climate change
‘The Lunacy Of Rebuilding In Disaster-Prone Areas’, Noema, April 25, 2024: In the months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans proposed a flood control program unlike any other in U.S. history. Developed by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, a diverse group of stakeholders appointed by the mayor, the resulting
Republic Day
The Hindu has an unusual ad in today’s paper (at least in the Chennai edition, which I get) on the occasion of Republic Day. At the middle is an ambigram that reads “journalism” one way and “democracy” upside down. Below the way that reads “journalism”, there’s a statement
phase transition
Place a pot of water on the stove and light the fire. Once the temperature in the pot reaches 100º C or so, the water will boil to vapour. This is an example of a phase transition that occurs every day in our houses. Yet scientists have difficulty predicting whether
Neil Gaiman
That Vulture piece. If you haven’t already, read it but be warned: it’s just as disturbing as everyone is saying it is. One paragraph in particular I found more unsettling than the rest — not because it presents one more awful detail but because I just didn’t know,
blogging
When I joined The Wire in 2015, the average length of my blog posts increased from around 700 words to around 850 words, and over time to 1,000 words. This wasn't forced so much as a natural reflection of the average length of pieces that worked on
science journalism
The Hindu has a new print product out called ‘Surf & Dive’ (S&D), whose first edition the editor Suresh Nambath and MP Shashi Tharoor launched at the group’s ‘Lit for Life’ event in Chennai on January 18. We’ve been working on this for quite some time
science journalism
I’d like to highlight a letter published in Science on January 2. I have many points of disagreement with it but I’d also like others to read and reflect on it, especially if they’re (you’re) also going to disagree with my reading. The letter is entitled
Social welfare
I recently came across an initiative called “Industrial47”. Someone had shared a link to it on a group I’m part of, and when its card loaded, the image was of a nuclear weapon going off. I found on LinkedIn that “Industrial47” is a fund with the aim of “backing
Krishna Ella
In many respects Krishna Ella and Elon Musk are poles apart but on some they share a few similarities. Both of them have played along with nationalist elements in their respective national governments in order to further their agendas, if not profits. Both men are also at the helm of
human metapneumovirus
I sense the public panic over the HMPV outbreak in China is finally dying down. I don’t know which TV news channel picked up on it first and blew it out of proportion but it created the sort of time in which basic public health literacy would have made
Nature Reviews Physics
From a paper in Nature Reviews Physics, December 19, 2024: One of the forefront fields of modern superconductivity research is that on hydrides at high pressures. Over the past few years, this research has attracted considerable publicity, of which a substantial fraction has been negative. Scientific fraud has been committed
COVID-19 origins
It's no longer about science
