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Sometimes thinking about a topic from another person's viewpoint might help in understanding

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Opinion & Editorials

Tree identification

- March 01, 2020

I attended a few sessions on Tree Identification during different seasons organised by Natural History Society of Northumbria ( NHSN ). These were guided walks lasting a couple of hours led by tree experts. These were amazing sessions where the enthusiasm of the guides were matched by us inquisitive participants. We covered basic aspects of tree identification, their ecological niche, interconnections in the ecosystem, utility to humans over time. Here are the visual guides to tree identification for summer and

Estimating age of a star cluster

- May 02, 2011

How can we determine the age of a star cluster using its H-R diagram. Background Star Clusters are groups of stars that are gravitationally bound ranging from just ten to over ten million in number e.g. Pleiades cluster (Krittika) or M45 in Taurus constellation. An H-R diagram is a scatter plot of Luminosity vs. surface temperature or absolute magnitude vs. spectral type of stars. Main sequence is the track of stars that runs diagonally across the H-R diagram from high luminosity, hot stars to low luminosity, cool stars. Need The star clusters are useful in checking theories of stellar evolution, for calibrating absolute luminosities, and

Adhika masa and Kshaya masa

- January 18, 2012

This article is regarding the concept of Adhikamasa and Kshayamasa (intercalary months) used in some luni-solar calendars in India. Luni-solar calendars are in vogue since lunar months determine the high and low tides while the solar year determines the seasons. But the use of luni-solar calendars create a unique problem. Since the lunar year (12 lunar months) lags behind the solar year (~365.25 days), this creates a need to keep the lunar year and the solar year in synchrony. Hence the need to use Adhika masa (extra month) and Kshaya masa (removed month)! The reason for their asynchrony is explained next.

14th Summer School on ‘Brain Disorders Research’

- August 01, 2024

The annual Summer School on ‘Brain Disorders Research’ [1] is organised by Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) [2], Cardiff University. This year the fourteenth edition of the summer school was held on July 8-11, 2024 in Cardiff, Wales. Here, I am documenting brief learnings and my reflections on participating in this summer school. The participants consisted of both students and researchers from neuroscience, and bioinformatics background as well as clinicians who were mainly trainee psychiatrists. We had participants from as far as HongKong and China who came to the UK just to participate in this program. Given this heterogeneous mixture in the audience, the organisers ensured that sufficient background information is shared before introducing new topics be it neuroimaging or genomics. Since I do not have a background in bioinformatics, this introductory information on it was very important to understand and relate to the state of the art research findings t...

Movie review - 'Stanley ka Dabba'

- June 13, 2011

I recently watched the movie 'Stanley ka Dabba' (SKD) and here is my review of the movie. In short, SKD is a finely made film highlighting an important social issue and the movie succeeds in doing just that and it does smartly as well. This aspect is very important in a country like ours where pertinent issues like corruption, policy reforms are high jacked in a jiffy by things like IPL or 'Shiela ki jawani' song.

Conspirasea

- January 04, 2023

This Veganuary, please watch Seaspiracy documentary on Netflix to understand the human induced devastating impact on the oceans through fishing, whaling, oil extraction etc. References: - https://www.seaspiracy.org/facts

Advice to young programmers

- May 08, 2006

This is the summary of speech Given by Alex Stepenov (Principal Scientist, Adobe Systems) at Adobe India on 30 Nov 2004. Study , Study and Study Never ever think that you have acquired all or most of the knowledge which exists in the world. Almost everybody in US at age of 14 and everybody in India at age of 24 starts thinking that he has acquired all the wisdom and knowledge that he needs. This should be strictly avoided. You should be habituated to studies...exactly in the same way as you are habituated to brushing teeth and taking bath every morning. The habit of study must become a 'part of your blood'. And the study should be from both the areas: CS, since it is your profession, and something from non-CS... Something which doesnot relate to your work. This would expand your knowledge in other field too. A regular study, everyday, is extremely essential. It doesnot matter whether you study of 20 minutes of 2 hours,...

Researcher in Indian Astronomy

- August 25, 2012

Dr.S.Balachandra Rao has been researching in Indian Astronomy under successive research projects sponsored by the National Commission for History of Science (INSA), New Delhi since 1993. He is also a member of the Research Advisory Council for History of science and also the editorial board of the Indian Journal of History of Science, INSA. He has authored numerous books on astronomy and mathematics in English and Kannada. The following lists some of the books. Indian Astronomy - A Primer, Gandhi Center, 2008 This is the first book that one should read in order to familiarize onself with Indian astronomy Eclipses in Indian Astronomy, Gandhi Center, 2008 This book has an interesting chapter on determining the date of Mahabharatha apart from covering the methods for computing eclipses, including improved siddhantic procedures. Transits And Occultations in Indian Astronomy, Gandhi Center, 2009 This book is a sequel t...

How to summarize research

- July 01, 2019

"You don't really understand something well enough if you cannot explain it cogently to your grandmother!" - Unknown For a scientist or a researcher, the ability to summarize a work to a target audience effectively and succinctly is an important and useful skill. However there are different media (text, video, image) for conveying the research, each medium with different word limits (100 to 100 thousand words) and targeted towards a different audience (general public to experts). Here are the different media for conveying research that I discuss in this article: Abstract - max. 100 words - general audience Precis - max. 300 words - scientists but not from the field 1 slide - eqv. 1000 words - scientists from the field 3 minute video - eqv. 3000 words - general audience Poster - eqv. 10,000 words - scientists but not from the field Paper - max 30,000 words - scientists from the field Thesis - max. 100,000 words - general audience I disc...

Astronomical Unit in Hanuman Chalisa

- July 29, 2014

I had come across this forward message that made tall claims for hanuman chalisa. The forward read as follows: Any one knows the Hanuman chalisa? In Hanuman Chalisa, it is said : "Yug sahastra yojan per Bhanu! Leelyo taahi madhur phal janu!!" 1 Yug = 12000 years 1 Sahastra = 1000 1 Yojan = 8 Miles Yug x Sahastra x Yojan = par Bhanu 12000 x 1000 x 8 miles = 96000000 miles 1 mile = 1.6km 96000000 miles = 96000000 x 1.6km = 1536000000 km to Sun NASA has said that, it is the exact distance between Earth and Sun (Bhanu). Which proves Hanuman ji did jump to Planet Sun, thinking it as a sweet fruit (Madhu phal). It is really interesting how accurate and meaningful our ancient scriptures are..Unfortunately it is barely recognized. The estimate of 1 astronomical unit (au) - the distance between earth and sun has a long history. The first estimate only came during the transit of Venus in the 18th century. Before this event, we did not have any estimate for the ...