Amazing research: connecting the dots between Physics and Economics

This is how Eugene Stanley (Prof. at Boston Univ., H-index > 123) coined the term Econophysics at a conference in Kolkata. The Wall Street  exploits the similarity between statistical physics and stock market to predict many things. A good read.

http://polymer.bu.edu/hes/hes14interview-managementreview.pdf

Be wary of "Impact Factors" ?

Here is an interesting read:

"Impact factors" and the damage they do.

http://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2012/08/impact-factors-and-damage-they-do.html

An interesting talk by Prof. Dipesh Chakrabarti (U Chicago) -- Indian Modernity: Once Colonial, Now Global

Just stumbled upon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ABmMC6zC8I

"Bears were used in test flights of world’s first supersonic jet bomber"

Interesting read:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/bears-were-used-test-flights-world-first-supersonic-225331539.html

Gamers crack AIDS mystery

Read more here at yahoo news: http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-161920724.html

Surely a lots of kids are going to show this article to their parents for obvious reasons.

Cute video: Obama a baby whisperer

One of the best moments I liked about Obama: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110621/pl_yblog_theticket/barack-obama-is-officially-the-baby-whisperer

Read this article to get some tips about how to remember your points in a presentation and how not to forget what to say

Interesting read from HBR blog: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/05/presenters_guide_to_remembering.html

Are we close to a breakthrough with HIV and Malaria?

Livescience reports that a Superdrug could fight both HIV and malaria. This drug does its tricks by acting as an HIV protease inhibitor -- "preventing the deadly virus from constructing its proteins correctly".

Read more here http://yhoo.it/jtMwxX

Use your senses to detect problem in your car

A must read at http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1805/avoiding-car-emergencies-with-your-senses/

Times Square in New York City was named "Tagore's Square" for one day to celebrate the Nobel Laureate's 100th B'day: please do it again

Please sign the petition online to ask the NYC Mayor to rename the Time Square again on the poet's 150th B'day: http://www.petitiononline.com/rabin150/petition.html

acknldg.dipanjan.email

Science is Impossible

Why? then read on....http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57903/

I love that part:

QUOTE
We use our senses and instruments to extend them to try to map reality (at least those bits we care about) onto our consciousness and perceive that the map we collectively share is the reality.

....
....

the "map" is not the reality. So the endeavor is, therefore, impossible.

UNQUOTE

acknldg.dipanjan

Amazing correspondence

I always wondered looking at the facts that sometimes different disciplines in science/engineering have striking similarity in the final result : no matter what principles you are studying, the final equations look similar across multiple disciplines. One such example is the Arrhenius type dependence of many processes (generally if you have to overcome some energy barrier to do something then it is highly likely that you will end up getting an Arrhenius dependence). I just came across a simple relation called Amdahl's Law (https://computing.llnl.gov/tutorials/parallel_comp/) which states that if you are parallelizing a computer program/code, the potential program speedup (x) can be defined by the fraction of code (p) that can be parallelized or,

          1
x = ------------;
         1 - p

Now while taking the polymer engineering class, I learned about the special case of Carother's equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carothers_equation) where the degree of polymerization (x_n) is related to the conversion (p) as follows:


              1
x_n = ------------
             1 - p

You need to have a very high amount of conversion (~ 99%) in order to get a really long polymer chain. What amazes me is the striking similarity between these two simple equations which are from two unrelated fields, but still analogous. Nature surely has only a few main principles or rules --  everything else can just be explained through analogy. We just have to unravel those simple rules -- are we there yet?

Bill Gate's Favorite Teacher : Salman Khan

He has created an internet sensation by making education free for all through online teaching.

Some links:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/technology/sal_khan_academy.fortune/index.htm

http://www.khanacademy.org/


Khan Academy is also one of  Google's 10^100 project winners
http://www.project10tothe100.com/

About Khan:

"
Born and raised in New Orleans -- the son of immigrants from India and what's now Bangladesh -- Khan was long an academic star. With his MBA from Harvard, he has three degrees from MIT: a BS in math and a BS and a master's in electrical engineering and computer science.

"

About Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/about

Naturejobs on post-docs

What to consider before taking up a post-doc position: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100902/full/nj7311-120a.html

Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement talk 2005

Truly inspiring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Whether you smoke one cigarette a week or more, the lung cells know it all

More at yahoo news: Secondhand Cigarette Smoke Alters Genes, Study Says
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201210300;_ylt=Ao4fwiqudsIB0mU1dd.66NFH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTM1dXNia2FrBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDA4MjAvMDg1OTkyMDEyMTAzMDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM2BHBvcwM2BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDc2Vjb25kaGFuZGNp

On scientific career and more

Nature has some nice articles on the following topics:

Scientific career renewal: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100812/full/nj7308-893a.html

Metrics to measure productivity and to make decision for promotion etc: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100616/full/465860a.html

About sabbatical: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2007/070816/full/nj7155-834a.html

Amazing predator videos from Nat Geo

Here is the link:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/reptiles-animals/snakes/cobra_eatsratsnake.html?source=email_inside

Want to know about the History of Indian mathematics?

Go here http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html .

This sums it all:

QUOTE

The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. the importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of Antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.

UNQUOTE

US DOE National Labs

See the list here: http://www.energy.gov/organization/labs-techcenters.htm