Twitter - Root Privileges

In defence of ignorance

Wish I may, wish I might Have this wish, I wish tonight I want that star, I want it now I want it all and I don’t care how Metallica, King Nothing I’m a news editor who frequently uses Twitter to find new stories to work

echo chamber

Social media and science communication

The following article was originally intended for an Indian publication but I withdrew from the commission because I couldn’t rework the piece according to changes they required, mostly for lack of focus. I thank Karnika Kohli and Shruti Muralidhar for their inputs. Since the mid-20th century, the news-publishing industry

Colonialism

Scientism is not 'nonsense'

The @realscientists rocur account on Twitter took a surprising turn earlier today when its current curator, Teresa Ambrosio, a chemist, tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/teresaambrosio_/status/1187259093909757952 If I had to give her the benefit of doubt, I’d say she was pointing this tweet at the

Chandrayaan 2

The fight over ISRO

My report about ISRO’s ’90-95%’ success claim vis-à-vis Chandrayaan 2 had precisely three kinds of response, split 49%, 49% and 2%. One 49% group went like this: The other 49% went like this: The remainder, which constituted meaningful engagement, was virtually residual. To add to this,

B0 meson

A journey through Twitter and time, with the laws of physics

Say you’re in a dark room and there’s a flash. The light travels outward in all directions from the source, and the illumination seems to expand in a sphere. This is a visualisation of how the information contained in light becomes distributed through space. But even

curiosity gap

The technically correct strapline

(Re)Stumbled upon this article, by Ed Yong in The Atlantic, July 2016, this morning. As usual, it is rivetingly packaged. The strapline in particular caught my eye: Biology textbooks tell us that lichens are alliances between two organisms—a fungus and an alga. They are wrong. Makes you go

Facebook

How science is presented and consumed on Facebook

This post is a breakdown of the Pew study titled The Science People See on Social Media, published March 21, 2018. Without further ado… In an effort to better understand the science information that social media users encounter on these platforms, Pew Research Center systematically analyzed six months’ worth of

anti-intellectualism

Friends no more

Growing up, watching Friends was a source of much amusement and happiness. Now, as a grownup, I can’t watch a single episode without deeply resenting how the show caricatures all science as avoidable and all scientists as boring. The way Monica, Rachael, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey respond to

140 characters

The blog and the social media

Because The Wire had signed up to be some kind of A-listed publisher with Facebook, The Wire‘s staff was required to create Facebook Pages under each writer/editor’s name. So I created the ‘Vasudevan Mukunth’ page. Then, about 10 days ago, Facebook began to

algorithms

Ethics in the metadata

On April 30, I published an article discussing lapses in the media coverage of Eman Ahmed’s stint in India. Ahmed is an Egyptian woman who, until a day or so ago, had been undergoing treatment in Saifee Hospital, Mumbai, after a very rare genetic disorder had caused her

Fountain Ink

Do your bit, broaden your science menu

If you think a story was not covered by the media, it’s quite likely that that story didn’t feature in your limited news menu, and that it was actually covered by an outlet you haven’t discovered yet. In the same vein, saying the entirety

CNN-IBN

How infographics can lose the plot

By this point it should’ve become apparent to most people who engage with infographics on a semi-regular basis that there are some rules about what they should or shouldn’t look like, and that your canvas isn’t actually infinite in terms of what you can

2016

The metaphorical transparency of responsible media

Featured image credit: dryfish/Flickr, CC BY 2.0. I’d written a two-part essay (although they were both quite short; reproduced in full below) on The Wire about what science was like in 2016 and what we can look forward to in 2017. The first part was about

climate change

Twitter isn't impressed with what we're doing about climate change

The Wire May 26, 2015 English is a happy language. At least the 10,000 most used English words are positively biased, according to a 2012 study conducted by mathematicians from the University of Vermont. To reach their conclusion, they used a tool they’d built called the hedonometer – an

climate change

Twitter isn't impressed with what we're doing about climate change

The Wire May 26, 2015 English is a happy language. At least the 10,000 most used English words are positively biased, according to a 2012 study conducted by mathematicians from the University of Vermont. To reach their conclusion, they used a tool they’d built called the hedonometer – an

Facebook

Hey, is anybody watching Facebook?

The Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013 kicked off a flurry of social media activity that was equal parts well-meaning and counterproductive. Users on Facebook and Twitter shared reports, updates and photos of victims, spending little time on verifying them before sharing them with thousands of people. Others on forums

App.net

Yes, I had $50.

Last week, I paid $50 to sign up for entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell‘s new start-up App.net. I wouldn’t have found the service by myself until it’d have been too late for me to get on their bandwagon early – and getting early on a