Thursday, April 3, 2008

Finishing up...!

Hi All.

Time to finish up with the science elective. The last assignment is due on April 6th, Sunday by midnight. Please write up the debate as we talked about in class. I need to hand in the grades on Tuesday at the latest - NO DELAYS, NO EXTENSIONS!

Thanks for an interesting class. Do keep reading and writing science.

Good luck.

vijaya

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

GOOD DEBATE

Hi All.

The God vs. Gorrilla debate was very interesting and I have to commend all of you on the preparation you had put in. Hope you were able to appreciate all the different aspects of the issue.

The final assignment in the class will be to write this up. You need to highlight the issues in both ID and Darwin's theory and conclude with your position on the debate. I would like to see some specifics on examples of irreducible complexity (explanatory writing - not just the jargon) and evolution theory's rebuttal to those.

This will be due by midnight, Sunday, April 6th. This is the final deadline. I need to send in the grades soon after that. So, NO EXTENSIONS!

Good Luck and see you on Friday.

vijaya

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Creationism v/s Intelligent design

Hi All

I cam across a few interesting articles on how ID is different from Creationism. Most of it is in question and answer format. so makes an easy read

Here are the links:
http://www.adl.org/issue_religious_freedom/create/creationism_QA.asp
http://www.discovery.org/a/1329
(This one is rather pro-ID. but still makes a good read)
http://skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html
(This one called ID a hoax but has comments about ID by various people towards the end

Monday, March 24, 2008

Human Interest Science

Hi all.

There were a few comments in class today on some of the difficulties of putting human interest elements and science together in a story. Just to show you some of the approaches, here are a couple of stories I wrote on the South Pole Experiment - one for the Frontline and one for the DAWN group of publications, Pakistan.

http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2211/stories/20050603000506400.htm
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/071124/science1.htm

We can discuss this some more on Friday.

See you all on Wednesday evening.

vijaya

Sunday, March 23, 2008

epidemic interview question

How strong is media's role in defining an epidemic very strong and dangerous? Also how can media help in reducing the ill effects of an epidemic from spreading

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Interviewing Maryn Mckenna

Hi Folks.

Our interview with Maryn Mckenna is on Monday, 24th March at 6:30 pm (8 am, her time). Please start preparing for the interview, discuss with your class mates and post your questions on the blog.

She is working on a book on drug-resistant staph. Drug-resistant germs are a huge cause for concern - especially in the Indian context where antibiotics are prescribed rather too easily. If you would like more information about this book and ask her questions about this topic, here is the where you can look it up - <
http://drugresistantstaph.blogspot.com>

She would also like to hear your views on the Polio Eradication Campaign. Please do spend some time researching and thinking about this.

You can ask her questions on epidemics(Bird Flu, SARS, etc.), health reporting, toxics and RISK etc.

See you all on Monday.

Vijaya

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Some links for the debate

Hi,

Here are some interesting links that i came across related to the debate.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
http://www.health.adelaide.edu.au/Pharm/Musgrave/essays/flagella.htm (the conclusion is interesting)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/996_intelligent_design_not_accep_9_10_2002.asp
http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/GRAPHICS-CAPTIONS/Flagellum.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.html

cheers,
nina

Debating the debate

After reading the two links put up about the debate, this is my take.

-------------

Everyone is fascinated with 'how it all began.' Human beings are fascinated with causality; we are always asking how. Sophie's World, a book that could be christened Philosophy for Dummies, has an example. If a ball rolls into your house, you want to peep out looking where it came from. A cat , on the other hand, will prod it and if it smells of fish, sink its teeth into it. What happened before that, before that, before that -- the quest keeps extending and there comes a point when it stops because it encounters a question that is counter-intuitive. As if grappling with eleven dimensions wasn't enough, here is the question of what happens when the notion of 'happen' did not exist -- what happened before space-time came into being.

This is not a new question. From high-school classrooms to seminars, the debate has always been there. The question is tempting, it seems so basic that everyone feels they have to know the answer. Some say they do know. According to Hinduism, there was Ka, the Who, who came into being when he recognised his own existence. Complex? Yes, language is inadequate and so you have tomes explaining this and how it was all created. Hinduism also has its tales about evolution in Dasavatharam or the ten stages in which God incarnated, definitely more fun than Ka. First was the aquatic, then the amphibian and then the terrestrial and so on. It is curiously reminiscent of Darwin.

If at this point, someone jumps and says, 'Hey, Hinduism had a theory that sits perfectly with Darwin's. So, their theory about the beginning of the universe must be true too. The Ka created it all!' then everyone would nod indulgently and say, 'Let us take this as a proposal and see whether it stands the test of the scientific process.' Instead if someone decides to open an institute called the Discovery Institute and then publish papers and create enough debate to discuss Ka such that Indian Institute of Science decides to have a course on Ka, there is something very frightening afoot.

It is frightening because popular discourse cannot replace scientific rigour. What is this scientific rigour? Imagine there are building blocks scattered on the ground. Each one is taken and put through tests. These tests are repeated. They are performed by many. Finally, this piece is taken and placed inside a framework. Similarly, many blocks are placed after going through the same process. Suppose, a block comes along that passes all these tests but does not fit the framework. It seems to displace previous blocks, but with this block in place, there are newer possibilities paving way to a better framework. Then, the older framework is discarded and a new one is put in place.

The key aspect here is that every block has to pass tests. That is how we have an organised body of knowledge that has given us everything we know today from pinhole surgeries to space travel. We have come a long way from light bulbs and there is a danger of familiarity breeding callousness. Science has been able to build and create and unlock mysteries of the universe because of this process. Overhauling the process requires an event of earth-shattering significance. Till then this process needs to be continued.

Because of this process, many blocks that lie outside. Dainiken proposed that the world was made by aliens. He argues that the level of intelligence today could not have occurred unless aliens copulated with humans. He wrote a book called Chariots of Gods. There are compelling examples of circular fields of a diameter on a high mountain that could not have been created with human machinery available in ancient times. He gives such landmarks as proofs that aliens visited earth. We love reading Dainiken. But, we do not teach Chariots of Gods in our schools. We teach science and what Dainiken wrote has not yet been proved. The choice of words is deliberate. No one knows whether what Dainiken wrote is how it happened. It could have happened just the way he told it or not. It has to be proved. Until then, it remains outside the realm of what we term science.

The possibility of a theory being proven true does not translate into it being taken up as an alternative to science. The proponents of Intelligent Design revel in flawed premise. The origin of the universe is a tricky question. The complexity makes it tempting to ascribe a Designer, which is a psuedo-secular substitute for what every child calls God. Just because it seems tempting and because science has not proposed an alternative, does not imply this is the answer. If that rule is applied, Hinduism's Ka, Dainikens Alien are all standing in queue to compete with Intelligent Design. If Dainiken finds an angel investor and has a Creative institute that produces voluminous papers and books and peppers it with comments from biologists and physicists in a moment of existential crisis, it could be the subject of the next debate. But, the burden of proof cannot be lightly cast aside.

Till then, instead of God vs Gorilla, this will remain the Fundamentalists vs the Fundamentals.

IPY 2007-2008

IPY 2007-2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Hollywood Physics

came across this article on popular science . Talks about how movies have got their physics wrong. Incredibly funny. Check it out.

http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-gaming/gallery/2007-09/hollywood-physics

Monday, March 10, 2008

Preparing for the FINAL DEBATE

Hi All.

It is time we started thinking about the final debate. God vs Gorilla. Read, research, think, talk... and make up your mind about which side of the issue you are on. Let's see if we can understand the arguments on both sides.

Post links to sites you think are relevant, post your ideas, opinions and biases on the blog. Let's start the discussion here.

I would like to see all your contributions here... I NEED TO SEE ALL OF YOU CONTRIBUTE.

Here are a couple of links I thought were illuminating.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/30/050530fa_fact
http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1281.html

Hope your decoding of the RNA's functions are going well. TUESDAY is the deadline.

Talk to you on Wednesday.

vijaya

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Managing deadlines

Hi All.

Looks like we have some learning to do on time management.

Well, you have more time to complete the RNA assignment. It is POSITIVELY due by midnight of 9th March (Sunday). And given the extra time, there are no excuses for incomplete explanations:)

Please prepare for the South Pole Interview - post your questions on the blog, if you will. See you on Friday at 5 pm!

vijaya

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Metaphor Mongering

Hi All!

This is the link for the article on 'Metaphor Mongering' for Science writing.
may be a bit dull at the start but do read on ;-)

http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/publications/newsletters/
newsissue9/cordle.htm

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Next few weeks...

Hi All.

Hope you have completed your dissertations to your satisfaction and can spend time on other activities.
I have posted a couple of articles this week under "interesting science articles." Please read through and we can discuss this in class.
This week - Me, as a scientist; Interview with winter-overs at the South Pole; Explanatory piece on the RNA due this Friday (by midnight).
Next week's assignment is a piece on the South Pole interview. We need to start preparing for the final debate too - Intelligent Design vs Darwinism. Please start researching this and post links to stories, ideas, questions etc. on the blog.

See you in class.

vijaya

Monday, February 25, 2008

Next Week

Hi All. I have posted a link to the interview with Roger Martin on interviewing techniques under "interesting articles".

Next week - Monday: Talk on Neutrino Astrophysics at the South Pole
Friday: Interview with Ethan Dicks and Edgar Nielsen (Tex), winter-overs at the South Pole.

Please do some background research for both of these. The RNA explanatory piece is due on the 7th of March (next Friday).

Good Luck on your dissertation.

vijaya

Friday, February 22, 2008

Question

I recently watched a documentary on BBC called Forgotten Fruit. It was about the global dependency on wheat and forgetting crops like Millet. It showed some parts of Tamil Nadu where millet is being grown, realizing its importance. It also showed about an Italian lady who's on a mission to grow the fruits, people have almost forgotten.

After watching the documentary, i realized one thing that we are actually depending more on more wheat for many things. And the production is definitely not going to be enough in the coming years to meet the world demand. Maybe we should also think of re-discovering those forgotten fruits. And maybe we could start doing that by not consuming junk food and discouraging others to do the same.

What say you?

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

I recently read a blog entry which said that science writing has come down to a mere recycling of press releases and journals. can this be avoided? why/why not?

While writing about a scientific study, the reporter always worries whether the story will be interesting to the reader or his editor. sometimes this concern might encourage him sensationalize the story a bit. how does one draw a line between the two?
I want to ask Mick how do we write on difficult subjects like theory of relativity in a simplistic manner?

Monday, February 18, 2008

Mike Lemonick - Wednesday at 6:00 pm

Thanks Jessica for starting the question list. Please continue to think about what you would like to ask Mike on Wednesday. Also make sure all of you are there on time. By the way, I have received 15 assignments so far. Deadline was midnight yesterday.

See you in class.

Here are a couple of questions I was thinking of :

Science writers are accused of dummying down science in the guise of explaining it to the lay audience. How far is this true? How do we escape this?

Depending on the audience, we have to choose the style of explanation. Any suggestions on this? While writing for the newspaper, what is the target audience we are looking at?

Questions for Mike Lemonick

1. While writing a science story, especially explainatory pieces, does one mention different analogies or do we stick to one?

2. How does one differentiate a health story from a science story while writing especially when they are related to one another?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Epilepsy article - review and comments

Kindly go through my article and please send in corrections or different style of presentation.

Living well with Epilepsy


By Shruti Ambavat


Get your facts right on Epilepsy and the truth about the many myths

that persist around this medical condition




Epilepsy is one of the most dreaded and the most misunderstood diseases. There is a total lack of awareness in India of this disease. Epilepsy is a problem where seizures occur in the brain. A seizure is a sudden surge of electrical activity in the brain that usually affects how a person feels or acts for a short time. In India, many patients (especially rural) suffering from epilepsy do not wish to reveal their identity. It remains a stigma for them throughout life. In earlier times, people mistook epilepsy for punishment of sins from God or a witch’s black magic and would stay away from the patient thinking that it is contagious. In 1900s, US also had laws forbidding people with epilepsy to get married or become parents.


One should care to understand that epilepsy is not a mental problem or a psychosomatic condition but just another disorder likes diabetes, high blood pressure for instance. In India, 1% of the population suffers from epilepsy. And yes, the sufferer is called ‘a person with epilepsy’ not ‘an epileptic’ which might sound too hard-hitting like a psychotic person etc.


Epilepsy, also known as ‘epilepsies’ is mostly identified with seizures. If a person has had two or more seizures then he/she is most likely to be suffering from the disorder. Dr. P. P Ashok, Head of Neurology Dept, Hinduja Hospital says, “Many patients who come to me try to talk their way out of epilepsy. They give it weird names like sudden seizures or body shivers and say that it is not something as severe as epilepsy. They have to understand that epilepsy is curable through proper medication. In extremely rare cases where frequent medication also shows no effect, the patient has to undergo operation.” Surgery works where medicinal drugs are incapable – the part of brain (the source) that triggers seizures is isolated from the rest, so that seizures are not reached to the whole brain. Another method is the ‘corpus callosum’ method where the tissues connecting the left side of the brain to the right side are cut so that only a part of the brain gets affected at the time of attack. But Dr. Ashok says that 70% of the cases can be cured through drugs within 2 years and the rest will have to continue medication lifelong but without any problems.


The cause of this disease is still unknown. For a layman, epilepsy has always been a mystery but science says, it mostly occurs to people with severe head injuries or extreme fatigue. In India, adolescents to teenagers suffer from epilepsy. It is also said that epilepsy can be hereditary but those types are curable. Dr. P.P. Ashok says, “I get young patients who wish to go abroad for studies but their parents are scared to leave them alone and then there are young girls who are told by their parents to keep mum or it might ruin their marriage prospects.” But he quickly adds, “Though in ultra-urban cities like Mumbai, people are slowly accepting it.”


In urban regions people have better understanding of the disorder due to better education, public awareness etc. But in small towns people are orthodox and consider it a punishment or even getting possessed by some ghost and the first aid tool is to make the patient smell onion or sole of a shoe at the time of the seizure. The seizure normally lasts for few seconds or a maximum of a few minutes. Rarely cases have been reported where seizures act like an agent where one seizure triggers another to another (called status – epilepticus) in which the patient should immediately be taken to hospital where he receives intravenous injections as it can be fatal. When a patient is under seizure attack people around him/her should take care that all sharp or harmful objects be kept away and they should try to put a spoon or something in the mouth so that the teeth do not bite out the skin or tongue. Most importantly, the patient should be made to sit in such a position where his head is down like in a sitting position with head down so that the blood that comes due to any cuts inside the mouth does not enter windpipe or foodpipe, making the person unable to breath.


“I was shocked, terrified and confused. I didn’t know how to react to this situation and my father advised me not to reveal about my condition to anybody including close friends, which was uncomfortable because I felt like a stranger in front of my own best friends,” says Amita Aggarwal, an engineer (named changed). Amita’s friend says that when the first time they saw her during the seizure they were extremely scared but later on felt very sad for her and took extra precautions like reminding her of medicines to be taken on time and being careful while she drives. Amita continues, “Initially I wasn’t used to taking medicines every day, I felt like an ill person, but now I am happy that these medicines have helped me lead a normal life where I drive and do all sorts of things a normal youngster does.


Another myth is that people with epilepsy are also considered mentally disturbed and slow learners, but how many of you know that famous musician Beethoven, Lionel Blue, writer Agatha Christie, Truman Capote of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ fame and actors like Richard Burton, Danny Glover suffered from epilepsy.


One common complaint many patients have is that epilepsy is not well handled in movies where they show it has a psychotic problem or a Devil’s handwork. A common example is the famous Hollywood flick ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ where possession and epilepsy are shown in the same light as though connected to each other. The person suffering from epilepsy needs family and friends’ support and can lead a normal life with confidence.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Explaining science

Hi all.

I have attached a link to the pulitzer-prize winning explanatory science stories under "interesting science articles." Do read through some of these stories and see if you can bring them up in class for discussion.

Also, we need to start compiling questions for Mike Lemonick. Please post them here so all of us can prepare for the interview.

vijaya

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Stem cells Saving Legs

Hi all!

There is an article in the Hindu Science and Technology page today about stem cells in clinical trials. I have posted the link under 'Interesting Science stories".

Please read this piece and we can discuss it in tomorrow's class. Look for style, pace and explanatory writing technique. Break it into lead, nut graph, explanatory science and conclusion.

vijaya

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Questions for Dr. Frankel

Great question, Priya. We certainly will talk about this and see if we can come up with a simple explanation.

By the way, I hope you are all thinking of questions to ask Dr. Frankel. I have not seen any other postings or comments about this. Please do prepare for the talk tomorrow. "So, tell us about ethics in science," is not quite the question we should be asking. Please think of specific areas you would like to discuss.

vijaya

Some thoughts...

Is there a global overseeing authority to judge ethics questions in the scientific community around the world?

There have been several reports of how medicines developed in the US (FDA approved) are duplicated in several other countries, India included, for much less cost. Does this come under unethical practice in science?

Plagiarism is not made a big deal - no accountability in some countries. How is this handled?

Questions!!

Hey everyone!! Have a question..well have lots of them.Thought i should start out by asking this one which has been in my mind for quite sometime..

What is Intelligent Quotient exactly? How is it measured and how credible is this measurement to measure someone's intelligent? And what is the logical explanation behind people who have low IQ but excel in music etc?

Thanks!
Cheers
Priya

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

First Guest Speaker

Hi All.

We have our first guest speaker - remote speaker, actually. Dr. Mark Frankel, Director, Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will be talking to us from Washington DC on the 4th of February, Monday. We will be meeting in the regular lecture room at 6 pm, Monday. Please make sure you are there on time.

Do start posting questions and suggestions (in this blog) for topics in scientific ethics you would like to hear about. Ethics in science and scientific journal publishing + what he thinks of the standards/ethics in science writing these days... think along these lines.

We need to have a rough list ready before the talk.

Start thinking:)

vijaya

Friday, January 25, 2008

Making Science Accessible - Some interesting reading

A List of books - just some I know of. Please feel free to add to this list

  1. How the World Works – Boyce Rensberger
  2. The Beak of the Finch – Jonathan Weiner
  3. Longitude
  4. Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White
  5. Lives of a cell – Lewis Thomas
  6. The Canon by Natalie Angier
  7. Woman – An Intimate Geography
  8. The Double Helix – Watson
  9. Carl Zimmer
  10. The Gecko’s foot by Peter Forbes
  11. Eureka – The birth of Science by Andrew Gregory
  12. Genesis – Robert Hazen
  13. The velocity of Honey – Jay Ingram
  14. The Nothing that is – Robert Kaplan
  15. Why do men have nipples – Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg
  16. The Time Traveller – Ronald MAllett
  17. Surviving Armageddon – Bill McGuire
  18. A Natural History of the Senses – Diane Ackerman
  19. The Mind’s Sky – Timothy Ferris
  20. Bad Science - The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion –Gary Taubes
  21. The Monkey Wars – Deborah Blum
  22. The Constants of Nature – John D. Barrow
  23. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
  24. The Best American Science Writing – 20…

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Share ideas

Hi All!

Welcome to Science Journalism/Writing. As you can expect, this is a tough class to teach as the beat is so vast and varied. So, this is my thought - let's start this blog and share information as the class progresses. Please post as often and as much as you would like - giving me ideas and suggestions on topics you would like to see covered.

Also, this is the forum where we are going to prepare for the final debate - research, questions, ideas and thoughts on the topic we choose for the final debate.

I would like to see posts from every member of our class as I would like to use this to evaluate your class participation and preparation.

So, blog away and see you here soon.