brilliant idea: let Nationlism and Religion to go at each other's throat. That could be the beginning of an end that we all have been waiting for.
I sent a…
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 18, 2007First the bass guitarist walked onto the stage and started strumming, next was the man on piano, and then the man on drums.
Amidst the soft music and dim lights walked another man onto the stage. He didn't play any musical instrument. He was the instrument. He wore grey pants, a yellow shirt left unbuttoned, and green shoes. Green tap shoes. He placed the towel on the six feet tall speaker system and started tapping. He tapped for two hours. Jazz on shoes.
I was at Saddler's Wells Theatre for Savion Glover's performance last thursday. His first show in London. No strobe lights. No…
thescian | June 17, 2007Abi quotes from Indian Express It's official: a vast majority of our colleges are mediocre.
Lakshmi at nonoscience talks about the problems underlying Science Writing
My brother-in-law sends a link to Great Global Warming Swindle. I am yet to watch it. If you have watched it, chime in please.
Bengali translation of The God Delusion, first chapter by Mukto-mona, a humanists organization. Wonderful.
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, 2007 Ladies and gents, TheScian.com has woken up from slumber. After weeks of prodding, the new site with a new logo, new style and new everything is up.
Selected stories from last year's contest are published for your reading pleasure. This year's Science fiction Short Story Contest announcement is up. There's also an essay by yours truly on a trip to India, and a lot more. Hop over and get started.
If you find any glitches, clear your browser cache and try again. If the problem still persists, shoot me an email.
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, 2007Would you please stop looking at me so accusingly! I fess up. I've been wasting time with Paris Hilton diary and the rotten olympics logo. But please, I implore, Lords of the Intertubes, have mercy on my bleeding eyes...
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?
thescian | June 6, 2007Cicadas. They hide underground doing pretty much nothing for a number of years. Not any number of years but number of years that are prime. 3,5, 13, 17.. Aha. Smart. They use prime years to beat predators (that's the theory and I'll go with it). Any other occurence of primes in the natural world that you know about?
I've been smitten by prime numbers lately. If you would like to smite yourself, I recommend Melvyn Bragg's excellent BBC series 'In Our Time' on Primes.
thescian | June 5, 2007
The official one is a piece of turd. Here's my nomination, a nifty logo by a Mr Richard Bamsey hosted at the Beebs. [the 4th]
Naturally, the creators of the official logo are defending the eye sore below.
thescian | June 5, 2007Fascinating news I read at ScienceDaily.
An important new study from the Journal of Consumer Research demonstrates how this "cognitive lock-in" can cause us to remain loyal to a product, even if objectively better alternatives exist.
"We find that consumers typically are not aware that this mechanism is a powerful determinant of the choices they make," write Kyle B. Murray (University of Western Ontario) and Gerald Häubl (University of Alberta).
Murray and Häubl examine a theory of cognitive lock-in centered around the notion of skill-based habits of use, that is, how using or purchasing a…
thescian | June 4, 2007Welcome to the ward of post-operative aftertaste where you can taste you appendix or spleen for a fee.
Transgastric surgery, or natural orifice translumenal endosurgery (NOTES), as it is officially known, involves passing flexible surgical tools and a camera in through the patient's mouth to reach the abdominal cavity via an incision made in the stomach lining. Once the operation is over, the surgeon draws any removed tissue back out through the patient's mouth and stitches up the hole in the stomach.
To some it may sound disgusting, to others the prospect of scar-free surgery may sound too…