My Twitter friend and compatriot @zeusisdead made a good, bristling case for why we shouldn’t celebrate India’s Mars Orbiter mission’s frugality. Here’s a telling excerpt from his piece as it appeared in Times of India: ISRO [India’s space agency] did not get to Mars by using duct tape and M-seal to make the orbiter work. ISRO … Read more
Even if ISRO has launched a spacecraft to Mars, the payload limit still stands in the way of taking full advantage of scientific interest on the ground. But apparently now isn’t the time to think about that…
If China wants Alibaba to go international, it will find it tough to take refuge behind its current Internet governance policies. Anuj Srivas explains.
The Americans had the skycrane and their seven minutes of hell. This is India’s ultimate so-near-yet-so-far moment. The Mars Orbiter mission better work out.
When I decided to quit The Hindu and leave for grad studies at New York University, my parents, relatives, their friends, my father’s boss at work, his family and their friends all said that I’d made the right decision. “If you don’t finish your higher studies now, you won’t ever do it” was the refrain. … Read more
“The paper has been through many financial crises and Science Times has not been affected.” These were the words of David Corcoran, Editor, NYT Science Times, who’d dropped by my NYU SHERP class today for a short presentation and some Q&A. David said that in response to the question “How easy or difficult is it … Read more
No patterns that I can see. O New York, how cold will you be this winter? Because I come from Chennai and 22 deg. C is cold enough. Full data here.
The Richter scale describes the strength of earthquakes, and enough quakes have occurred across the spectrum of strengths for it to be well calibrated. On the Kp index scale, however, more occurrences of stronger and weaker flares are necessary for us to really know where each one sits on the scale.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Today, my class had two guests. Malcolm Ritter, whose Twitter profile reads “Associated Press science reporter”, is not just any science reporter. He’s been covering science for AP for over 30 years now. While Dan Fagin said Ritter’s journey through journalism might not be relevant to our class considering he made a name for himself before the new … Read more