Category Archives: Culture
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Ayurveda, Bournvita, Department of Consumer Affairs, FMCG, FSSAI, news literacy, surrogate advertising
Comments Off on What about the celebrities in food ads?
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Ayurveda, Bournvita, Department of Consume Affairs, FMCG, FSSAI, news literacy, surrogate advertising
Comments Off on What about the celebrities in food ads?
The gap between language and quantum mechanics
Physics World has a fantastic article about the problem with using a language invented, in Terry Pratchett’s words, “to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is”, to describe the peculiar but very much real possibilities created by the rules … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Embassytown, faith, Higgs boson, language, quantum computing, quantum entanglement, Quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, Werner Heisenberg
Comments Off on The gap between language and quantum mechanics
Lord of the Rings Day
Happy Lord of the Rings Day. 🙂 About a week ago, I began rereading book 7 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. This followed my realisation earlier this year that I had somehow lost the ability to read … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Life notes
Tagged books, epic fantasy, fiction, high fantasy, JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings day, M John Harrison, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Reaper's Gale, Steven Erikson
Comments Off on Lord of the Rings Day
India’s devious reason to not spend more on culture
‘Difficult to allocate public fund to art and culture: Centre’, The Hindu, March 19, 2023: Given the high disparity it experiences in elementary rural infrastructure like health, education and transportation, it might not be “tenable” for a developing nation like … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Archaeological Survey of India, doublespeak, Ministry of Culture, Monument Mitra, privatisation, rural infrastructure, Union Budget
Comments Off on India’s devious reason to not spend more on culture
Some science prizes are only for men
Say Someone has won the Nobel Prize for physics, perhaps the most prestigious honour (as awards go) for a physicist. What would it mean for all the future awards given to this Someone? One thing that a Nobel Prize does, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged bad faith, Bias Watch, MS Valiathan, National Science Day, Nobel Prize, S Natarajan, Samir K Maji, SASTRA Deemed University, T Pradeep, women in STEM
Comments Off on Some science prizes are only for men
The curious case of the blue coloured ice cream
From an unusual ice cream colour to quantum mechanics to ecology to semiconductors to gastroporn. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, anthocyanins, blue LED, blue screen, blue spirulina, C-phycocyanin, Charles Spence, electroluminescence, experimental psychology, FT Marinetti, gallium nitride, gastroporn, iridescence, Maria Jose San Roman, Morpho butterflies, Planck's equation, pterobilin, Rayleigh scattering, structural coloration
Comments Off on The curious case of the blue coloured ice cream
A masculine build-up to the Ind-Pak cricket match
It’s just good business. Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Aksai Chin, frontiersmanship, hegemonic masculinity, ICC, India-Pakistan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jay Shah, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, T20 World Cup
Comments Off on A masculine build-up to the Ind-Pak cricket match