VM

1. Stop sharing people's phone numbers unless you have their explicit permission to do so. 2. My phone number is my property, and only I can decide what to do with my property. 3. My profession and who you're sharing it with are both inconsequential.

By removing a few atoms, scientists made tungsten diboride less brittle. Little things like this remind us that what we know to be true in one context don't have to be true in all of them. And this is as true as an allegory as it is as a scientific fact. rootprivileges.net/2026/03/14/the…

In theoretical terms, this is an attempt at compellence. Trump hopes the threat to strike oil facilities on Kharg (having attacked military facilities there to try and made said threat credible) will coerce Iran into reopening the strait. Seems unlikely to work. (1/n)

Anti-depredation squads were formed in villages to help communities respond to elephants together — but the searchlights and firecrackers the squads used to drive elephants away possibly created a new 'landscape of fear. @mridulasee on a surprise thehindu.com/sci-tech/energ…

The foundations of rational inquiry may be somewhat less certain than a discipline’s reputation alone might imply. slightlyacidic.wordpress.com/2026/03/11/on-…

"hello, we are karl and friedrich and this is our manifesto."

Maybe there’s no way to give out a ‘scarce’ prize without replicating the inequalities that produced the discovery in the first place. Or maybe the prize itself is the problem. thehindu.com/sci-tech/scien…

@Kaju_Nut Oh, I love Megamind. You should use Tighten to represent that lot!

Researchers who fancy themselves secretly deep thinkers, listening to the discourse about how AI is about to make asking good questions the most important skill

When I sleep with stress, I have stressful dreams. On Monday night, I found myself having to explain the BSD conjecture without knowing what it was. So I wanted to make sure I got it when I woke up in case the dream recurred. rootprivileges.net/2026/02/11/the…

Any experiment in space quickly reminds you that gravity does a lot of unpaid work on Earth. Without it, even the simplest tasks turn into puzzles. Here, I was extracting samples from bags of microalgae I had been growing for the past two weeks. The challenge: collecting samples without air bubbles. On Earth, you simply flip the syringe and let gravity usher the bubbles politely to the top. In microgravity, they refuse to cooperate—no rising, no settling, just floating wherever they please. The solution: become the centrifuge. Lacking gravity, I provided my own by spinning, using motion to push the liquid toward the syringe tip and persuade the air to move elsewhere. It took a few tries (and a bit of trial-and-error choreography) before it worked. Multiply that process by twelve bags, four samples each, and several spins per sample, and the math becomes clear. Let’s just say I logged an impressive number of rotations that day—proof that in space, science sometimes looks a lot like interpretive dance. #shux #space #axiom4 #shubhanshushukla #india #iss

"How money can do the most good while exacting the least social cost" versus "money has no inherent morality, only its application does" versus "certain actions are fundamentally wrong, regardless of the consequences" thehindu.com/opinion/is-it-…

For all of us who were confused about that scene in "Good Will Hunting" when the professor taught Fourier analysis on the board, but assigned an exercise in graph theory at the end of the class.

"Last week when the night temperature dipped and even went below 20 C, netizens went viral with some friendly admonishment of their hometown. … Chennai’s apparent winter, never a patch on the ones in BLR or Delhi, still has its charms" by @kcvblr thehindu.com/news/cities/ch…

I am intrigued by people who complain a lot, but do nothing to improve things. Some people complain about the same things for years. It seems to me that if they would spend that energy into something productive, they would be happier, and the world would be a bit better.

Seema said women workers across the gig economy, whether with UC, Amazon or Flipkart, face distinct vulnerabilities: "Male clients sometimes book services pretending to be female. When women are on long shifts during their period, there are no toilets." thehindu.com/news/cities/De…

Intelligence! Please consider submitting to our open call and spread the word to artists and scholars who work with the idea.

The SC has been issuing directions mimicking regulation in important cases. The shift has emerged in matters where regulators have dropped the 🏀, pulling the Court into a manager's role, and then the Court has continued to substitute for regulators. My op-ed 👇

At a time when the identity of mountains is being called into question, can private reserves give wildlife Right of Way? A look at the Jabarkhet model: thehindu.com/sci-tech/energ…

A wonderful shout-out for WILD CAPITAL! "I really enjoyed her first book, Wild and Wilful, and I don't expect anything less with Wild Capital." What Delhi’s wilderness says about the city’s politics by @1amnerd thehindu.com/sci-tech/energ…

Delhi has always been a palimpsest of settlement, agriculture, invasion, courtly buildings, colonial planning, and postcolonial expansion. That in turn means we must restore, but not come at the expense of believing the past is the farthest we can go. thehindu.com/sci-tech/energ…