Science and Technology
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Monsanto and the Farmers’ Suicide
Over at discover magazine, Keth Kloor has a post about the BT Cotton suicide narrative in India (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/01/07/selling-suicide-seeds-narrative/). The blog is announcing a much longer article about this problem (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/files/2014/01/GMOsuicidemyth.pdf). I am a very big proponent of genetic engineering and believe that genetically modified crops and livestock will help us in a big way to…
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Pixie Flux theory of Quantum Consciousness
In a video by Sixty Symbols (see below), Prof. Moriarty while giving a dress down of Dr. Lanza and his theory of quantum woo mentions that one could postulate pixies coming in and out of existence to create spooky effects. I think this is a serious proposition. One could come up with a hypothesis without…
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Scienciness
I was watching this video of Richard Dawkins debating Deepak Chopra. It is an interesting watch. While watching it and responding to the comments I was trying to find the right word for what Deepak Chopra does with science. Something that expresses the manipulation and dismemberment of scientific ideas that Chopra does. Then I remembered.…
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The Arsenic DNA Bacteria that might not be!
So, earlier last week, NASA comes out with an announcement saying that it will have a press conference on the 2nd of December to announce a major development that has implications to astrobiology. A day after NASA announcement, Gizmodo published a highly speculative article that predicted that NASA is going to announce that they have…
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Being Agile… Part II: Never stop changing
The point I stop reading an article about agile development is when it starts quoting from the agile manifesto. No, I do not have any qualms with the manifesto; I think it is an excellent minimalist document. However, when people starts to preach about it, I tune out. Same is the case when someone brings…
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Being agile… Part I
The noise level about agile software development is deafeningly high these days. May be it has already peaked, which is probably a good thing. My real encounter with agile development in a production environment happened in 2003, when the company I am working for decided to adopt agile practices. We were playing with Fish philosophy…
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Fallacy of Exaggeration
In an article about the brain (a wonderful article) Carl Zimmer has this quote. The brain is, in the words of neuroscientist Floyd Bloom, “the most complex structure that exists in the universe.” Now, I understand the awe we feel looking at the complexity and ingenuity of our brain, but the most complex structure in…
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What is not evidence!
In most discussions that I have with people of fervent religiosity, one thing that frustrates me is the lack of basic understanding of what constitutes as evidence. So, today I found this gem of a list in the comment section of a blog. It is a pretty comprehensive list of types arguments usually used from…
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NASA postpones Dawn… Again!!!
NASA today decided to postpone the Dawn Asteroid mission again. Read the story here. The mission is very interesting in the sense that it is the first time we are visiting an asteroid closely. Remember, in most space sci-fi thrillers, mining colonies in asteroid belt is a common story line. It looks like instead of rare, exotic materials like Naquida or…
The Salim Nair Band 