Monthly Archives: October 2017
By the way: the Chekhov’s gun and the science article
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.” (source) This is the principle of the Chekhov’s gun: that all items within … Continue reading
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Tagged Chekhov's gun, coherence, redundancy, science communication, science writing, scientific research, trivia
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Before seeing, there are the ways of imaging
When May-Britt Moser, Edvard Moser and John O’Keefe were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain”, there was a noticeable uptick in the number of … Continue reading
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Tagged charge coupled device, CMOS, cryo-electron microscopy, detective quantum efficiency, direct electron detector, epitaxy, eukaryotic ribosomes, phtographic film, scintillator, skipper CCD
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Are the papers behind this year's Nobel Prizes in the public domain?
Note: One of my editors thought this post would work for The Wire as well, so it’s been republished there. “… for the greatest benefit of mankind” – these words are scrawled across a banner that adorns the Nobel Prize’s … Continue reading
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Tagged circadian rhythm, cryo-electron microscopy, journal paywall, LIGO, Nobel Prize, Open Access, scientific journals
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Are the papers behind this year’s Nobel Prizes in the public domain?
Note: One of my editors thought this post would work for The Wire as well, so it’s been republished there. “… for the greatest benefit of mankind” – these words are scrawled across a banner that adorns the Nobel Prize’s … Continue reading
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Tagged circadian rhythm, cryo-electron microscopy, journal paywall, LIGO, Nobel Prize, Open Access, scientific journals
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A close encounter with the first kind: the obnoxious thieves of good journalism
A Huffington Post article purportedly published by the US bureau has flicked two quotes from a story first published by The Wire, on the influenza epidemics ravaging India. The story’s original author and its editor (me) reached out to HuffPo … Continue reading
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Writing, journalism and the revolutionary spirit
One of my favourite essays of all time – insofar as that’s a legitimate category – is one called ‘How to do what you love’ by Paul Graham, the startup guru. In it, he makes a case for the usefulness … Continue reading
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Tagged irony, journalism, Mayank Tewari, Newton, passion, Paul Graham, self-consciousness, writing
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Why do we cover the Nobel Prize announcements?
The Nobel Prizes are too big to fail. Even if they’ve become beset by a host of problems, such as: Long gap between invention/discovery and recognition, A large cash component given to old scientists, Limiting number of awardees to three, … Continue reading
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Tagged Abel Prize, Lasker Award, media coverage, Nobel Committee, Nobel Prizes, science journalism, SS Bhatnagar Award, Wolf Prize, women in STEM
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