Jayant Narlikar's pseudo-defence of Darwin
Jayant Narlikar, the noted astrophysicist and emeritus professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, recently wrote an op-ed in The Hindu titled 'Science should ha…
For space, frugality is a harmful aspiration
Ref: 'ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 mission to cost lesser than Hollywood movie Interstellar - here's how they make it cost-effective', staff, Moneycontrol, February 20, 2018. ∞ 'Chandray…
On that Poynter debate about stock images and ethical visual journalism
Response to Mark Johnson, Article about free images 'contradicts everything I hold true about journalism', Poynter, February 9, 2018. ∞ Let's get the caveats out of the way: * The artic…
Why Titan is awesome #11
Titaaaaan! Here we go again. 😄 As has been reported, NASA has been interested in sending a robotic submarine to Saturn's moon Titan to explore the hydrocarbon lakes near its north pole. Various…
ISRO v. SpaceX doesn't make sense
Though I've never met the guy, I don't hold Pallava Bagla in very high regard because his stories – particularly of the Indian space programme – for NDTV have often reeked of simplistic concer…
All the science in 'The Cloverfield Paradox'
I watched The Cloverfield Paradox last night, the horror film that Paramount pictures had dumped with Netflix and which was then released by Netflix on February 4. It's a dumb production: unlike H…
Veblen cars and useless concerns for the climate
Lexus has an ad on the jacket of today's The Hindu for its new premium hybrid electric vehicle, the LS 500h. The product description states that the car "extends relentless innovation to envi…
We don't have a problem with the West, we're just obsessed with it
How much do we not know about what Indian researchers are doing simply because Western scientists haven't written to some of them?…
Dealing with plagiarism? Look at thy neighbour
Four doctors affiliated with Kathmandu University (KU) in Nepal are going to be fired because they plagiarised data in two papers. The papers were retracted last year from the Bali Medical Journal, wh…
On cancers, false balance and the judiciary
Climate change has for long been my go-to example to illustrate how absolute objectivity can sometimes be detrimental to the reliability of a news report. Stating that A said "Climate change is r…
To watch 'The Post'
I read a few reviews of The Post. Based on what the critics are saying, it seems the film has at least the potential to raise the spirits of many journalists today who could use a leg up. That said, I…
Limitations of the Finkbeiner test
This post was republished on The Wire on January 8, 2018. The Finkbeiner test, named for science writer Ann Finkbeiner, was created to check whether a profile of a female scientist published by a mai…