A spaceflight narrative unstuck
"First, a clarification: Unlike in Gravity, the 2013 film about two astronauts left adrift after space debris damages their shuttle, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are not stuck in space."…
Phogat and Khelif, and others
This tweet is spot-on… … and we’re seeing it play out somewhat in the aftermath of Vinesh Phogat being disqualified from the Paris Olympics for not staying within the stipulated weight limit for tw…
Did we see the conspiracies coming?
Tweets like this seem on point… … but I’ve started to wonder if we’re missing something in the course of expressing opinions about what we thought climate deniers would say and what they’re actuall…
Games and life
Running through the games on my phone and what I like about them…
Agalloch
Agalloch is a synonym of agarwood. In parallel, Aquilaria agallocha and Agalochum malaccense are synonyms of Aquilaria malaccensis, the accepted scientific name of a tree that produces much of the wor…
A cynical archaeology
From ‘ASI submits Bhojshala survey report to Madhya Pradesh High Court’, The Hindu, July 15, 2024: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on July 15 submitted its scientific survey report of the di…
India-based neutrino oblivion
In a conversation with science journalist Nandita Jayaraj, physicist and Nobel laureate Takaaki Kajita touched on the dismal anti-parallels between the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) and the J…
‘Animals use physics’
What came first: physics or the world? It’s obviously the world, whereas physics (as a branch of science) offered ways to acquire information about the world and organise it. To not understand somethi…
The problem with a new, rapid way to recycle textiles
Researchers from the University of Delaware have developed a chemical reaction that can break polyester in clothing down to a simpler compound that can be used to make more clothes. The reaction also…
Clocks on the cusp of a nuclear age
You need three things to build a clock: an energy source, a resonator, and a counter. In an analog wrist watch, for example, a small battery is the energy source that sends a small electric signal to…
Buildings affect winds
A 2022 trip to Dubai made me wonder how much research there was on the effects cities, especially those that are rapidly urbanising as well as are building taller, wider structures more closely packed…
You're allowed to be interested in particle physics
This page appeared in The Hindu’s e-paper today. I wrote the lead article, about why scientists are so interested in an elementary particle called the top quark. Long story short: the top quark is th…