SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Information

Science Simplified!

                       JAI VIGNAN

All about Science - to remove misconceptions and encourage scientific temper

Communicating science to the common people

'To make  them see the world differently through the beautiful lense of  science'

Members: 22
Latest Activity: 11 hours ago

         WE LOVE SCIENCE HERE BECAUSE IT IS A MANY SPLENDOURED THING

     THIS  IS A WAR ZONE WHERE SCIENCE FIGHTS WITH NONSENSE AND WINS                                               

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”             

                    "Being a scientist is a state of mind, not a profession!"

                  "Science, when it's done right, can yield amazing things".

         The Reach of Scientific Research From Labs to Laymen

The aim of science is not only to open a door to infinite knowledge and                                     wisdom but to set a limit to infinite error.

"Knowledge is a Superpower but the irony is you cannot get enough of it with ever increasing data base unless you try to keep up with it constantly and in the right way!" The best education comes from learning from people who know what they are exactly talking about.

Science is this glorious adventure into the unknown, the opportunity to discover things that nobody knew before. And that’s just an experience that’s not to be missed. But it’s also a motivated effort to try to help humankind. And maybe that’s just by increasing human knowledge—because that’s a way to make us a nobler species.

If you are scientifically literate the world looks very different to you.

We do science and science communication not because they are easy but because they are difficult!

“Science is not a subject you studied in school. It’s life. We 're brought into existence by it!"

 Links to some important articles :

1. Interactive science series...

a. how-to-do-research-and-write-research-papers-part 13

b. Some Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them...

Part 6part-10part-11part-12, part 14  ,  part- 8

part- 1part-2part-4part-5part-16part-17part-18 , part-19 , part-20

part-21 , part-22part-23part-24part-25part-26part-27 , part-28

part-29part-30part-31part-32part-33part-34part-35part-36part-37,

 part-38part-40part-41part-42part-43part-44part-45part-46part-47

Part 48 part49Critical thinking -part 50 , part -51part-52part-53

part-54part-55part-57part-58part-59part-60part-61part-62part-63

part 64, part-65part-66part-67part-68part 69part-70 part-71part-73 ...

.......306

BP variations during pregnancy part-72

who is responsible for the gender of  their children - a man or a woman -part-56

c. some-questions-people-asked-me-on-science-based-on-my-art-and-poems -part-7

d. science-s-rules-are-unyielding-they-will-not-be-bent-for-anybody-part-3-

e. debate-between-scientists-and-people-who-practice-and-propagate-pseudo-science - part -9

f. why astrology is pseudo-science part 15

g. How Science is demolishing patriarchal ideas - part-39

2. in-defence-of-mangalyaan-why-even-developing-countries-like-india need space research programmes

3. Science communication series:

a. science-communication - part 1

b. how-scienitsts-should-communicate-with-laymen - part 2

c. main-challenges-of-science-communication-and-how-to-overcome-them - part 3

d. the-importance-of-science-communication-through-art- part 4

e. why-science-communication-is-geting worse - part  5

f. why-science-journalism-is-not-taken-seriously-in-this-part-of-the-world - part 6

g. blogs-the-best-bet-to-communicate-science-by-scientists- part 7

h. why-it-is-difficult-for-scientists-to-debate-controversial-issues - part 8

i. science-writers-and-communicators-where-are-you - part 9

j. shooting-the-messengers-for-a-different-reason-for-conveying-the- part 10

k. why-is-science-journalism-different-from-other-forms-of-journalism - part 11

l.  golden-rules-of-science-communication- Part 12

m. science-writers-should-develop-a-broader-view-to-put-things-in-th - part 13

n. an-informed-patient-is-the-most-cooperative-one -part 14

o. the-risks-scientists-will-have-to-face-while-communicating-science - part 15

p. the-most-difficult-part-of-science-communication - part 16

q. clarity-on-who-you-are-writing-for-is-important-before-sitting-to write a science story - part 17

r. science-communicators-get-thick-skinned-to-communicate-science-without-any-bias - part 18

s. is-post-truth-another-name-for-science-communication-failure?

t. why-is-it-difficult-for-scientists-to-have-high-eqs

u. art-and-literature-as-effective-aids-in-science-communication-and teaching

v.* some-qs-people-asked-me-on-science communication-and-my-replies-to-them

 ** qs-people-asked-me-on-science-and-my-replies-to-them-part-173

w. why-motivated-perception-influences-your-understanding-of-science

x. science-communication-in-uncertain-times

y. sci-com: why-keep-a-dog-and-bark-yourself

z. How to deal with sci com dilemmas?

 A+. sci-com-what-makes-a-story-news-worthy-in-science

 B+. is-a-perfect-language-important-in-writing-science-stories

C+. sci-com-how-much-entertainment-is-too-much-while-communicating-sc

D+. sci-com-why-can-t-everybody-understand-science-in-the-same-way

E+. how-to-successfully-negotiate-the-science-communication-maze

4. Health related topics:

a. why-antibiotic-resistance-is-increasing-and-how-scientists-are-tr

b. what-might-happen-when-you-take-lots-of-medicines

c. know-your-cesarean-facts-ladies

d. right-facts-about-menstruation

e. answer-to-the-question-why-on-big-c

f. how-scientists-are-identifying-new-preventive-measures-and-cures-

g. what-if-little-creatures-high-jack-your-brain-and-try-to-control-

h. who-knows-better?

i. mycotoxicoses

j. immunotherapy

k. can-rust-from-old-drinking-water-pipes-cause-health-problems

l. pvc-and-cpvc-pipes-should-not-be-used-for-drinking-water-supply

m. melioidosis

n.vaccine-woes

o. desensitization-and-transplant-success-story

p. do-you-think-the-medicines-you-are-taking-are-perfectly-alright-then revisit your position!

q. swine-flu-the-difficlulties-we-still-face-while-tackling-the-outb

r. dump-this-useless-information-into-a-garbage-bin-if-you-really-care about evidence based medicine

s. don-t-ignore-these-head-injuries

t. the-detoxification-scam

u. allergic- agony-caused-by-caterpillars-and-moths

General science: 

a.why-do-water-bodies-suddenly-change-colour

b. don-t-knock-down-your-own-life-line

c. the-most-menacing-animal-in-the-world

d. how-exo-planets-are-detected

e. the-importance-of-earth-s-magnetic-field

f. saving-tigers-from-extinction-is-still-a-travail

g. the-importance-of-snakes-in-our-eco-systems

h. understanding-reverse-osmosis

i. the-importance-of-microbiomes

j. crispr-cas9-gene-editing-technique-a-boon-to-fixing-defective-gen

k. biomimicry-a-solution-to-some-of-our-problems

5. the-dilemmas-scientists-face

6. why-we-get-contradictory-reports-in-science

7. be-alert-pseudo-science-and-anti-science-are-on-prowl

8. science-will-answer-your-questions-and-solve-your-problems

9. how-science-debunks-baseless-beliefs

10. climate-science-and-its-relevance

11. the-road-to-a-healthy-life

12. relative-truth-about-gm-crops-and-foods

13. intuition-based-work-is-bad-science

14. how-science-explains-near-death-experiences

15. just-studies-are-different-from-thorough-scientific-research

16. lab-scientists-versus-internet-scientists

17. can-you-challenge-science?

18. the-myth-of-ritual-working

19.science-and-superstitions-how-rational-thinking-can-make-you-work-better

20. comets-are-not-harmful-or-bad-omens-so-enjoy-the-clestial-shows

21. explanation-of-mysterious-lights-during-earthquakes

22. science-can-tell-what-constitutes-the-beauty-of-a-rose

23. what-lessons-can-science-learn-from-tragedies-like-these

24. the-specific-traits-of-a-scientific-mind

25. science-and-the-paranormal

26. are-these-inventions-and-discoveries-really-accidental-and-intuitive like the journalists say?

27. how-the-brain-of-a-polymath-copes-with-all-the-things-it-does

28. how-to-make-scientific-research-in-india-a-success-story

29. getting-rid-of-plastic-the-natural-way

30. why-some-interesting-things-happen-in-nature

31. real-life-stories-that-proves-how-science-helps-you

32. Science and trust series:

a. how-to-trust-science-stories-a-guide-for-common-man

b. trust-in-science-what-makes-people-waver

c. standing-up-for-science-showing-reasons-why-science-should-be-trusted

You will find the entire list of discussions here: http://kkartlab.in/group/some-science/forum

( Please go through the comments section below to find scientific research  reports posted on a daily basis and watch videos based on science)

Get interactive...

Please contact us if you want us to add any information or scientific explanation on any topic that interests you. We will try our level best to give you the right information.

Our mail ID: kkartlabin@gmail.com

Discussion Forum

The very certainty that science progresses with time should be the basis for trust, not the other way round.

Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 11 hours ago. 1 Reply

Q: Why do people say you can't trust science because it changes, and how does that contrast with religious beliefs?Krishna: “Because it changes” - if you don’t understand why the changes occur, you…Continue

Maternal gut microbiome composition and preterm births

Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Thursday. 1 Reply

Maternal gut microbiome composition may be linked to preterm birthsPeople associate several things regarding pregnancy to eclipses and other natural phenomenon. They also associate them with papaya…Continue

Our understanding of lightning has been driven by fear and shaped by curiosity

Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Tuesday. 1 Reply

Playwright Tom Stoppard, in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," provides one of the…Continue

The words ‘Just believing’ are not there in the dictionaries of science

Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa Sep 6. 1 Reply

Q: Why do some people find comfort in the idea of being "recycled" into nature rather than believing in an afterlife?Krishna: Because ‘"recycled" into nature’ is an evidence based fact and people…Continue

Comment Wall

Comment

You need to be a member of Science Simplified! to add comments!

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2015 at 7:01am

Reasons some scientists gave why most of the scientists and innovators are professors:
Self-education: You learn the most by explaining to others. I know more about MOS-transistors after teaching a class on MOS transistors last semester than I ever did by taking three classes taught by three different teachers on this subject during my graduate and undergraduate studies.
Cheap-labor: in form of graduate students. In a research lab setting, it is really hard to find collaborators, but who needs collaborators when you can have really smart people working for you for practically free?
Control on information: How many scientists do you know who work at Microsoft Research or IBM Research? Even if you know them, these companies keep most of their research secret, so you probably don't know about their work. But, professors have complete control over how much information they want to release to public.
Recognition: One has to be a really great scientist to be known. But, professors get recognition quite easily through teaching so many students and open nature of universities.
Posterity: A professor's Ph.D. students keep his name and field alive even after he retires or dies.
Opportunity to pursue long-term research: academic setting provides the opportunity to conduct focused research, which may not have an immediate payoff, but will have great long-term impact. Most "real" breakthroughs are made after long term research - over several years, or even decades. With very few notable exceptions, industry is currently focused on short term research which has immediate payoff. Enterprises like Bell Labs that reported fundamental research have collapsed. Majority of companies are interested only in incrementally modifying ideas and algorithms that already exist. On the contrary, academicians focus on knowledge creation that produces a ripple effect - eventually creating value for all stakeholders.
Encapsulation from economics risk: In academia, you can work on ideas that may have a small chance of working, but if they do, they will produce a huge impact. In other words, academia is more forgiving in allowing your projects to fail. One can keep trying new ideas over and over again - attacking the problem with multiple strategies until success is achieved! If you work in a commercially driven enterprise, you may be fired if you are not able to produce something viable over a short time. This is expected - a manager is unlikely to fund your work on a project that has a small chance to workout, or will bring revenue after a hiatus of a decade! On the other hand, several examples exist where academic scientists have focused on a single important problem for decades, solved it successfully and were then awarded a Nobel prize (or at least found immense intellectual satisfaction). I must mention, however, that these days funding for academic research is getting scarce, which is discouraging scientists from thinking big.

But I think complete independence is the right answer if this assumption  is really true!- Krishna

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 26, 2015 at 9:26am

Why a simple definition of species is hard to come by.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150924-species-definition-video/?u...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2015 at 7:53am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2015 at 6:53am

Washing your hands with antibacterial soap containing triclosan – the most common microbe-killing ingredient used in these soaps – may be no better than ordinary plain soap, according to South Korean researchers. This confirms previous studies which have reached similar conclusions and could help settle the controversy of triclosan use.
Triclosan is widely known for its antimicrobial properties, and was first introduced in hospital scrub soap in the 1970s. Currently, 0.3% triclosan is the maximum amount permitted in consumer soaps in most countries and several studies under lab conditions have shown that soaps containing this amount tend to be no more effective at killing bacteria on hands than plain soap.

Furthermore, triclosan remains controversial with reports of various adverse effects, including allergies and carcinogenic impurities.

Min-Suk Rhee and colleagues at Korea University, Seoul, say they have found compelling evidence that triclosan-containing soap is no better than plain soap. They believe their study is more accurate than previous work because they only used one variable – the presence or absence of 0.3% triclosan – and fixed all of the other factors which can affect the results.

The team exposed 20 bacterial strains to plain and triclosan-containing soaps for 20s at room temperature and then slightly warmer temperatures – conditions that were chosen to simulate home hand washing. They also contaminated the hands of volunteers with Serratia marcescens bacteria to test how well each soap removed bacteria.

The results revealed there was no significant difference in bactericidal activity between plain soap and antibacterial soap at either test temperature, although after 9 hours the soap containing triclosan showed significantly greater bactericidal effects.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/09/antibacterial-soap-triclo...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2015 at 6:01am

Quantum teleportation over 100  km of fiber using highly efficient superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors
Quantum teleportation is an essential quantum operation by which we can transfer an unknown quantum state to a remote location with the help of quantum entanglement and classical communication. Since the first experimental demonstrations using photonic qubits and continuous variables, the distance of photonic quantum teleportation over free-space channels has continued to increase and has reached >100  km. On the other hand, quantum teleportation over optical fiber has been challenging, mainly because the multifold photon detection that inevitably accompanies quantum teleportation experiments has been very inefficient due to the relatively low detection efficiencies of typical telecom-band single-photon detectors. Here, we report on quantum teleportation over optical fiber using four high-detection-efficiency superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). These SNSPDs make it possible to perform highly efficient multifold photon measurements, allowing us to confirm that the quantum states of input photons were successfully teleported over 100 km of fiber with an average fidelity of 83.7±2.0%.
https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-2-10-832

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2015 at 5:49am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 22, 2015 at 6:37am

A newly invented and ultra-cheap water cleaning process is looks promising.

Developed by a team of researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt, the procedure uses a desalination technique called pervaporation to remove the salt from sea water and make it drinkable. Specially made synthetic membranes are used to filter out large salt particles and impurities so they can be evaporated away, and then the rest is heated up, vapourised, and condensed back into clean water.
Crucially, the membranes can be made in any lab using cheap materials that are available locally, and the vaporisation part of the process doesn't require any electricity. This means the new method is both inexpensive and suitable for areas without a regular power supply - both factors that are very important for developing countries.

The technique not only desalinates the seawater, it's capable of removing sewage and dirt from it too. The researchers combined expertise in oceanography, chemical engineering, agricultural engineering and biosystems engineering to come up with the solution, and their work has now been published in the journal Water Science and Technology.
The technology implemented in the study is much better than reverse osmosis, the technology currently used in Egypt and most of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
Unfortunately for those who are waiting for this type of technology, a lot of work is required before it can be put into action: the academics working on the project have to set up a pilot test that proves their theories correct on a large scale. There's also the issue of how to deal with the waste produced from the process.

What's certain is that a new procedure like this could have a huge impact on the lives of millions of people - according to Water.org

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 21, 2015 at 6:15am

'Tree of life' encompassing all of life created
Tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, scientists have created the first "tree of life" for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes.

Tens of thousands of smaller trees have been built over the years for select branches of the tree of life--some containing upwards of 100,000 species--but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree that encompasses all of life, the study said.

A collaborative effort among 11 institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time.

Understanding how the millions of species on Earth are related to one another helps scientists discover new drugs, increase crop and livestock yields, and trace the origins and spread of infectious diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Ebola and influenza.
Rather than build the tree of life from scratch, the researchers pieced it together by compiling thousands of smaller chunks that had already been published online and merging them into a gigantic "supertree" that encompasses all named species.
"Many participants on the project contributed hundreds of hours tracking down and cleaning up thousands of trees from the literature, then selecting 484 of them that were used to generate the draft tree of life," study first author Cody Hinchliff from University of Idaho in the US.

Combining the 484 trees was a painstaking process that took three years to complete, Stephen Smith, assistant professor at University of Michigan in the US, pointed out.

The end result is a digital resource that is available free online for anyone to use or edit, much like a "Wikipedia" for evolutionary trees.

The findings were published on 18th Sept., 2015 in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 20, 2015 at 7:28am

Funny side of science: Ig Nobel Prizes.
A 17th century Moroccan sultan had 888 children in 30 years.

All mammals take about 21 seconds to urinate, give or take 13 seconds.

When you attach a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, it walks like dinosaurs are thought to have walked.

Scientists actually studied this stuff.

Seriously.

And they got tongue in cheek awards for their efforts Thursday night at Harvard University.

They are known as the "Anti-Nobel" awards and are also called the Ig Nobel Prizes.

They are for "achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK," the ceremony`s slogan says.

For instance, the physics award went to the three Georgia Tech University scientists who concluded that all mammals take about the same time to relieve themselves.

The award: a 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill. It is worth a few cents. In Zimbabwe, inflation is rampant.

The winner of the group received the award from an actual Nobel winner, the 2007 economics laureate, American Eric Maskin.

In mathematics, the committee chose two Austrians who used statistical analysis to study whether -- as legend claims -- Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed during the years from 1697 through 1727 to father 888 children.

With four wives and a harem of 500 other women the answer was yes, the researchers concluded.

On other areas, aside from research, the committee gave an economics award to police in Bangkok for offering to pay policemen extra cash if they refuse to take bribes.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 20, 2015 at 6:01am

 

Members (22)

 
 
 

© 2025   Created by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service