On that anti-mRNA vaccines video
The Times of India has published an irresponsible article today on a video by a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claiming with dubious evidence that all mRNA vaccines are h…
Books – 2022
Even as I whined about losing my reading habit, I managed to read a surprising (to me) number of books through 2022. One reason I think I didn't notice is because very few of them started out bein…
Should journos pay scientists for their expertise?
I recently came across a question posed on Twitter, asking if experts whom journalists consult to write articles should be compensated for their labour, especially since, in the tweeter's words, &…
Notes on covering QM
1. I learnt last year that quantum systems are essentially linear because the mathematics that physicists have found can describe quantum-mechanical phenomena contain only linear terms. Effects add t…
Whose fault is a retraction?
A journal called Advances in Materials Science and Engineering retracted a paper it published and issued the following notice, excerpted from Retraction Watch, December 22, 2022: Advances in Material…
Something more foolish than completing phase 3 trials in 1.5 months?
That the Union government and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had entered into a more intimate, but not necessarily more beneficial, relationship became evident in 2019 when then ISRO ch…
2022 in retrospect
2022 has been my worst on the record on several fronts. I had COVID-19 in the first month, which did a freaky number on my heart. My unexplained weight loss from 2021 continued its run into six months…
The identity of scientific papers
This prompt arose in response to Stuart Ritchie's response to a suggestion in an editorial "first published last year but currently getting some attention on Twitter" – that scientists s…
Links (2)
* ‘It was a set-up, we were fooled’: the coal mine that ate an Indian village * Stanford hates fun * Concrete Built The Modern World. Now It’s Destroying It. * I Don’t Want to Be an Internet Perso…
New LHC data puts 'new physics' lead to bed
One particle in the big zoo of subatomic particles is the B meson. It has a very short lifetime once it's created. In rare instances it decays to three lighter particles: a kaon, a lepton and an a…
Notes on the NIF nuclear fusion breakthrough
My explainer/analysis of the US nuclear fusion breakthrough was published today. Some stuff didn't make it to the final draft for space and tone constraints; I'm publishing that below. 1. Whi…
Skyward light, wayward light
This is welcome news: … even if it's curious that three of the four officially stated reasons for designating this 'dark sky reserve' aren't directly related to the telescopes, and…