The molecule that was also a wave
According to the principles of quantum mechanics, you're a wave – just like light is both a particle and a wave. It's just that your wavelength is so small that your wave nature doesn't ma…
VM
1664 posts
A why of how we wear what we wear
3 min read
There are many major industries operating around the world commonly perceived to be big drivers of climate change. Plastic, steel and concrete manufacturing come immediately to mind – but fashion does…
The gaudy-hued beast
2 min read
When you wake up in the morning to news of four people who allegedly raped a woman having been shot to death by the police, it's hard not to ask yourself what kind of country this is. It's eve…
A windier world
2 min read
A new paper in Nature Climate Change reports a reversal in "terrestrial stilling" since 2010 – i.e. global wind speeds, thought to be in decline thanks to deforestation and real estate devel…
The circumstances in which scientists are science journos
5 min read
On September 6, 2019, two researchers from Israel uploaded a preprint to the bioRxiv preprint server entitled 'Can scientists fill the science journalism void? Online public engagement with two sc…
The imperfection of strontium titanate
5 min read
When you squeeze some crystals, you distort their lattice of atoms just enough to separate a pair of charged particles and that in turn gives rise to a voltage. Such materials are called piezoelectric…
Starlink and astronomy
5 min read
Op-eds
Scicomm
Blue Origin
Cerro Tololo
Elon Musk
Facebook Athena
Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Communications Commission
geosynchronous orbit
International Astronomical Union
International Telecommunications Union
Iridium constellation
Jeff Bezos
low-cost internet
low-Earth orbit
OneWeb
satellite constellation
SpaceX
Starlink
Starlink mega-constellation
VLEO
SpaceX's Starlink constellation is currently a network of 120+ satellites and which, in the next decade, will expand to 10,000+ to provide low-cost internet from space around the world. Astronomer…
The press office
1 min read
A press-officer friend recently asked me for pointers on how he could help journalists cover the research institute he now works at better. My response follows: 1. Avoid the traditional press releas…
Two things
1 min read
First As a professional science journalist, I've accrued a long list of 'contacts' in India and abroad, so whenever I discuss my career prospects with friends, I'm often told that I&#…
Does Kangana have to look like J.J. to portray J.J.?
5 min read
The poster for a new biographical feature about former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa is out, featuring Kangana Ranaut: At first glance, it's not evident that the woman in the picture…
Accumulation then philanthropy
2 min read
Peter Woit's review of a new book about Jim Simons, the mathematician and capitalist who set up the Simons Foundation, which funds math and physics research around the world but principally in the…
To see faces where there are none
2 min read
This week in "neither university press offices nor prestigious journals know what they're doing": a professor emeritus at Ohio University who claimed he had evidence of life on Mars, and…