About vaccines for children and Covaxin…
I don't understand his penchant for late-night announcements, much less one at 10 pm on Christmas night, but Prime Minister Narendra has just said the government will roll out vaccines for young a…
The way we talk about computing power
Whenever I hear someone rhapsodize about how much more computer power we have now compared with what was available in the 1960s during the Apollo era, I cringe. Those comparisons usually grossly under…
Charles Lieber case: A high-energy probe of science
There's a phenomenon in high-energy particle physics that I've found instructive as a metaphor to explain some things whose inner character may not be apparent to us but whose true nature is e…
Make war for the environment
Last week, India voted against a resolution in the UN Security Council to allow the council’s core members to deliberate on climate issues because, in the resolution’s view, they impinge on national s…
Some thoughts on Robert Downey, Jr.'s science funding idea
On December 12, Iron Man, a.k.a. Robert Downey, Jr., and David Lang coauthored an op-ed in Fast Company that announced a grant-giving initiative of theirs designed to help fund scientists doing work t…
Disappointing persons of the year 2021
I’m starting to think that in this day and age, you will but err when you pick individuals for traditionally ‘prestigious’ awards, prizes, recognitions, etc., probably because the sort of people who c…
The foolishness of a carbon-negative blockchain
With the experience of ‘fortress conservation’, poor implementation of the Forest Rights Act and the CAMPA philosophy in India, it’s hard not to think that the idea of carbon offsets is stupid. This m…
On The Caravan's new profile of The Hindu
On December 1, The Caravan published a 50-page report entitled ‘Paper Priests: The battle for the soul of The Hindu’. The report – actually, as a friend put it, a big profile – has many good parts and…
The omicron variant and scicomm
Somewhere between the middle of India’s second major COVID-19 outbreak in March-May this year and today, a lot of us appear to have lost sight of a fact that was central to our understanding of COVID-…
The vaccine that was built from scratch
I have no plans to read ICMR chief Balram Bhargava’s new book, Going Viral, about the “inside story” of Covaxin’s making, and am grateful for that reason for Dr Jammi Nagaraj Rao’s quick but seemingly…
Specific impulse, etc.
One of the best rocket propellants there is is hydrolox – a combination of liquid hydrogen, the fuel, and liquid oxygen, the oxidiser. This might seem a bit unexpected because most (if not all) other…
Is mathematics real?
I didn't think to think about the realism of mathematics until I got to high school, and encountered quantum mechanics. Mathematics was at first just another subject, before becoming a tool with…