The issue of how dense the dark matter is near Earth is far from settled. Recent work by Moni Bidin, Carraro, Mendez and Smith holds that the density of dark matter near Earth is 0.04 gigaelectron…

Change is a heartless bitch at times and a welcome friend at others--guess it depends on what the change is and whether you saw it coming and welcomed it. Part of being a teacher is accepting a…

"The decay widths have higher-order perturbative QCD corrections, and these are particularly important for the  decay which dominates over a wide range of (light) Higgs masses. The main effect…

When I started writing this blog, I wasn't sure about its direction, so I began by presenting something that I was curious about and hoped that others would find it interesting, while attempting to…

So, I find that my students get a lot of their "news" and certainly their "entertainment" from YouTube, for better or worse. Today one student pointed me to this video from Russia Today: http:/…

REALITY AND RELATIVITY Before we begin, let's put one thing on the record. Albert was not wrong; it's just that we have a much more detailed, precise understanding of what he was saying.…

Recently I was taking pictures of the night sky.  My intention was to photograph the double star Epsilon Lyrae.  It’s actually a double-double, made of two closer pairs, as one can see…

Ancient sunken ships are generally found in shallow water 100 or so, but two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found almost a mile deep in waters off the islands of Corfu and Paxoi, the Ionian Sea…

Groundwater is a valuable natural resource for various human activities (Prasad and Narayana, 2004). Natural contaminants such as fluoride, nitrate, and chloride salts are increasing in ground water…

I spent the day with the family at the zoo, idly thinking about physics, but not enough to blog about it yet.  Since it is Memorial Day, a day when one should think about those who gave their…

India is reeling under heat wave. Nagpur temperatures cross 47 degree C while half of India is above45 degree or so. It is effect of making 6 way highways cutting all trees on roadsides, poor farmers…

Withania somnifera is one of the most valued medicinal plant in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine (Shivani and Kumar, 2000). In Ayurveda, W. somnifera is regarded as one of the most…

There is one thing men know about women; they are willing to believe anything about you if you just put forth the effort to fool them a little. A tuxedo in the eyes of a woman, for example, adds $10…

Was Einstein wrong about ?  No, the equation correctly relates an objects rest mass to its energy content. However, in 1952, Herbert Ives published Derivation of the Mass-Energy Relation in…

Jonathan Wong, Vancouver Aquarium HuffPo has some fantastic photos and a video up from the Vancouver Aquarium. The species is Doryteuthis (once was Loligo) opalescens, sometimes called the inshore…

Rajasthan Patrika a Hindi daily (22nd May 2012); has pointed out that 1500 sq. km area of forests in and around Jaipur has been encroached upon. Out of this 700 sq. km has now illegal housing or…

After reading this article "Sociologists' research study finds everyday tax talk is 'morally charged'", I was somewhat stunned that in 2012, it would still be a topic of research to consider what the…

I have recently created a blog-site called Life-Dialogues that covers the latest topics in neuroscience, stem cell biology, cancer and molecular biology. So- if you were wondering where all my…

I have seen Mansagar Lake drying for several years. I have seen it stinking for several years. It was also used as place for immersion of idols after the festival season.  I have seen…

"Contact", Carl Sagan's 1985 novel about man's contact with extraterrestrial life and where it takes us, was, like all good stories, modeled around real characters. The book was okay but the movie…