Monthly Archives: October 2021
The great Nobel Prize hypocrisy
Katie Langin’s report for Science on October 12 is an eye-opening account of one reason why the committees that pick every year’s Nobel Prize winners almost never pick women: because they aren’t nominated. Given the Nobel Foundation’s frustrating policy of … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged affirmative action, Anthony Fauci, Göran Hansson, Nobel Prize nominations, Nobel Prizes
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Are major science prizes a form of philanthropy?
The Association for the Advancement of AI conferred its ‘Squirrel AI Award’ on Cynthia Rudin, and Duke University – her employer – published a press release celebrating it. Here’s one para from the release: “Only world-renowned recognitions, such as the … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged AAAI, Bill Gates, Infosys Prizes, Nobel Prizes, philanthropy, scientific prizes, scientific renown, Squirrel AI Award
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‘Real science’
From ‘The most influential climate science paper of all time’, The Conversation, October 8, 2021 (emphasis added): Manabe, working with various colleagues, went on to write many more seminal climate modelling papers. He set the foundation for today’s global climate … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged 2021 Nobel Prizes, climate science, Elon Musk, objectivity, Syukuro Manabe
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Political merch from a newsroom
Shekhar Gupta, the editor of The Print, shared the following image on his Instagram profile a couple days ago: The post had the following note: Since we so love politics at ThePrint, we are developing a range of gifting merchandise. … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged autocracy, Hindutva, journalism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Print, view from nowhere
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India and the 2021 medicine Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for 2021 has been awarded to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for discovering the receptors in the human body responsible for our ability to feel heat and cold. Science Central to the discovery … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged 2021 Nobel Prizes, Naga chilli, Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology, pepper spray, Scoville heat units, TRPV1
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ISRO’s national interest bullshit
For data and other objects, like images and videos, it places in the public domain, the Indian government attaches the GODL license – short for ‘government open data license’. The terms of this license are fairly straightforward: that … all … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Chandrayaan 2, Chandrayaan 3, Government Open Data License, Indian Space Research Organisation, K Sivan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
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The Nobel Prize, its men and climate change
The sciences part of this year’s Nobel Prize announcements have concluded. These are the new laureates: Physics – Syukuro Manabe 🇯🇵 🇺🇸, Klaus Hasselmann 🇩🇪 and Giorgio Parisi 🇮🇹 Chemistry – Benjamin List 🇩🇪 and David W.C. MacMillan 🇬🇧 Medicine/physiology … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Benjamin List, climate change, David WC MacMillan, fertility discrimination, gender stratification, Nobel Prizes
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