thescian
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October 2, 2006
It's a gritty movie that was surprisingly good and highly engaging. I and Ramya watched it a week ago. The movie is based on the novel by P D James (I haven't read the novel). The story is set in 2027 when the world of humans has gone infertile. No more babies. While the science behind this is not…
October 2, 2006
Habeas corpus is the name of a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined…
October 2, 2006
Have assembled at Salto sobrius. Go forth and partake at the Carnival of the Godless 50.
In other news, I bought the new Dawkins book, The God Delusion. It's a captivating book in the usual Dawkins' style. This time, he's out not to educate but to eradicate. Eradicate that delusion called religion…
September 30, 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen, the submission date for the Scifi Contest has ended and I am absolutely delighted with the response. We've received around thirty stories for the contest. About ten were received before Sep 15 and the rest in the past two weeks. I am thrilled by the enthusiasm and energy. By…
September 29, 2006
"Blogger. N. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do,", kindly ventures Guy Kawasaki. Shit. There's no middle ground for bloggers, is there? Bloggers either hold their gaze steadily to their navel or fanatically bludgeon their flailing egos. Anyho, go Heighten Your Sense…
September 29, 2006
Floss and you shall have a healthy heart. There's a whole load of fun stuff at The Register's Odd Body page.
September 28, 2006
A joke I heard over the beebs as I was driving today. I paraphrase.
An old lady was talking to a friend.
The Friend: "You seem quite happy and in good shape. What's the secret?"
Old Lady: "I have two packs of cigarette everyday. Drink a bottle of whiskey every week and gorge on fatty food all year…
September 28, 2006
"This will be a scientific horoscope which will be prepared on the basis of genes and chromosomes of the animals," said DK Singh, additional Director, BAU. Link
Scientific horoscopes?! IMHO, 'Additional' Director and his esteemed university should stop screwing the cows and get their heads out…
September 27, 2006
Kurinji is a flowering plant found in the southern parts of India. It blooms once every 12 years. You heard it. Every 12 years! And, what are we doing to it? Killing it. That's what. Take a look at this page that shows how the habitat has been destroyed. Save Kurinji Campaign website. [via…
September 27, 2006
At Richard Dawkins personal website.
September 26, 2006
An excellent essay on the current state of physics at The New Yorker by Jim Holt.It is the best of times in physics. Physicists are on the verge of obtaining the long-sought Theory of Everything. In a few elegant equations, perhaps concise enough to be emblazoned on a T-shirt, this theory will…
September 25, 2006
The God Delusion is the new book by Richard Dawkins. Readers of Dawkins would already know Dawkins position on religion. Beebs has an interview with Dawkins in it's Newsnight programme. You can watch the video online. Quite interesting. Prospect Magazine has a review which is worth a read if you…
September 25, 2006
Over at balancinglife, Sunil has a post on a bee which runs the official air-taxi service a certain beetle larvae. The elaborate mechanism by which the beetle larvae finds a place to feed is astounding. You can also listen to one of the authors of the paper talk about this at the recent Quirks…
September 22, 2006
A gravity well is a hole dug out in space for frogs to live in. No one knows who put the frogs in there. The well keeps the frogs inside and the frogs have been suspicious of Something Beyond for a while now. They've been trying hard to see the Outside. Unfortunately, even the most athletic ones…
September 22, 2006
An excellent article on the recent Fields Medal winner (the Nobel Prize for math) Terence Tao in Seed.
September 22, 2006
I haven't faced it. But if you have, this discussion at Pharyngula would fill you in. I use NoScript plugin for Firefox and usually swat all scripts without mercy.
September 20, 2006
Listen up. Do not reheat and eat that rice you saved in the refrigerator last year. It may harbor spores of Bacillus cereus bacteria (shown below) that is still clinging to life. The bacteria produces toxins that can unplug your bottom (it's called the state of diarreal exuberance).
A collegue of…
September 19, 2006
I finally got around to watching the video of Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers discussing deceit and deception. Wonderful to watch how two very sharp minds go about thinking through things. Here's the part that grabbed my attention. Robert Trivers at one point in the conversation:"..you have the…
September 18, 2006
A few more days before we close the Scifi Short Story Contest. Thanks to Ramya for the nifty countdown javascript. Now, you can visit the scifi page and feel the urgency.
September 18, 2006
Thanks to gaddeswarup who linked to Current Science, an academic science publication in India, I went over to read the current issue. Featured in it under "Astrology and science" is a letter from R V Karanth (of the Geological Society of India), who was commenting about an earlier article on…
September 18, 2006
Sunil writes about Crabs in Japan that are revered because they've been selected for samurai qualities. Well, not really for all the sword wielding and harakiri skills, rather just the looks. But hey, as long as it floats the crab's boat who are we to complain. (I know, terrible pun with that…
September 18, 2006
What's a good age to start a business of your own? 10, that's what sez Intrepid at Everyday Entrepreneurs, a blog that I would gladly recommend to all.
September 17, 2006
Ladies and gentlemen! The Flounder!
If you look closely, the flounder fish has a rather remarkable head. There's something amiss with the placement of its right eye and the way its mouth opens. Its as if it was a normal fish like, say the discus fish, that lived a normal life and one day some…
September 17, 2006
THE year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly…
September 15, 2006
Beebs on Claudia Mitchell, the second person to be fitted with the bionic arm. Cool video there. What is a bionic arm? From the RIC page:The "Bionic Arm," or myoelectric arm, is driven using electrical signals from the muscles of the chest, now activated by the user's own thought-generated nerve…
September 15, 2006
From the Royal Society Press Release. The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for the first time today (14th September 2006) for a two month period.
The…
September 14, 2006
Nature is a lazy bum that it will always choose the path of least action. If we roll a ball on the floor, for instance, the ball will move in a path that requires the least action (energy multiplied by time) to get from the start to the end point. While we all accept Newtonian laws as intuitive…
September 13, 2006
My reading list for the next few weeks.
The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin
I am reading this book at the moment. Smolin treats a subject that goes to the core of what constitutes scientific progress and how scientists go…
September 12, 2006
Razib at Gene Expression talks about a recent episode where women were to be banned from praying in a Mecca Shrine.a conversation that my aunt once had with my uncle, she joked offhand asking why men should always pray before women. My uncle, a religious man, explained that if women prayed before…
September 12, 2006
Contrary to my usual software updates posts where I post about updates to the blog software or to TheScian.com, this one is about the updates to the computers I use everyday. I use a PowerBook at home and a Dell Latitude with Windows XP at work. Due to a momentary lack of judgement on my part I…