Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Genetics of Full Professors
I am reading "At the Helm: a Laboratory Navigator" by Kathy Barker. It makes a nice read for anyone who is planning a science career, specially an academic career, in the USA. It contains lots of useful as well as annoying advises for a new PI, but it also contains sharp witty quotes which are fun to read. I came across a funny section titled "The Genetics of Full Professors". Below is the image of the text from the Google books. So True!
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Story of India
I am watching 6 parts series by Michael Wood named "The Story of India".
It took me some time to get used to his way of narrating Indian history. Instead of showing only old buildings, temple and monuments, he shows people and raw India as it exists today for a traveler and try to correlates it with ancient world while narrating the history of India. Many a times, he just want to show images of India without any specific context as well since the movie is made for American and European audience. Once you get used to the fact, that he is trying to correlate old ancient world with the current world, you start enjoying it.
The interesting aspect of the series is that he try to correlate it other civilization(and migration) and don't mind going out of India to show important pieces of our history. The time line of our history is fascinating.
I don't know how the history is taught in today's schools in India, but I don't remember studying Indian history correlated with world's history. When you correlate your own history with the surrounding, you get more complete picture of your own existence, tradition, religion and culture.
Another positive aspect of the series is history of south India which run differently than history of north India in most part. History of south India is mostly ignored in history books (at least what I remember from our school books) and without it, history of modern India is incomplete.
Probably many of you might not have correlated the disappearance of Indus valley civilization with recent climate debate. Throughout the human history, civilizations moved, changed or disappeared for many reasons, and climate change was most important until recently.
Last 2 episodes were less impressive as recent history is more or less known, and I was expecting to get more information from the British side. but nevertheless, it was an interesting watch.
I will recommend it to watch to everyone to understand Indian history if you have any chance of getting the DVD. I got it from local public library so it should be widely available.
It took me some time to get used to his way of narrating Indian history. Instead of showing only old buildings, temple and monuments, he shows people and raw India as it exists today for a traveler and try to correlates it with ancient world while narrating the history of India. Many a times, he just want to show images of India without any specific context as well since the movie is made for American and European audience. Once you get used to the fact, that he is trying to correlate old ancient world with the current world, you start enjoying it.
The interesting aspect of the series is that he try to correlate it other civilization(and migration) and don't mind going out of India to show important pieces of our history. The time line of our history is fascinating.
I don't know how the history is taught in today's schools in India, but I don't remember studying Indian history correlated with world's history. When you correlate your own history with the surrounding, you get more complete picture of your own existence, tradition, religion and culture.
Another positive aspect of the series is history of south India which run differently than history of north India in most part. History of south India is mostly ignored in history books (at least what I remember from our school books) and without it, history of modern India is incomplete.
Probably many of you might not have correlated the disappearance of Indus valley civilization with recent climate debate. Throughout the human history, civilizations moved, changed or disappeared for many reasons, and climate change was most important until recently.
Last 2 episodes were less impressive as recent history is more or less known, and I was expecting to get more information from the British side. but nevertheless, it was an interesting watch.
I will recommend it to watch to everyone to understand Indian history if you have any chance of getting the DVD. I got it from local public library so it should be widely available.
Friday, February 5, 2010
A survey on Indian bureaucratic system
Most of us, even though outside of India, are very much interested in the overall quality and efficiency of Indian Bureaucratic system, as we deal with it time after time directly or indirectly. And for those who are in India, there is definitely direct interest for its improvement.
Professor Prem Lal Joshi at University of Bahrain, Bahrain is conducting a survey to gauge the public mood. Here is the link for anyone who is interested in the system and improving its efficiency. I would be very much interested in seeing the positive suggestions (good critics) for improvement as I have no doubt that it lacks the very basic professional ethics. We need many more such studies on regular basis.
Professor Prem Lal Joshi at University of Bahrain, Bahrain is conducting a survey to gauge the public mood. Here is the link for anyone who is interested in the system and improving its efficiency. I would be very much interested in seeing the positive suggestions (good critics) for improvement as I have no doubt that it lacks the very basic professional ethics. We need many more such studies on regular basis.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Snow is beautiful
Its bitter cold in north America, but there is a beauty in this cold weather. Yesterday, I went to see snow sculpture exhibition. Below are some of the examples with short description.
"5 seconds of life": This is my favorite. A frog is looking at an insect with the idea to attack.
"Chinese Opera": I like the details in this sculpture.
"Lantern"
"Man Playing Guitar": This is not probably the exact title, but gives an idea.
Below are more pictures of sculptures which hardly need any explanation.
"5 seconds of life": This is my favorite. A frog is looking at an insect with the idea to attack.
"Chinese Opera": I like the details in this sculpture.
"Lantern"
"Man Playing Guitar": This is not probably the exact title, but gives an idea.
Below are more pictures of sculptures which hardly need any explanation.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Climate Debate
This week's Nature has an interesting editorial on climate debate. Another important story of the week is about the Himalayan Glaciers. So what is the truth? How much to believe all the climate talks?
Like any other field of science, climate science, also has its own doubts and imperfections. This piece in Nature is worth reading.
Science is incremental. Any hot field of science goes through rigorous debate before it is settled. This process is important for validitation of any scientific hypothesis. As far as I understand, there is enough scientific data to support that climate changes is indeed taking place.
How much of this is human originated and how much of this change is based on other factors could be debatable. Also, the time line of these changes can also be debatable as most of these time-lines are based on simplified mathematical models. As more and more data will come, these things will be more clear. These imperfections only shows that this field of science is very active and needs more research and support from people and governments. This link is an excellent read for everyone.
Meanwhile, it doesn't hurt if we all try to do whatever we can to reduce our impact on the climate. I think the most positive aspect of climate debate is that it made people aware of their own imprints. I hope that all the prediction of melting of Himalayan Glaciers are wrong, but I also hope that people become more aware and use the natural resources wisely. This will be perfect outcome of imperfect scientific endeavor.
Like any other field of science, climate science, also has its own doubts and imperfections. This piece in Nature is worth reading.
Science is incremental. Any hot field of science goes through rigorous debate before it is settled. This process is important for validitation of any scientific hypothesis. As far as I understand, there is enough scientific data to support that climate changes is indeed taking place.
How much of this is human originated and how much of this change is based on other factors could be debatable. Also, the time line of these changes can also be debatable as most of these time-lines are based on simplified mathematical models. As more and more data will come, these things will be more clear. These imperfections only shows that this field of science is very active and needs more research and support from people and governments. This link is an excellent read for everyone.
Meanwhile, it doesn't hurt if we all try to do whatever we can to reduce our impact on the climate. I think the most positive aspect of climate debate is that it made people aware of their own imprints. I hope that all the prediction of melting of Himalayan Glaciers are wrong, but I also hope that people become more aware and use the natural resources wisely. This will be perfect outcome of imperfect scientific endeavor.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A lovely video on teaching and learning
if the above embedded link doesn't work, try this direct link. I would suggest to watch this to anyone who is involved in teaching directly or indirectly. Through the blog of midway, here is another video link which is exactly the same idea applied in different context.
With the advancement of technology, the role of teacher is also changing. In today's time, the teacher is not needed to transfer the information, but his role is to help students understand the material at the very least. I will not go into the other roles teacher can have such as motivating, inspiring and providing support network as these can hardly be defined or measured. And as the second video conveys it well, that technology can and should definitely replace bad teacher or absence of teacher. Good teachers can not be and should not be replaced and here technology can be used as an aid.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Niki in the Graden
I saw this exhibition couple of years ago, but it had profound impact on my imaginary.
Niki de Saint Phalle used not-only unusual technology for her work, but her biography is interesting as well. I am sharing some of the images of her work from my picture collection.
Niki de Saint Phalle used not-only unusual technology for her work, but her biography is interesting as well. I am sharing some of the images of her work from my picture collection.
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