Edges are where topics intersect.  Edges are where uncomfortable thoughts reside.  Edges define a topic by being just barely part of that topic.  They are the border between what is…

If you just looked at today's cool link, discussing why editors at Old Media don't seem to get the value of links (but their salespeople litter online magazines with paid ones) I give you this great…

Consider this sad fact: 15 years into the era of Web publishing, most print publications still don’t link at all from inside the text of their articles posted online. They began shoveling their print…

Consider this sad fact: 15 years into the era of Web publishing, most print publications still don’t link at all from inside the text of their articles posted online. They began shoveling their print…

I just watched Nic Marks of the New Economics Foundation's recent TED talk, which I hope I can embed below.  Marks and I both appear have a problem with the amount of media attention that the…

One of the crazy repercussions of the idiotic “war on drugs”, apart from destruction of innocent lives and whole countries like Mexico and the US, is that you cannot openly buy many quite harmless…

The InterAcademy Council Board, composed of presidents of 15 academies of science and equivalent organizations(1) representing Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia,…

First of all, yes, I know not to expect any better of the Express. But it's coming up on a year since Squid Says: What's for Dinner? Probably Not You, so it must be time for another rant. I just can…

Wave functions and characteristic vectors. The first thing that draws attention is the concept of the wave function. It is a probability density function that is correlated with an observable. On its…

There aren’t many cyclopses in nature, and those that exist don’t live up to expectation. They tend to be crustaceans like water fleas and another aptly named “cyclops” (see left photo below) or…

Taxonomical studies have been undertaken in British India by famous botanists Duthies ( Duthies flora of Upper Gangetic plains in several volumes) , Flora of Punjab etc. Royal botanical garden of…

Arctic Ice September 2010 As I write these words - September 01 2010 - Arctic sea ice extent as reported by NSIDC and JAXA is not as low as I had expected it to be. image source: http://nsidc.org…

Ashwgandha (means the plant roots when harvested fresh smell like ashwa or horse ) ( Withania sominfera ) roots are given in dried and powdered form as capsule , powder etc and its is supposed to…

A new paper produced by the DZERO collaboration got me quite interested today, for several reasons. The analysis is based on a large data sample: over seven inverse femtobarns of proton-antiproton…

As promised, here's part three of the nails-in-the-brain trilogy. Only, while nails may be the brain-poking standby, they're not the only foreign bodies to be shot, shoved or stabbed into the human…

Out of 2.5 millions to 3.5 million plnats and microbe species ihabiting our earth all life depends hardly on 250 plants out of which only 40 are important. Out of this list only 10 plants make staple…

It's counter-intuitive that hurting oneself could make a person feel better but, based on the assumption that no one truly wants to hurt themselves without a benefit, researchers have taken reports…

'Dry' water, which resembles powdered sugar yet consists of 95 percent water, was discovered in 1968 and got attention in the cosmetics industry.   Each powder particle contains a water droplet…

Great efforts are made to protect the Tiger wild cat and a large number of animals. There are several groups like prevention of cruelty to animals etc. There are no groups on preventing cruelty to…

The great thing about being a bureaucrat in a dictatorship is you can take credit for everything that happens in your personal fiefdom and treat people like garbage and there is no recourse.  …