November 2008 - Posts - Lab Rats

November 2008 - Posts

Reel life improbable villains in real life

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Past 36 hours have been the worst that many of us have seen in our life. The image of young lads firing indiscriminately in Mumbai seemed straight out of cinema, and sadly, international security experts and spy researchers say the once improbable villains in James Bond movies have become close to the "real life threats faced by modern security...

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Mumbai calling, Mr Sibal

Posted by Jacob Koshy at 
A few days after the Jaipur blasts this year, (14th May) Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Science and Technology, scrambled a press conference where he told us about a technology that the government had imported from an American company for combating terror. The Central Electronics Limited, a government research organisation, was entrusted with the task...

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Solving the oldest paleontology mystery

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Turtles not only have tough shells, but they have also posed tough problems to scientists when it comes to reptile evolution--how has the turtle's shell and body developed, which has remained almost the same over evolutionary time, since the age of dinosaurs. And this has also become the oldest paleontology mystery! In today's issue of Nature...

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Income disparity: it's better to be a man in the long run

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Interestingly, a man is saying so; not anecdotally but on the basis of solid statistical modeling. Of course, this pertains to the teaching community in India but you and I know it is applicable elsewhere; it's the norm rather than an exception. Using live data from Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) payroll, its vice chancellor...

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Mars Orbiter strikes gold, oops, water!

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Since astronomy is the flavour of the season - India shooting for the Moon , then first images and analysis from the Japanese lunar probe SELENE, the first ever direct images of exoplanets -- here are images that show several mid-latitude regions on Mars are probably massive ice glaciers covered by debris. In today's issue of Science , researchers...

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Celebrating the origin of species

Posted by Seema Singh at 
For a change, we are not bemoaning extinction of species. This week marks the 150 th anniversary of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species , and February will mark the 200 th birth anniversary of the man who opened an entirely new book on life, which was as much an exposition as a long, on-going debate. It's a debate that scientists are running...

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Nuclear family: hum do, hamare do in Stone Age?

Posted by Seema Singh at 
A nuclear family is commonly understood to be a modern day formation, whether in response to work-life pressure, desire for maximization of consumption or, (more flippantly), getting away from in-laws. But it seems nuclear families even existed in the Stone Age! By dating remains from four multiple burials, discovered in Germany in 2005, scientists...

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Extrasolar planets? Don't speculate, see them

Posted by Seema Singh at 
More than 375 extrasolar planets have been detected so far but all through indirect methods, not by imaging. Using Keck and Gemini telescopes in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a group of scientists from the US, UK and Canada have produced the first-ever (direct) image of three planets orbiting a star other than our own. The star, HR 8799, is a "main sequence...

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Recession is good for your health

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Did they say if life gives you lemons, make lemonade? On the World Diabetes Day on November 14, diabetes care providers are saying "an organized recession in our sedentary lifestyle" can lead to a healthy living. M.V. Hospital for Diabetes and Diabetes Research Centre , one of the oldest referral centre for Diabetes care in the country, with...

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King Solomon the copper baron?

Posted by Jacob Koshy at 
There are all those wonderful movies about the wars and bloodshed over earth's precious resources: Syriana, over the battle for oil and the latest, Quanturm of Solace about the villanous Greene's plans to monopolize Bolivia's water supply (I thought the movie sucked, by the way). But were the kings of yore also the controllers of ore? Scientists...

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IIT Madras gets to engineering bugs

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Synthetic biology, the new, transformative discipline that uses molecular tools and techniques to build biological devices, is finally catching the fancy of Indian engineers. A team from IIT Madras has won two awards at the 9 th International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) Competition, held on 9 November at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

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New creatures from the deep seas

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Scientists engaged in the global Census of Marine Life, to be released in 2010, today report some astonishing recent finds from the deep seas. The final report two years later will relate to: distribution of animals in the ocean and their changing ranges; diversity as the total number of species in the ocean (known and unknown); abundance of major species...

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Climate, carbon, and market finance

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Steep cuts in carbon emissions have already been proposed, but it seems the world needs a backup plan to stave off catastrophic warming. Testifying before the British Parliament on November 10, climate scientist Ken Caldeira, a faculty member of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California, said geo-engineering...

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Snakes and scammers

Posted by Jacob Koshy at 
The latest most comprehensive estimate on the global incidence of snakebites is out, and guess who is on top? At 81,399 envenomings (or venomous snake bites) India was way ahead of second- and-third placed Srilanka and Brazil respectively, who CUMULATIVELY registered 62,438 envenomings in 2007. And that's the good news. Previous estimates by World...

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Scilence: (Wo)Men at work!

Posted by Seema Singh at 
Just as science, by nature, throws up unexpected results, so do issues related to it. And if one is talking of gender, surprises are bigger, given its multifaceted nature. A fascinating essay in the new report from TWAS , the academy of sciences for the developing world in Italy, which is celebrating its 25 th anniversary this month, shows how the scientific...

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