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I've realized I'm gradually turning into an asocial person, after I joined research. Maybe it is to do with my choice of field (a paleontologist, you could say I like dead things more than living ones!), or maybe it is to do with the fact that I don't find many I can talk to about my work. [ But isn't that true for most professions? Which of your relatives really understands your profession, your interests, your job? ] The greatest reason, however, is that most Indians think that Indian researchers are crap. And so it happens that whenever I'm in a social gathering, I start observing people's reactions to my " Research " in response to their " So what do you do ?". And there are some consistent characters everywhere. 1. The Sneerers These are the people who will immediately tell you that you should have gone abroad. That there is no scope for science in this country. That the only real science happening anywhere in th...

Recently, I have had the good luck to converse with several scientists with varying levels of enthusiasm and experience. I have found it quite enjoyable to discuss concepts, methods and approaches in their own disciplines, as well as general tenets spanning all across Science. Here is a conversation with geologist, micropaleontologist and dinoflagellate expert, Dr. James Riding. Q. What would you advise to someone who wants to enter Science? A. I'd advise students to choose their subject areas very carefully. They should choose something they enjoy doing, that they'd be happy doing for a long time, all their life in fact. They should choose something they feel enthusiastic about. They should also keep the practicalities in mind. For example, if the discipline is largely lab-based or field-based, do they like this aspect of it? They should be prepared to work hard, because it takes a lot of determination to make an impact in Science. It isn't a real wor...

Science in India - doomed to obscurity. Last month, I published a blog post - " Science in India - Doomed to Obscurity? ". I discussed how Science often gets a beating as a career option - because students originally interested in science are externally veered to other more lucrative options. I ended the post with an emphatic " Yes, I am happy I am pursuing a career in Science ". A month later, I find the " ? " at the end of the last post changed to a " . ". This is not a complete retraction of my feelings, I am still happy choosing Science because it is an enormously fulfilling profession. I am, though, very concerned , about the state of Science in India. What happened? The Hindu  published the article: " Fake journals: 'Make in India' gone wrong " The article investigates the role of India in polluting the current scene of Science. It reports that as much as 27% of fake journal publishers are based in In...

So many of us love Science. It was our favorite subject in school. It made sense, it made us feel that this world is supposed  to make sense. That it works on logic and is, to the extent determined by our understanding of it, understandable, estimable, maybe even predictable. [Don't raise incongruous voices saying one shouldn't try to understand life, just enjoy it. Or if you could predict life, wouldn't it be boring? I'm not addressing generations that frequently complain of "ennui" (it's quite fashionable nowadays) spoilt such that they crave an escape from the luxury of security. I'm talking of people who struggle for necessities, for whom the predictability  that a certain medicine would fetch them a cure would be so very welcome. Or poor families that would like to derive peace from the knowledge that investing in education will someday bring them better standards of living.] Anyhow, the point was, that so many of us loved Science so much th...

<< Previous page So what do we (did Darwin) know by now (then) ? That living creatures from the very very ancient past (we're talking in terms of millions of years) were often found preserved in the rock record. That we could make out some things about the past environments from these fossils. Fossils showed specific associations: you saw only certain types and groups of fossils in certain suites of rocks (belonging to different periods of geological time). There came a dead end at the base of the Cambrian. Scientists like to call this the Cambrian Explosion today, but back then, many of them were more inclined to dismiss this either as a figment of the imagination of relatively smaller body of researchers, or simply, incomplete/inaccurate science. That the Creator had made us all, was the popular view. 3 theories emerged to explain why we see the Cambrian Explosion (if it even is a real thing!): Charles Lyell Interestingly, it is said that Lyell was...

Martin Brasier was a prolific paleontologist. And from what little I know of him, he must have been a pretty cool guy. I recently read his book "Darwin's Lost World" and it was definitely one of the better decisions of my life. On Darwin Thankfully, even the most plebeian of science curricula finds it worthwhile to describe Charles Darwin's scientific accomplishments. To me, all through childhood, Darwin represented my superiority to the apes. When someone said Darwin, I would get a mental picture of an ape gradually turning human. That's an overly simplistic picture, but then again, there is so much to learn about everything  that one doesn't quite know where to start. Source The rock record is the only thing that can give us a picture of the ancient Earth. Most other branches of science can tell you what the Earth is like, and why it is the way it is. But it was Geology that first told us what the Earth was  like, and bits of why it w...