A nice essay on rasam with an appropriate title: It's delicious no matter what you call it. The essay is by Vijaysree Venkatraman, whose nom de blog is Tilo.
Link via Gilli.
A nice essay on rasam with an appropriate title: It's delicious no matter what you call it. The essay is by Vijaysree Venkatraman, whose nom de blog is Tilo.
Link via Gilli.
A court in Aurangabad has issued a notice to Google asking why it's hosting an anti-India online community in its networking site Orkut.
Frankly, I think it's atrocious that such haters of India are allowed to express their hatred so openly. It's even worse that an entity is providing them safe haven. Our courts, which are already in a complete mess, will take ages to put the fear of our justice system in the culprits. Also, you can't trust the judges; in spite of their initial bluster, they may turn around and say India-haters are protected by our Constitution. There is only one viable, morally defensible course of action, and our government should pursue it vigorously and unflinchingly until the world is rid of this threat to freedom and liberty.
We should invade Google.
The 1986 Physics Prize recognized some of the key achievements that played -- and continue to play -- a pivotal role in materials science. One half of the Prize went to Ernst Ruska for his "fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope", and the other half was shared by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer for their "design of the scanning tunnelling microscope".
The Nobel Foundation's website has a nice page on TEM; curiously, its photo gallery of TEM images are only from biological specimens! This page and this Wikipedia entry are also quite informative.
Nobel Foundation also has a page on STM; the Wikipedia entry is here. An image gallery is hosted by IBM's Almaden Research Center.
The electron microscope -- specifically, the transmission electron microscope, or the TEM -- opened up the innards of materials, and allowed scientists to get a clear view of phenomena and processes at extremely small scales -- down to one nanometer. We can tweak modern microscopes to reveal secrets even at the atomic scale (down to 0.2 nanometer) (however, since electrons have to pass through -- hence the qualifier 'transmission' -- a layer of material, these 'atomic' level secrets are somewhat blurred).
On the other hand, the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM), is a surface probe that tells us about the structure -- arrangement of atoms and molecules -- at the surface. As Gerber and Lang note in this article (in the first issue of Nature Nanotechnoloty), the invention of STM is one of the "crucial events in the history of nanoscience and nanotechnology".
Research at the nanoscale is expensive primarily because of gadgets such as the electron microscope, STM and its cousins such as the Atomic Force Microscope. As Prof. C.N.R. Rao said in his plenary lecture at Nano-2006, 'doing' chemistry at the nanoscale -- synthesizing nano-sized compounds by exploiting interesting chemical principles -- is actually quite easy and inexpensive. With strong chemical insight and intuition, all one needs is basic infrastructure that can be found in a high school or a junior college! It is only the associated machinery required for probing the structure, chemistry, properties, etc, which makes nanoscience an expensive enterprise.
To get back to the topic of this post, I have to confess that the 1986 Physics Prize is my favourite simply because the achievements it celebrates are things that are useful for us materials scientists and engineers; more importantly, these are achievements I understand and relate to, and I can't say this about any of the other science Nobels from any era!
However, here is one more factoid which I'm sure you would find interesting: this Prize recognized research from two very different times: the electron microscopy work dates back to the 1930s, while the STM work is from the early 1980s. Thus, in terms of the time gap -- ΔT -- between the actual work and the Prize, then the 1986 Nobel in physics is unique in that it has both the longest and the shortest ΔT!
Let me end this post with a quote from Gerber and Lang's short history of STM and its cousins in Nature Nanotechnology (which actually triggered this post):
The initial results [on the design of STM] were written up in a manuscript entitled "Tunnelling through a controllable vacuum gap", which was submitted to a leading physics journal in June 1981. However, the paper was declined by the editors based on the following referee reports: one referee said that the exponential dependence of the tunnelling current on distance was well accepted, so the experiment would not give any new insight; the other report described the work as "extraordinary" and a "technical jewel", but this referee said that whether such technological work should be published in this particular physics journal was an editorial decision. Eventually the results were published in another leading journal, Applied Physics Letters, in January 1982.
Talking about food, let me give this quote, dished out by the Quote of the Day on Google personalized home page:
I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something.
-- Mitch Hedberg
Here's the NYTimes story:
What if the candy maker Mars could come up with an additive to the coating of its M&M’s and Skittles that would keep them fresher longer and inhibit melting? Or if scientists at Unilever could shrink the fat particles (and thereby the calories) in premium ice cream without sacrificing its taste and feel?
These ideas are still laboratory dreams. The common thread in these research projects and in product development at many other food companies is nanotechnology ...
These opening lines are just a hook to draw you in; the rest of this interesting and informative story discusses quite a few different things, including benefits and potential dangers of getting nano into our foods.
Via Marginal Revolution, we get the link to this great post with tons of delicious insults. Here are a few about other people's death:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
Jack E. Leonard
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a speech yesterday at the Platinum Jubilee (75th anniversary) of the National Academy of Sciences (one of India's three -- three! -- science academies).
The Hindu reports [Thanks to Vishnu for helping me fix the broken link]:
"How can we achieve our development goal if we do not perform well in the field of basic sciences," Dr. Singh asked, pointing at the standard of research in the universities and even in the IITs.
What worried the Prime Minister more was the "divorce" between research and teaching, which was hampering the growth of the spirit of inquisitiveness and enquiry among students. The universities were unable to mobilise adequate financial and intellectual resources to support creative research and development efforts unlike in the past when they were at the centre of advanced research and attracted great talent.
Some quick data from this ToI report:
He then went on to outline the UPA government's plans to increase the allocation on science and technology from less than 1% of the GDP to 2% in the next five years. The 10th five-year plan has allotted Rs 25,243 crore to promoting research in institutions under scientific departments.
National investment in R&D hovers around 0.6-0.7% of GDP. Singh's statement would mean a quantum jump in funds available to academic institutions: two per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) would translate into a figure in the region of Rs 64,000 crore.
We missed the semiconductor revolution in the early 1950s. We had just gained independence. But with nanoscience and technology, we can certainly be on an equal footing with the rest of the world. ...
We have set up ten units of nanoscience and seven centres of nanotechnology. We have teams working in the area at the IITs, the IISc and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), among others.
From Prof. C.N.R. Rao's op-ed in the Hindustan Times. It's not exactly the best of articles on India's science policy, but I'm linking to it here because it gives us some idea about Prof. Rao's thinking. He is the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Scientific Advisory Council.
It was a year ago that the IIPM vs. bloggers story broke. In subsequent weeks, it led to a massive wave of protests primarily -- but not exclusively -- in the desi blogosphere. It also led to an analysis (neutral word for debunking!) of IIPM's claims.
But first, do take a few moments to go back and read the original posts by Rashmi Bansal and Gaurav Sabnis, the two principals who bore the brunt of IIPM's threats, lawsuits, and unethical (and probably illegal) actions such as threatening Gaurav's employers of dire consequences if he didn't remove the offending posts from his blog.
The immediate aftermath -- which saw a large number of bloggers taking a hard line against IIPM -- created a lot of negative publicity for the institution. This also forced the hands of several MSM outlets (the Business World and Outlook, in particular) to shine a bright, harsh and uncomfortable spotlight on IIPM. The regulatory authorities such as AICTE breathed down the institution's neck for sometime.
Yet, one year is a long time! IIPM is back in action, with all its original claims in garish ads. The regulators have backed off. MSM outlets have made peace with IIPM's advertising rupees. Heck, one of them -- a crappy 'business' magazine from the India Today stable -- even chose to feature them in their B-school ranking!
IIPM is still around, and is upto its usual tricks. That is the bad news.
What about the good news? I see quite a few different strands of it, actually. The first, of course, is that the original threats to Rashmi and Gaurav have vanished, and they have got on with their lives.
Next, during its battle against IIPM, the desi blogosphere did a thorough analysis of all the publicly available information, and revealed to the whole world how silly and hollow IIPM's claims were. I'm sure all that IIPM-fisking has deterred -- and continues to deter -- more than a few good students who might otherwise have chosen to study there. And desi bloggers can certainly feel happy about this outcome.
The threat from IIPM united -- probably for the first time -- the desi blogosphere, a diverse group with divergent views on almost everything. Also, it led to the emergence of a new set of blogger-leaders -- I have in mind people like Kaps and Patrix, who used their sites (in particular, DesiPundit) to facilitate collective action, instilling in us a sense of community -- a community with a purpose.
Finally, the IIPM fracas also proved to be a good training ground for the united front of bloggers; when the next big threat to bloggers' freedom of speech arrived, we were ready!
It's real research. It's all published in real papers. The awards, too, are real.
Somehow, it all seems surreal ...
* * *
I'm just glad to have blogged about at least one of the IgNobel-winning research efforts. Here, and here.
Simon Caulkin in the Guardian:
The wrong thing that the entire management industry has spent the past 40 years trying to put right is mass production command and control. 'We are committed,' as [the distinguished systems theorist Russ] Ackoff also notes, 'to a market economy at the national [macro] level, and to a non-market, centrally planned, hierarchically managed [micro] economy within most corporations.'
We know that central planning doesn't - can't - work. But, my goodness, that doesn't stop people trying. The result is an increasingly vicious circle in which each effort to control the uncontrollable simply destabilises the system further, provoking yet more frantic efforts to get things back in hand. So the end of management becomes control rather than creation of resources. ...
In the private sector the ratchet is reflected in the ever greater sacrifice that seems to demanded for every new unit of 'progress' - tighter performance management, less job security, not even a pension in retirement. In the public sector, look no further than the NHS, spending terrifying amounts on reorganisation after reorganisation with no attendant increase in productivity, and managers everywhere so busy chasing targets that they have no time to do the work that matters to patients.
This year's Chemistry Nobel goes to Roger Kornberg of Stanford. His father won the medicine/physiology Nobel in 1959.
The Nobel Prize site has a separate section devoted to some interesting trivia facts. For example, the Kornbergs are only one of six father-son duo to have won the Nobel. On the other hand, Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie continue to be the only mother-daughter duo with a Nobel each.
The Discover magazine also has a story on some curious Nobel facts.
Female physicists have continued to confront deep-seated prejudices. Emmy Noether, who discovered that all physical conservation laws were associated with mathematical symmetries, was a contemporary to Einstein and helped work out some of the math of general relativity. She did so without a formal academic position and mostly without pay.
Lise Meitner, who developed the theory of nuclear fission, was not included when the Nobel Prize was given for this work in 1944. The Harvard University physics department did not give tenure to a woman until 1992.
This week, the Swedish Academy announces the Nobel Prizes in science. It will be remarkable if any women are on the list. Marie Curie won a Nobel in physics in 1903; the only woman to follow her was Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963, when she shared the award for her theory about the structure of atomic nuclei. In mathematics women have fared even worse. The Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel, has never gone to a woman.
From Margaret Wertheim's article which appeared in the NYTimes today, just a few hours before the announcement from the Physics Nobel Committee.
Update: Here's the Nobel announcement: this year's Physics Prize is shared by John C. Mather and George F. Smoot.
Today, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, is being celebrated with a National holiday in India. In my ideal world, the Nobel Committees would use this day -- not just this year, but every year -- to announce the Peace Prize.
In the event, this day has been used for announcing this year's Nobel in Physiology and Medicine: Andrew Z. Fire of Stanford and Craig C. Mello of UMass Medical School.
While searching for more information, I came across a story with the title The secret talks of the Nobel Committees. It starts with a bang:
This was how the talk went with Nobels medicine committee:
"If we pick telomerase we'll meet the woman quota straight off. We'll have two female winners in one go: Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider."
"Yes, telomerase is fun, it's that enzyme that allows the chromosomes to maintain their length. In the future it might stop cancer and slow down the ageing process altogether, but isnt it a bit early?"
No, strike off the word "poets" in the title, and replace it with "crossword enthusiasts". In Lali's post describing the Resident Mathematician's tutorial on recursions and factorials (link via Neha) we find this:
"A function can be thought of as a sort of mathematical vending machine. If you put in a certain kind of number the function will return to you a number. Not all forms of coins are accepted by every vending machine, you see?" The Resident Mathematician said.
Vivek, our man in Moscow, has a great post about the city's Metro:
The Moscow Metro is one of the oldest and one of the busiest Metro systems in the world. The first station came up way back in 1930s. The metro stations in Moscow are not ordinary either, as many of them would give some museums a run for their money. For some amazing photos of the Moscow Metro, take a look here. In a way, the Metro is a tourist destination in itself.
If, on the other hand, you were wondering "Where in frozen Siberia did Russians learn how to swing a racket?", you might want to read the musings of Sherge Shmemann, who used to be their man in Russia.
There’s a time-honored tradition in the West to approach Russia as a riddle, devising elaborate explanations for admittedly befuddling ways. I know: I was a foreign correspondent in Moscow for 10 years, expounding on the effects of endless winter, endless expanse, the collision of East and West, long subjugation by Mongol hordes. I’ve always had a soft spot for the swaddling theory, wherein the practice of binding babies like mummies between feedings formed a nation given to lurching between passivity and anarchy.
So there is a certain temptation to seek a profound explanation for the rise of Russian tennis. ...