public interest
There was an intriguing outpouring of concern worldwide when Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore returned to Earth after 280-something days in space. People were particularly concerned about Williams’s health and how she was doing, as if Wilmore hadn’t been there with her living through the same mission. Researchers
social protection
The maximum daytime temperatures in the Kalaburagi and Belagavi districts of Karnataka this week are expected to be 41º C and in the late 30sº C, respectively. Research has found that if the relative humidity is high enough to render a wet-bulb temperature exceeding 30º C, outdoor exposure of even
Future Circular Collider
From '‘The physics community has never split like this’: row erupts over plans for new Large Hadron Collider', The Guardian, March 29, 2025: However, if the FCC were given the go-ahead, it could lock up funds for decades and end up dictating the direction that particle physics will
The Lord of the Rings
I recently started reading a book entitled The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is historical fiction, immaculately detailed, with three excellent protagonists surrounded by a band of almost as admirable allies navigating a middle-era Spain in which three powerful politico-religious factions are vying for greater power. The
Vinesh Phogat
A day before NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were to return onboard a SpaceX crew capsule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi published a letter in which he said he had inquired after her when he met U.S. President Donald Trump and that even if “you are thousands of
artificial intelligence
An odd little detail in a Physics World piece on Microsoft’s claim to have made a working topological qubit: Regardless of the debate about the results and how they have been announced, researchers are supportive of the efforts at Microsoft to produce a topological quantum computer. “As a scientist
exercise of control
On February 1, SpaceX launched its Starlink 11-4 mission onboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket's reusable first stage returned safely to the ground and the second stage remained in orbit after deploying the Starlink satellites. It was to deorbit later in a controlled procedure and land somewhere
Donald Trump
After US troops withdrew from Afghanistan after two decades in 2021, the Taliban returned to power. In its oppressive regime many groups of people, but especially women, girls, and minorities, have lost most of their civil rights. In this time, Afghanistan has also suffered devastating floods and an ongoing famine,
National Science Day
While I have many issues with how the Nobel Prizes are put together as an institution, the scientific achievements they have revealed have been some of the funnest concepts I’ve discovered in science, including the clever ways in which scientists revealed them. If I had to rank them on
Barry Wilmore
Finally some external validation. After months of insisting Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore aren’t “stuck” or “stranded” in the International Space Station, after Boeing Starliner’s first crewed flight test went awry, the two astronauts have themselves repudiated the use of such words to describe their mission profile so
Brinda Karat
‘Justice Gavai’s comments on freebies overlook people’s struggle for survival: Brinda Karat’, The Hindu, February 14, 2025: CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said the recent remarks on freebies by Supreme Court Judge Justice B.R. Gavai fails to recognise the struggle of India’s labouring class
defence spending
NavIC’s hurdles project govt’s reluctance to fund innovation’, Hindustan Times, February 7, 2025: India … chose a more cautious path. For decades, we’ve been telling ourselves that we’ll invest in science “when we’re economically better off.” It’s both prudent and a paradox. How do you
