A fair trial
BBC News Africa undertook an excellent investigation to reveal that a group of men who killed four unarmed civilians – two women and two children – in 2015 belonged to the Cameroonian military. Fourte…
VM
1664 posts
On the New Yorker's 'EDS doctor' story
3 min read
A fascinating tale in the New Yorker: Michael Holick, a medical researcher and doctor at the Boston University, Massachusetts, has been finding that many American families that have had their babies t…
A culture of communication
4 min read
Srinavasa Chakravarthy, presumably a mathematician going by a reference in his post, penned an open letter for TH Read about how Indian scientists … rarely follow the scientific work of [our] Indian…
NatGeo clickbait
3 min read
A National Geographic article published on November 6 carried a surprising headline: Earth has two extra, hidden ‘moons’ The lede followed through: Earth’s moon may not be alone. After more than ha…
Twitter ≠ reality
1 min read
Behold: Vijaya Gadde is the "Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter". Her replies are to Indian right-wingers on Twitter demanding to know why Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey saw fit to…
Dead animal pics
1 min read
I think the media needs to adopt a rule about not displaying raw footage of dead animals, especially if they’re in a poor state. It’s gross, undignified and triggering – but most of all, it’s used to…
The story of dust
9 min read
What is dust? It feels ridiculous just asking that question sitting in India. Dust is everywhere. On the roads, in your nose, in your lungs. You lock up your house, go on a month-long holiday and com…
Let the arrogators write
3 min read
Bora Zivkovic, the former 'blogfather' of the Scientific American blogs network, said it best: journalists are temporary experts. Reporters have typically got a few days to write something up…
INO can keep env. ministry clearance
2 min read
The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), a mega science project stranded in the regulatory boondocks since the Centre okayed it in 2012, received a small shot in the arm earlier this week. On Nove…
Doubts cast on LIGO results… again
5 min read
A group of Danish physicists that doubted last year whether two American experiments to detect gravitational waves had actually confused noise for signal has reared its head once more. New Scientist r…
Expertise's place
3 min read
Over 1,600 scientists have signed a letter of protest addressed to the White House against its proposed definition of 'gender' that purportedly disidentifies transgender and intersex people. A…
New anomaly at the LHC
3 min read
Has new ghost particle manifested at the Large Hadron Collider?, The Guardian, October 31: The prospect of such a mysterious particle has baffled physicists as much as it has excited them. At the mom…