Month: January 2018

We don’t have a problem with the West, we’re just obsessed with it

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How much do we not know about what Indian researchers are doing simply because Western scientists haven’t written to some of them?

Dealing with plagiarism? Look at thy neighbour

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Four doctors affiliated with Kathmandu University (KU) in Nepal are going to be fired because they plagiarised data in two papers. The papers were retracted last year from the Bali Medical Journal, where they had been published. A dean at the university, Dipak Shrestha, told a media outlet that the matter will be settled within … Read more

On cancers, false balance and the judiciary

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Climate change has for long been my go-to example to illustrate how absolute objectivity can sometimes be detrimental to the reliability of a news report. Stating that A said “Climate change is real” and that B replied “No, it isn’t” isn’t helping anyone even though it has voices from both sides of the issue. Now, … Read more

To watch ‘The Post’

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I read a few reviews of The Post. Based on what the critics are saying, it seems the film has at least the potential to raise the spirits of many journalists today who could use a leg up. That said, I do resent that some of my friends and peers think I should be more … Read more

Limitations of the Finkbeiner test

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This post was republished on The Wire on January 8, 2018. The Finkbeiner test, named for science writer Ann Finkbeiner, was created to check whether a profile of a female scientist published by a mainstream news outlet was produced in the first place because its subject was a woman. It’s a good check to make when … Read more

WordPress’s ineptitude

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As some of you might know, I’ve been having some issues with WordPress.com in terms of their UX, their service as well as a few outages. I’ve been on the platform for almost a decade now, during which my account has been suspended twice for different reasons and, more recently, my blog was taken down … Read more

‘Mantra sciences’ is just poor fantasy

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I don’t know how the author of a piece in the Times of India managed to keep a straight face when introducing a school based on Vedic rituals that would “show the way” to curing diseases like cancer. Even the more honest scientific studies that are regularly accompanied by press releases proclaiming “the paper is … Read more

Happy new year!

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2017 was a blast. Lots of things happened. The world became a shittier place in many ways and better in a few. Mostly, Earth just went around the Sun once more, and from what we know, it’s going to be doing that for a while. But here’s to a roaring 2018 anyway! As of January … Read more

Politics at SESAME

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I’ve been following the story of the SESAME collaboration in the Middle East since I first heard about it seven years ago, and was really thrilled when its synchrotron achieved first light in November 2017. I wrote about the significance of the occasion for The Wire‘s ‘The Year in Hope’ series of piece about uplifting moments in 2017. … Read more