thescian | August 17, 2006An article in The Boston Globe on the recent research about how we make moral judgements.
"MORAL PHILOSOPHERS and academics interested in studying how humans choose between right and wrong often use thought experiments to tease out the principles that inform our decisions. One particular hypothetical scenario has become quite the rage in some top psychological journals. It involves a runaway trolley, five helpless people on the track, and a large-framed man looking on from a footbridge. He may or may not be about to tumble to his bloody demise: You get to make the call.
That's because in this…
thescian | August 16, 2006Toxoplasma must be one of the most mind-boggling (oh! sweet pun!) parasite. Maggie Wittlin has a fascinating report about this parasite at Seed Magazine.
"In a paper published in the online edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society, United States Geological Survey researcher Kevin Lafferty argues that a significant factor in why some countries exhibit higher levels of neuroticism than others may be the prevalence of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The study also indicates that it may influence a society's preference for strict laws, an expression of uncertainty avoidance, and its valuation…
thescian | August 16, 2006If you haven't yet visited Hansdehar, a village in the Haryana state, here's where you go for a glimpse. More villages will come online says the Smartvillages.org website. The initiative by Samanvay Welfare Society (I can't find a link. The link at Smartvillages.org is broken) is a smart one. The issues facing villages are manyfold. The more eyeballs we can get to look at them, the more potential there is for smart solutions.
I particularly like the local facilities page on the website. I know those people a lot. For the first 15 years of my childhood, I lived in a small town called Jolarpet…
thescian | August 15, 2006Head over to nonoscience where Arunn has a very cool collection of science posts for the 20th edition of Melt.
thescian | August 15, 2006A report at IHT on the perky little electric car called Reva that you may have seen in Bangalore.
"We were looking at making a car for the crowded new cities in India and China, not a green vehicle for the Californian market," he said.
Amen. And, they sell it in Europe. My next car may as well be this. The secondhand VolksWagen I bought in desperation when I arrived in the UK is bleeding my wallet. Look! I already found a nifty blog on this by a Londoner!
thescian | August 15, 2006Today is India's Independence day. I was born long after that day. Because my people had the courage and fortitude, I was born in a society that was free. I was born in a society that controlled its own destiny. Freedom is the breath of a society. It is the heartbeat of a country. Freedom is life.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of…
thescian | August 14, 2006A single parent at 25, struggling to feed her three children by working as a maid for a series of exploitative employers, Ms. Halder had no time to devote to reading or to contemplating the harsh reality of her existence until she started work in the home of a sympathetic retired academic, who caught her browsing through his books when she was meant to be dusting the shelves. He discovered a latent interest in literature, gave her a notebook and pen, and encouraged her to start writing. "A Life Less Ordinary," this season's publishing sensation in India, is the result of her nighttime writing…
thescian | August 14, 2006A post at Sowmya's blog caught my attention. The point being discussed there about reciting vedas is (I'll paraphrase), Can we use our vocal chords to increase our virility? Sounds like the vedic equivalent of viagra. I can already see many readers turning red with "blasphemy" written all over their red face. Well, I stand by the question. It is correct in its essentials.
This is not a complicated scientific question to answer. IMHO, a basic knowledge of physiology and voice production can provide the broader answers to this question. Vocal chords cannot be used to increase physical virility…
thescian | August 14, 2006 A friend of mine sent an invitation for his sister's wedding. This image was on it. Such fun! I love the way the image is done. All those fat buggers blowing and bangin happily. Wonderful caricature. For those not in the know, the long pipe instrument is Nathaswaram and the other one being banged on is Mridangam Thavil.
Let me tell you my personal marriage story. For my marriage I was woken up at 5 AM or thereabouts, dressed up and bought into the marriage hall. Ramya had the same done to her. We were kept awake by the insanely happy guys who played the Nathaswaram and Mridangam in such…
thescian | August 14, 2006[This short essay was written for Desipundit originally.]
Foreplay
Consider a city you know. Bangalore, for instance. The city looks congested and filthy down on the streets but looks remarkably different and even pretty from the 30th floor of a tall building. The city, of course, is still what it is. What changed is our understanding about it. Understanding why something is the way it is; how it got to be that way; and why the hell does it or should it bother us is empowering. To understand is to take the lift to the higher floors. As we move higher and higher, features that were invisible…
thescian | August 12, 2006The we-torture-and-kill-holy-cows show by Penn and Teller is up at Google videos free for your viewing pleasure. [via mf]
thescian | August 9, 2006The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated. -Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter (1872-1939) English surgeon. [via]