Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The top institutions!!

This years The-scientists 'Academia - Top 40 US institutions' is out and can be followed at:

http://www.the-scientist.com/fragments/bptw/2010/academia/bptw-academia-top30.jsp

and best placse to work in Academia - International Institutes can be followed at:

http://www.the-scientist.com/fragments/bptw/2010/academia/bptw-academia-top.jsp#small

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Watchmen!!

So, first of all I am not a sci-fi kinda person!! I mean I do not have that much inclinations for sci-fi movies!! I tried my levels best to watch one on the Television but alas...I just could not!! Imagine on a "TV" I couldn't!! And today I watched "Watchmen" in a movie hall....!! Gosh!! an experience to share indeed!! My true feelings were to get out of the movie hall in the middle of it!! I mean....I just could not stand it!! Some of the scenes were just too good, no doubt against that fact, but I am not the sci-fi type actually....on top of it..my open seminar had been keeping me really tied up so I needed a break urgently and ended up with this kinda sci-fi break!! amazing is it not!!
How we settled upon this movie in also another interesting story...SNP gang just wanted to go for a movie and so they were searching IMDB and found Watchmen with 8/10 along with 70k votes and simply jumped on the conclusion of watching the Watchmen!!
But whatever, it was kinda good since the company was good :D If SNP is there everything becomes so good!! okey that is it for now!! more later on some other stuff...seyao for now!!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Science is....

I read somewhere that "There is nothing called Eureka in science rather it is 'That's funny...'" I feel this is really the truth. I also feel that whosoever is doing science/research can be broadly classified into two categories. One is those who happen to get different, weird, funny results and try to find out the reasons to support that while the other category is,for which "That's funny" approach does not seem to work...they rather feel that whatever observations they get does not violate anything in that area ...I mean nothing different. Simply, followers. So if you have to perform some analysis, no new analysis are welcome, the old ones which others are doing and hence they are, so called, well-established should be employed always.....I guess Phil Brown should focus on these kind of categories now!! :-)

After two years!!

I came to know today evening that there is a florist in the IIT Kanpur campus!!!! Shocked I am really!!! He prepares all kind of decorations, almost anything and everything. This might help all those who are not aware of this!!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Naseeruddin Shah Show!!

Date: 4th January, 2009
Venue: CSJM University
Monologue: Ismat Appa ke Naam

The monologue was presented by Naseer, Ratna Pathak Shah i.e. his wife and Neeba shah, their daughter. It comprised of three short stories by Ismat Chugtai. Ismat Appa was an Indian Urdu writer known for her controversial and remarkable stories. The stories presented were "chui mui" i.e. Touch me Not, "Ghunghat" and "Gharwali". The stories were presented in an amazing manner, really. I attended a Monologue for the first time. I admired the story Ghunghat and most importantly admired the way Ratna Pathak Shah presented it to the audience. I had heard Ismat Chugtai's name earlier but didnt know much about her stories. In fact hadnt read them earlier. This story Ghunghat was really humorous but at the same time had a hidden sadness in it. If you actually sit back and analyze, it had a very tragic end. I just hope it was a fiction and not inspired by any real incidence. In short, this story depicted a guy who was a Mughal and had a black complexion (kaale mia), he got married to a very pretty and specifically a white-complexioned lady (called gori-be). His ego (false, obviously) got hurt on his wedding day after overhearing some remarks about kaale-mia getting married to gori-bi and so he didnt see his wife's face his entire life and at the end died when he was just about to see her.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Mumbai Terror Attack!!!

Who was Sandeep Unnikrishnan? He was an Indian. Neither Maharastrian, North Indian nor South Indian. The 31 year old only-son of a retired ISRO officer. Unfortunately people will always remember who Raj Thackrey is but we will very soon forget who Sandeep Unnikrishnan was!! Heros are to be remembered only on a special day (26/11) but Raj Thackery will be a celebrity always, on news channels, in newspapers and in people's mind too!! Shame on us!!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Another Nature Retraction

Retraction

Nature 452, 120 (6 March 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06819

Genetic tracing reveals a stereotyped sensory map in the olfactory cortex

Zhihua Zou, Lisa F. Horowitz, Jean-Pierre Montmayeur, Scott Snapper & Linda B. Buck

Nature 414, 173–179 (2001)

This Article described patterns of labelling observed in olfactory cortex when a transneuronal tracer was co-expressed with single odorant receptor genes in the mouse olfactory epithelium. During efforts to replicate and extend this work, we have been unable to reproduce the reported findings. Moreover, we have found inconsistencies between some of the figures and data published in the paper and the original data. We have therefore lost confidence in the reported conclusions. We regret any adverse consequences that may have resulted from the paper's publication.