“Homosexual carnal intercourse between two consenting adults” is legal in India now. It wasn’t for lack of reason or scientific data that the item of legislation that rendered sodomy illegal – Section…
What happened An artificially intelligent (AI) gaming system built by a company co-led by Elon Musk took on some of the best human players at a game more complex than chess or Go last week – and lost…
When thoughts turn stale, read a book. I'm reading two at the moment, which is telling. Patriots and Partisans by historian Ram Guha, an accessible narration of the historical roots of modern Ind…
According to Biplab Deb, the chief minister of Tripura, the oxygen content of water will increase if ducks swim in it. [ Satire begins here ] This is a sensational new discovery that has drastic imp…
Do all editors share that excoriating sensation that carves through one’s gut when one sees one’s writer writing for another publication? Of course, “one’s writer” is unjust phrasing because writers…
There's only one absolute zero but there are multiple absolute 'hots', depending on the temperature at which various theories of physics break down. This is an interesting conception becau…
I asked a friend earlier today if he would be interested in explaining the observation of Lyman-alpha lines in anti-hydrogen to an audience of high-schoolers.But will high-schoolers ever be able to un…
Donald Trump When you criticise a person, you naturally take into account their office and assess whether you know all that you need to to come to your conclusions. For a long time, this 'stop a…
Chennai is my favourite city to land in an airplane over. The runway at its Meenambakkam Airport is oriented such that planes often have to land after manoeuvring themselves over the Bay of Bengal, a…
The ISRO homepage has been hijacked by an almost-full-page banner soliciting readers' comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech. A friend was understandably irked b…
We are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man…
TL;DR – Journalists are already more accountable than the publishers of scientific journals are. If scientists find journalistic review of the scientific literature to be lacking, help them improve in…