Category Archives: Op-eds
Toppling Epstein’s intellectuals network
While there have been no other high-profile exits from the MIT Media Lab after Ethan Zuckerman and J. Nathan Matias submitted their resignations, the lab’s students had been demanding its director Joi Ito to resign over his ties with Epstein. … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Cesar Hidalgo, Elementary, Evgeny Morozov, Jeffrey Epstein, John Brockman, Joi Ito, Martin Nowak, Marvin Minsky, Max Brockman, Miami Herald, MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, Patrick McCray, Peter Aldhous, Robert Trivers, Ronan Farrow, Xeni Jardan
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To fail with grace
This article has been republished on The Wire. When the Vikram lander’s autonomous descent manoeuvre didn’t go as planned, scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) looked surprised and dejected at once in the mission control room in Bengaluru. … Continue reading
The PM’s Chandrayaan group-hug
I understand Dutt’s interpretation of the moment in question but with reservations about what it signals for the nation’s many oppressed. For starters, how many people actually gave a damn? A few hundred people – many of them mainstream journalists … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds
Tagged Chandrayaan, Chandrayaan 1, Chandrayaan 2, chandrayaan 2 landing, chandrayaan 2 landing live, chandrayaan 2 landing time, chandrayaan 2 live, chandrayaan 2 rover, chandrayaan 2 rover name, chandrayaan 2 update, Chandrayaan-2 news, chandrayan, chandrayan 2, chandrayan 2 landing, Dehradun, ISRO, isro chandrayaan 2 moon landing, isro live, isro moon landing, Kalpana Chawla, live chandrayaan 2, NASA, nasa full form, Shillong, Vikram lander
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Moon, mission and Modi
Should Prime Minister Narendra Modi not have been in the control room during the autonomous descent phase of Chandrayaan 2? Did his presence exert unnecessary pressure on the ISRO scientists? I don’t know if the pressure was unnecessary. Irrespective of … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds
Tagged Chandrayaan, Chandrayaan 1, Chandrayaan 2, chandrayaan 2 landing, chandrayaan 2 landing live, chandrayaan 2 landing time, chandrayaan 2 live, chandrayaan 2 rover, chandrayaan 2 rover name, chandrayaan 2 update, Chandrayaan-2 news, chandrayan, chandrayan 2, chandrayan 2 landing, Dehradun, ISRO, isro chandrayaan 2 moon landing, isro live, isro moon landing, Kalpana Chawla, live chandrayaan 2, NASA, nasa full form, Shillong, Vikram lander
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Anything but our Vedic heritage
The Union culture ministry had announced in November last year that it would develop a ‘Vedic Heritage’ portal to promote the Vedas, and hoped to inaugurate it by March 2019. It would seem the portal is finally online (with the … Continue reading
Of awards and women
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was founded in 2012 by Yuri Milner to recognise those individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists – theoretical, mathematical, experimental – working on the deepest … Continue reading
Would you take Epstein’s money to fund your research?
Note: Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019. The following post was written before news of his death emerged. In 2016, I attended a talk by a not-unknown environmental activist in Chennai (not Nityanand Jayaraman, before … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged BuzzFeed, Central Pollution Control Board, Crohn's disease, ethics, Jeffrey Epstein, melanoma, National green Tribunal, nationalism, research funding, Volkswagen
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Preference for OA research by income group
Two researchers from Rwanda performed a “systematic computational analysis of the biomedical literature” and concluded in their paper that: … papers with authors based in sub-Saharan Africa, papers with authors based in low income countries, and papers resulting from international collaboration are … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm
Tagged Amelica, article processing charge, arXiv, bronze OA, coalition S, GDP per capita, gold OA, green OA, hybrid OA, income groups, K VijayRaghavan, Latin America, Open Access, Plan S, PLoS ONE, Rwanda, Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank
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When deGrasse Tyson pulled a Pinker
Since this post was published, an upward-edited version has been republished on The Wire. Twitter is, among other things, that place on the internet where people fight over the tips of icebergs. There is often the presumption that what ends … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged cherry-picking, climate injustice, Enlightenment ideals, George Monbiot, human rights, humanities, incel, mass shooting, Neil deGrasse Tyson, optimism, pandemic, Quillette, Sandy Hook, Social Sciences, Steven Pinker, white nationalism
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Epstein’s friends from the ‘Reality Club’
New York magazine has published an alphabetised list of the names of people that find mention in Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘black book’, a log book of sorts in which he kept track of the people he entertained, including at his residence … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Christian Ott, Daniel Dennett, Edge Foundation, Geoff Marcy and including Jorge Domínguez, Jason Lieb, John Brockman, John R. Searle, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Katze, New Atheists, Reality Club, Richard Dawkins, scholarship, Steven Pinker, Thomas Pogge, William V. Harris
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