"Genome" by Matt Ridley

"Genome" is undoubtedly one of those books that will change the way you look at the world and yourselves. The triumph of the book is keeping the matter accessible to lay readers, without dumbing the import down. Though I thought Ridley's discipline ran out towards the last couple of chapters in terms of accessibility, it's still something you should pick up at the earliest.

After all, it's your "Autobiography in 23 Chapters" (Flipkart link here).

Faaaast and slw

From The Economist's column on language, an interesting pointer to a study paper in the "Language" Journal on why certain languages sound faster than others. Japanese is one of the fastest, and curiously Mandarin is on the slower side.

It's got to do with syllables, number of available sounds, and information density. Fascinating stuff. See The Economist for a summary and this TIME article for the details..

Om-no-science

From The Language Log and The Guardian, a magnificent specimen of a 2008 'journal paper' about the sound that is "Om". Titled Time-Frequency Analysis of Chanting Sanskrit Divine Sound "OM" Mantra , the paper 'proves' that the mind is calm and peace to the human subject and its principal conclusion is that steadiness in the mind is achieved by chanting OM.

You will find a rousing (and ROTFL-ing) discussion of the paper's scientific content (or lack thereof) at The Language Log, which writes:

"The first step seems fair enough: ommmmmm chants are analyzed using standard transform techniques, that represent signals as superpositions of wavelet forms. The second step is… well, there is no second step."

"Perhaps the pictures mean more to the enlightened than they do to me. The article is so bad that I can't see it as anything other than a spoof. And the premise is amusing enough. But I don't know enough about the IJCSNS article genre to really get the joke. If there is one."

Given the details in the paper, I fear it isn't a parody. The original Guardian article (written by one of the organisers of the Ig Nobel prize) says:

"The important technical fact is that no matter what form of Om one chants at whatever speed, there is always a basic Omness to it."

"No one has explained the biophysical processes that underlie this fetching of calm and taking away of thoughts. Gurjar and Ladhake's time-frequency analysis is a tiny step along that hitherto little-taken branch of the path of enlightenment.

(I have no stand on the significance or lack thereof of "Om". But I do stand laughing at 'science' so bad that it seems to have emerged of Rajkumar Kohli's 'consciousness'.)

Scientific pot-shots apart, there are several linguistic gems (or maNiis, in keeping with the theme). Such as this runaway adverb-adjective train:

"Highly sensitive expressive experienced people are more probable to be satisfied and efficient in their life in recent days."

Or you could wonder at this buffet of a scripting language, a proposal, and a quest:

People have been heading for their gawk inwards in propose to attain peace of mind, since they are not capable to locate steadiness in the external world.

And finally, eventually, at-the-endly:

As a final point, we have confirmed scientifically the accomplishments of OM chanting in reducing the stress from the human mind.

Or not.

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(image courtesy Philip Lutgendorf)

I'm anal-ytical like that

Each morning, for the last couple of years, I have made a little health log in a journal about the previous day. This record comprises of any colds or niggles, exercise, weather, amount of sleep, medicines taken, and ends with a 'discomfort' & 'mood' rating (on a 1-5 scale).

(It sounds unbelievably anal-retentive, but I've always been a list maker: of normal things like books read & movies watched, and of stranger things like 'coincidences'.)

Harish, knowing of such heavy logging, pointed me to this Wired article about how many people seem to be doing this, and are using the Web to record & share such information. I began noting this info so as to better understand what influences my health and to spot & prepare for seasonal & other factors. I have a large mass of data now, but perhaps not a lot of insights.

Still, I continue to do so largely because I think I like recording information. Leading a trivia-monger's life smooths away any objections to pointlessness - why, someday, all of this may come in handy.

I'd really like to get my hands on some of the tools mentioned in the article - when, with each step I take, a bean counter wriggles in ecstacy.

"Touchstone" - my SF story at the Scientific Indian

You can, if you so choose, read my story Touchstone at The Scientific Indian blog. This story received a special mention in this year's Scientific Indian Story Contest. (I happened to win the contest last year.)

As always, feedback will be much appreciated.

Wolpertian Elegance

In this article, the online magazine Salon describes Lewis Wolpert thus:

Like fellow British scientist Richard Dawkins, he's an outspoken atheist with a knack for saying outrageous things.

Like Dawkins, Wolpertis one of the leading biologists of the 21st century (not bad for a man who first studied civil engineering). But unlike the hawkish Dawkins, Wolpert seems to look more kindly at the nature of 'belief', which is summarised in a very interesting book that I'm reading right now.

This post is not about the contents of that book, but how its author's books have great titles. This book has a wonderful name: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, referring to the exchange in Alice in Wonderland where the White Queen reveals that to be her secret regimen in order to believe in impossible things.

Wolpert's previous book studied depression, of which Wolpert was himself a sufferer. Its title, in astonishing crispness, captures the essence of the ailment. It's called Malignant Sadness.

The 2008 Scientific Indian Story Contest - results

The results of this year's Scientific Indian Story Contest have been announced here. Unlike last time, I didn't win anything :-), but I did get an honourable mention.

Many congratulations to the winners and other selected participants.

I was able to send in a little story this time based on thinking about isolation and human beings. I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so I grope my way in the dark when it comes to such topics. Hopefully, the process and output has shown improvement since last time.

Selva, who's kind enough to organise this contest, has also collected some thoughts on what should be there in a creative science writer's toolkit.

Obits: The Final Quarantine, The Talented Mr. Minghella, The Wronged Man

Last week was full of goodbyes, starting with cricketer Bill Brown. Here are some more.

The Final Quarantine

By the end of his life, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was reportedly losing his memory, finding comfort in the distant wisps of the past. Perhaps this was the last and most personal of all his prophecies, a prescience signalled by HAL, probably the most significant fictional character he ever created, the epitome of the anthropomorphized computer. At any rate, Arthur C. Clarke himself is in no danger of being forgotten in a hurry by the world. To me, his writings always seemed to echo the seaside that was never far away from a man who had called two islands home for 90 years - unrhurried, eternal, with visible depth, and with promises beyond the immediate horizon.

I don't have a good appetite for full length science fiction, but I immensely enjoyed both Odysseys 2010 and 2061. There still are several of his fiction novels that I haven't read. His Profiles of the Future, found in a book exhibition, lies at the back of the book cupboard, unread. For, like with other sci-fi writers, I mainly preferred Clarke's short stories, which were succint and clever. My personal favourite, one that illustrates all the collective power of Clarke's neurons and fingers, is called Quarantine. It was written as a challenge, to fit a story on a postcard. From such little acorns do mighty oaks grow, as The Sentinel may testify. Someday, the oaks fall too, but seldom before a grand life.

The Talented Mr. Minghella

Dying relatively young was film director Anthony Minghella. I didn't like his most feted work "The English Patient", but I really liked the slightly underrated "The Talented Mr. Ripley".

The Wronged Man

Whenever I saw (or see) Raghuvaran on film, I always got this feeling that the man was criminally underused as an actor, and that he knew it himself. Yes, being mostly used a 'villain', he had to make outrageous roles look believable, and had to develop menacing tones and tics to keep him in business. If Amjad Khan was the gigantic baddie, Raghuvaran would be on the other side of the body mass index see-saw, who, to be evil despite his lankiness, had to have several layers of dark. Layers that would never really be peeled back.

Raghuvaran made his debut in the 'arty' Ezhavathu Manithan (incidentally, made by a relative of mine) but soon segued into professional nastiness, especially in opposition to Rajnikanth. He was usually urban, ruffled, not shying away from underhand treachery, eyes heavy (some say this was the effect of a drug habit) and dark. The odd Anjali apart, it seemed Raghuvaran, shirt out and in tall trousers, always ended up on the wrong side of things in this unjust world, not giving in without a fight, and not without making the hero look good, just about.

"Answer" - Fredric Brown

"Answer" - Fredric Brown

Some sites called it one of the most famous science fiction stories, but I had never heard of either writer Fredric Brown or this story called "Answer". One of the advantages of working with the world of languages is that interesting texts pass by one's eyes. While reading a presentation on Named Entity Recognition, this story appeared on one of the early slides.

It is quite a wonderful story, and just about 260 words long. Read it.

Update: It turns out I have read Brown before. His fine story called "Arena" is in a (cherished) Reader's Digest collection of best short stories.

The not-so funny castrato - revisited

The not-so funny castrato - revisited

Earlier this week, I had made an indignant post about the BBC reporting a story about humour and gender. Turns out the same Language Log I had been trying to imitate had already posted about this "news item", noting correctly that the source for the news article was a spoof article in the British Medical Journal, so there was nothing to really worry about (i.e. I was right about being sceptical.)

But the speed with which the meme has been picked up in news outlets around the world (see same LL article for several links for examples) should be cause for concern!

The not-so funny castrato

The not-so funny castrato

The folks at Language Log routinely complain about how bad the science reporting at the BBC is, pointing to several cases of over-generalisations, bad summaries, misinterpretations and so on (an example). I found one such case myself, where this news article, headlined "Humour 'comes from testosterone'" and subtitled "Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.

Reading the article, it seems that the "expert"'s method was to cycle around the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne on a unicycle and document reactions from people. Based on his observations that most of the men recorded made snide comments, while the women were kinder. Without even getting into the merits of this approach, I'd like to point that hardly do smart-alec comments translate fully into "humour", in its wide and varied forms. Does this take the 'expert' all the way in explaining away why males have more of a tendency towards humour? There is certainly no excuse for the assertive tone of the headline.

BTW, I must say that in my own small (perhaps non-representative) world, my experience has been that males are more likely to indulge in language-oriented verbal humour. I have observed female participants in this activity, but the numbers have been considerably tilted the way of the gender with the testosterone. But I would hardly venture a theory of aggression to explain this, which is perhaps why I'm not quoted in the science pages of the BBC!

(A cursory search reveals a lot of interesting links on the subject)

The 2007 Scientific Indian Story Contest - first prize

The 2007 Scientific Indian Story Contest - first prize

Selvakumar Ganesan runs a website and blog called The Scientific Indian. He also conducts an annual science fiction writing competition. He has kindly chosen my story, called A Story in Blue, for the first prize.

It came as an unexpected surprise because I had never written anything of this length before, and don't consider myself well-equipped to write science fiction. So it was just for a lark that I sent in this entry. Also, I have never ever won any real prizes for my creative writing, so this was great news :-). Congratulations are also in order to the joint 2nd prize winners.

I have been thinking a lot about religion from a personal point of view recently, and this was a nice way to explore some of my mental threads. If you happen to read the story and have something to say, please do write to me.

Mero galaxy kaathaa paare

Mero galaxy kaathaa paare

I've been residing there for quite a few years now, but I don't think I have actually "seen" the Milky Way. It's not easy, what with the visual pollution around and the fact that I mostly stay indoors and sleep during show time.

But it was quite a show, according to the ancients. A band of pearly white across the sky is, if you think about it, on par with a glorious sunrise on the horizon. So it is a pity that I've only seen the low-resolution bits of stars independently winking back. It's almost a "ek chiDiyaa, anek chiDiyaa" fable.

Friends who are into astronomy and do "stargazing" inform me that the Akashganga can be seen, if you can get away from all of Edison's devil progeny. One could die without having ever gazed up and seen the light - quite a scary prospect.

The planet "TLAHUIZCALPANTECUHTLI"¹

Planets and plutons are taking up a lot of news space on our little rock. It may jeopardise harmless plutonic jokes and plutonic malaprops. "User Friendly" suggest an insidious way to stop the mayhem.

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1: Such a god does exist in the Aztec pantheon.