Category Archives: Analysis
Does science have trouble seeing governments?
From ‘Energy megaproject in Chile threatens the world’s largest telescopes’, Science, January 10, 2025: The AES project would occupy several sites totaling 3000 hectares, and the plants making hydrogen and ammonia with renewable energy would be sited just 5 kilometers from … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Science
Tagged carbon credits, Cerro Armazones, Cerro Paranal, Chile, clean energy, European Southern Observatory, Extremely Large Telescope, Mauna Kea, Science journal, SpaceX Starlink, Thirty Meter Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Comments Off on Does science have trouble seeing governments?
Does science have trouble seeing governments?
From ‘Energy megaproject in Chile threatens the world’s largest telescopes’, Science, January 10, 2025: The AES project would occupy several sites totaling 3000 hectares, and the plants making hydrogen and ammonia with renewable energy would be sited just 5 kilometers from … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Science
Tagged carbon credits, carbon trading, Cerro Armazones, Cerro Paranal, Chile, climate change, European Southern Observatory, Extremely Large Telescope, green hydrogen, renewable energy, Science journal, SpaceX Starlink, Thirty Metre Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Comments Off on Does science have trouble seeing governments?
The news exists to inform, not to educate
I’d like to highlight a letter published in Science on January 2. I have many points of disagreement with it but I’d also like others to read and reflect on it, especially if they’re (you’re) also going to disagree with my reading. … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged Carl Sagan, COVID-19 pandemic, education, science communication, science education, science journalism
Comments Off on The news exists to inform, not to educate
The news exists to inform, not to educate
I’d like to highlight a letter published in Science on January 2. I have many points of disagreement with it but I’d also like others to read and reflect on it, especially if they’re (you’re) also going to disagree with my reading. … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Uncategorized
Tagged Carl Sagan, COVID-19 pandemic, science communication, science education, science journalism
Comments Off on The news exists to inform, not to educate
The fever dream of ‘technological sovereignty’
I recently came across an initiative called “Industrial47”. Someone had shared a link to it on a group I’m part of, and when its card loaded, the image was of a nuclear weapon going off. I found on LinkedIn that … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged air pollution, farm fires, Indian Space Research Organisation, industrial revolution, Industrial47, LinkedIn, Rahul Seth, sewer cleaning, Shankar Nair, smokeless chulha, social harm, Social welfare, solar cooker, The Hindu, Three Gorges dam, Yarlung Tsangpo dam
Comments Off on The fever dream of ‘technological sovereignty’
A tale of two awardees
In many respects Krishna Ella and Elon Musk are poles apart but on some they share a few similarities. Both of them have played along with nationalist elements in their respective national governments in order to further their agendas, if … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged Appa Rao Podile, Bharat Biotech, Covaxin, COVID-19 pandemic, Dorothy Bishop, Elon Musk, Indian National Science Academy, Krishna Ella, Millennium Plaque of Honour, Royal Society
Comments Off on A tale of two awardees
Rescuing superconductivity
From a paper in Nature Reviews Physics, December 19, 2024: One of the forefront fields of modern superconductivity research is that on hydrides at high pressures. Over the past few years, this research has attracted considerable publicity, of which a … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Ashkan Salamat, BCS theory, carbonaceous sulphur hydride, lutetium hydride, Nature journal, Nature Reviews Physics, peer review, Physical Review Letters, Ranga Dias, room-temperature superconductivity
Comments Off on Rescuing superconductivity
What is ONOS’s (real) problem?
The Indian government set the country’s research community aflutter when it announced the launch of a long-awaited plan to improve research access without announcing many of its salient details as well. On November 25, the Ministry of Education published a … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Op-eds, Science
Tagged article processing charges, Department of Science & Technology, gold open access, green open access, One Nation One Subscription, prestige journals, Principle Scientific Advisor, publish or perish, scholarly publishing, subscription-based journals
Comments Off on What is ONOS’s (real) problem?
Solve all our problems
This is xkcd #1232. When it came out I remember it was to rebut a particular line of argument against NASA’s lunar and interplanetary missions — that the agency was spending large sums of money that would be better spent … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Elon Musk, Gaganyaan, game theory, human spaceflight, Indian Space Research Organisation, interplanetary spaceflight, NASA, SpaceX, sustainability, xkcd
Comments Off on Solve all our problems
Correlation isn’t causation — the EVM edition
The space to disagree with the Election Commission’s position vis-à-vis the integrity of electronic voting machines without finding oneself backtracking into the Congress or the BJP camps is shrinking, and both national parties as well as the Supreme Court have … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, Election Commission of India, electronic voting machines, Indian National Congress, Maharashtra, paper ballots, software testing, Supreme Court of India, voter-verifiable paper audit trail, voting
Comments Off on Correlation isn’t causation — the EVM edition