A regulator of the press
While Cameron is yet to accept the Leveson inquiry’s recommendations, political pressure is going to force his hand no doubt. Which side of the debate do you come down on, though? I believe that a…
November 2012
This is poetry. This is dance.
Drop everything, cut off all sound/noise, and watch this. [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/53914149 w=398&h=224] If you’ve gotten as far as this line, here’s some extra info: this video was shot with these cameras for the sake of…
The post-reporter era II
When a print-publication decides to go online, it will face a set of problems that is wholly unique and excluded from the set of problems it will have faced before. Keeping in mind that such…
Window for an advanced theory of particles closes further
A version of this article, as written by me, appeared in The Hindu on November 22, 2012. — On November 12, at the first day of the Hadron Collider Physics Symposium at Kyoto, Japan, researchers…
On meson decay-modes in studying CP violation
In particle physics, CPT symmetry is an attribute of the universe that is held as fundamentally true by quantum field theory (QFT). It states that the laws of physics should not be changed and the…
The travails of science communication
There’s an interesting phenomenon in the world of science communication, at least so far as I’ve noticed. Every once in a while, there comes along a concept that is gaining in research traction worldwide but…
After less than 100 days, Curiosity renews interest in Martian methane
A version of this story, as written by me, appeared in The Hindu on November 15, 2012. — In the last week of October, the Mars rover Curiosity announced that there was no methane on…
The cost of solutions
Hereby, a new metric: Solution cost (SC) SC = Cost of finding the solution to a particular problem – (Rate at which the applications of the solution become cheaper * t), t = No. of…
A latent monadology: An extended revisitation of the mind-body problem
In an earlier post, I’d spoken about a certain class of mind-body interfacing problems (the way I’d identified it): evolution being a continuous process, can psychological changes effected in a certain class of people identified…
A muffling of the monsoons
New research conducted at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research suggests that global warming could cause frequent and severe failures of the Indian summer monsoon in the next two centuries. The study joins a…
Eschatology
The meaning of the day of the blog is changing. While some argue that long-form journalism is in, I think it’s about extreme-form journalism. By this, I only mean that long-forms and short-forms are increasingly…
Backfiring biofuels in the EU
A version of this article as written by me appeared in The Hindu on November 8, 2012. — The European Union (EU) announced on October 17 that the amount of biofuels that will be required…