Plotting transmission losses
Transmission loss in GWh in India. Data from Central Electricity Authority. Click on the image for hi-res version. All data available here. Transmission loss as % of net generation in GWh. Net genera…
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NASA announces Mars 2020 rover payload
On July 31, NASA announced the roster of instruments that would hitch a ride on board its planned rover to the red planet in 2020. John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Sc…
New category: Exoplanets
Of late, telescopes like Kepler, Spitzer and ALMA are revealing new things about exoplanets as much as they’re exposing how clueless we are about their origins. Unlike in the search for life, where ou…
Why do tilted/eccentric orbits form?
For all its mysteries, the Solar System is uniquely ideal in many ways. For one, while it has rocky inner planets and giant, gassy outer ones, astronomers have found that elsewhere, massive exoplanets…
Curious Bends – commoner panthers, space diplomacy, big data sells big cars and more
Curious Bends is a weekly newsletter about science, tech., data and India. Akshat Rathi and I curate it. You can subscribe to it here. If have feedback, suggestions, or would just generally like to ge…
Accurate measurement of exoplanet radius
Image: Imaginative illustration of Kepler 93b's diameter being measured. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Using both the Kepler and the Spitzer space telescopes, scientists from NASA have made the most p…
Hearing test, radiation-resistant cells, sign language and more
Curious Bends is a weekly newsletter about science, tech., data and India. Akshat Rathi and I curate it. You can subscribe to it here. If have feedback, suggestions, or would just generally like to ge…
Science Quiz - July 28, 2014
Every week, I create a science quiz for The Hindu newspaper’s In School product. It consists of 10 questions and only developments from the week preceding its day of publication (Monday). The answers…
No country for new journalism
Through an oped in Nieman Lab, Ken Doctor makes a timely case for explanatory - or explainer - journalism being far from a passing fad. Across the many factors that he argues contribute to its rise and persistence in western markets, there is evidence that he believes explainer journalism's historic…
Dying in a finite universe
In his book Infinite In All Directions (2002), Freeman Dyson, one of the tallest intellectual giants of our times, attempts to rescue eschatology from the specious grip of religion and teleology with a mix of scientific reasoning and informed speculation. During this, when describing the big crunch,…
Kepler data reveals a frost giant
I've been most fascinated lately by studies of planet formation. Every small detail is like that one letter in the crossword you need to fill all the other boxes in, every discovery a cornerstone that holds together a unique piece of the universe. For example, using just the find that the exoplanet…
Finding quake shelters, breaking bad in Punjab, rice-wheat divide & more
Curious Bends is a weekly newsletter about science, tech., data and India. Akshat Rathi and I curate it. You can subscribe to it here.…