
M. Krishnamurthy to speak at Chicago university conference
M. Krishnamurthy, professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Bengaluru, has been invited to speak at the event. He has also been selected as one of the fellows of the University of Chicago, U.S. During the conference, he will deliver a lecture on Research Data Management in Social Science.
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NDTV
19 hours ago
- NDTV
Why Is Mars Barren, Uninhabitable? NASA's Curiosity Rover Offers New Clue
Why is Mars barren and uninhabitable, while life has always thrived here on our relatively similar planet Earth? A discovery made by a NASA rover has offered a clue for this mystery, new research said Wednesday, suggesting that while rivers once sporadically flowed on Mars, it was doomed to mostly be a desert planet. Mars is thought to currently have all the necessary ingredients for life except for perhaps the most important one: liquid water. However the red surface is carved out by ancient rivers and lakes, showing that water once flowed on our nearest neighbour. There are currently several rovers searching Mars for signs of life that could have existed back in those more habitable times, millions of years ago. Earlier this year, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a missing piece in this puzzle: rocks that are rich in carbonate minerals. These "carbonates" -- such as limestone on Earth -- act as a sponge for carbon dioxide, pulling it in from the atmosphere and trapping it in rock. A new study, published in the journal Nature, modelled exactly how the existence of these rocks could change our understanding of Mars's past. Brief 'oases' Lead study author Edwin Kite, a planetary scientist at the University of Chicago and a member of the Curiosity team, told AFP it appeared there were "blips of habitability in some times and places" on Mars. But these "oases" were the exception rather than the rule. On Earth, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet. Over long timescales, the carbon becomes trapped in rocks such as carbonates. Then volcanic eruptions spew the gas back into the atmosphere, creating a well-balanced climate cycle supportive of consistently running water. However Mars has a "feeble" rate of volcanic outgassing compared to Earth, Kite said. This throws off the balance, leaving Mars much colder and less hospitable. According to the modelling research, the brief periods of liquid water on Mars were followed by 100 million years of barren desert -- a long time for anything to survive. It is still possible that there are pockets of liquid water deep underground on Mars we have not yet found, Kite said. NASA's Perseverance Rover, which landed on an ancient Martian delta in 2021, has also found signs of carbonates at the edge of dried-up lake, he added. Next, the scientists hope to discover more evidence of carbonates. Kite said the best proof would be returning rock samples from the Martian surface back to Earth -- both the United States and China are racing to do this in the next decade. Are we alone? Ultimately, scientists are searching for an answer to one of the great questions: how common are planets like Earth that can harbour life? Astronomers have discovered nearly 6,000 planets beyond our Solar System since the early 1990s. But only for Mars and Earth can scientists study rocks which allow them to understand the planet's past, Kite said. If we do determine that Mars never hosted even tiny micro-organisms during its watery times, that would indicate it is difficult to kick-start life across the universe. But if we discover proof of ancient life, that would "basically be telling us the origin of life is easy on a planetary scale," Kite said. dl/giv
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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business Standard
Luis Alvarez deserved a livelier biography than Collisions offers
Nevala-Lee recounts succession of events that followed: degrees from University of Chicago and a long, illustrious career, most of it at Berkeley. Alvarez was ambitious, arrogant and often prickly NYT COLLISIONS: A Physicist's Journey From Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs by Alec Nevala-Lee Published by Norton 338 pages $31.99 The physicist Luis Alvarez is one of those 20th-century figures whose life was so eventful that it should be catnip for a biographer. Consider even a partial list of his activities: working on explosive detonators for the Manhattan Project; flying in a B-29 observation plane to witness the bombing of Hiroshima; testifying as a government witness in the hearings to revoke the security clearance of his former colleague J Robert Oppenheimer (who had invited Alvarez to Los Alamos); searching via X-rays for hidden chambers in an Egyptian pyramid; and arguing, in a paper with his geologist son, that an asteroid had wiped out the dinosaurs. After the assassination of John F Kennedy, Alvarez pored over the Zapruder film and conducted experiments involving firing bullets at melons to conclude that the president was killed by a lone gunman. In 1968, his work on bubble chambers and elementary particles won him a Nobel Prize. 'Charismatic, physically agile and daring, Alvarez was one of the last representatives of an era that could still see physics as a heroic enterprise,' Alec Nevala-Lee writes in Collisions, his new book about the man. It's a tantalising characterisation. Just don't get too excited. 'Alvarez has been described as a scientific Indiana Jones, but his reputation as a maverick was built on a foundation of patience and discipline.' The assessment is entirely fair, though it's only as the biography progressed that I realised how the word of caution also serves as a warning sign. Nevala-Lee, a novelist and the author of a biography of Buckminster Fuller, is eminently qualified to get to know such a lively and complicated subject. Yet in seeking to deflate the myth of the audacious Alvarez, he has overcorrected, jettisoning drama and tension in favour of diligent explanation. The result is a thorough, dutiful parsing of Alvarez's work in the laboratory and a strangely pallid portrait of the man himself. Alvarez was born in 1911 in San Francisco, and enjoyed a privileged upbringing. His father, Walter, was a physician who also wrote popular books like How to Live With Your Ulcer and Live at Peace With Your Nerves. Luis's maternal grandparents had been missionaries in China; his paternal grandfather had emigrated to the United States from Spain. Luis, pronounced 'Lewis,' never learned Spanish; blond-haired and blue-eyed, he was known in college as 'the Spanish Swede.' When, after graduating from high school, he almost got himself killed in a mountaineering accident, he decided that he needed to balance his brash sense of adventure with meticulous preparation. Nevala-Lee recounts the succession of events that followed: degrees from the University of Chicago and a long, illustrious career, most of it at Berkeley. Alvarez was ambitious, arrogant and often prickly. For the most part, the Alvarez of Collisions is in the lab, while his long-suffering first wife is at home, raising their two children. So much of his work was top-secret that he could not confide in her. Not that this stopped him from being comically indiscreet with almost anyone else. During a family ski trip to Idaho, he struck up a conversation with another vacationing couple in the hotel lobby and talked loudly about his classified work. A government inquiry into his 'bragging campaign' noted his eagerness to be seen as 'quite the big shot.' Such a big mouth was especially surprising for someone who tended to deploy 'his talents in defence of an authorised narrative,' Nevala-Lee says, elsewhere describing Alvarez's political attitude as mostly conservative. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Alvarez complained that the other scientists at Los Alamos had become 'almost neurotic,' while he stayed unwaveringly supportive of the decision to use atomic weapons. Wading into the Kennedy assassination discourse, he selectively reported his results on the melon experiment to shut down arguments about a second shooter. When he X-rayed the pyramids, he kvetched about all the 'pyramidiots' who annoyed him with their pet theories about telepathy and psychokinesis. He kept all the conspiratorial letters he received in his 'nut file.' I pulled most of these tidbits from Collisions ; the morsels are there, but they're drifting in a sea of detail. Such an emphasis might be deliberate, a wilful refusal to indulge Alvarez's self-serving self-presentation in order to focus the reader's attention on what truly mattered: how his laboratories worked. As Nevala-Lee puts it, 'Alvarez's own impact consisted less of any one discovery than of the culture that he passed down to his protégés.' Bringing such a culture to life would be a challenge for any biographer. I appreciated Nevala-Lee's careful research and his sense of obligation. But I finished the book bleary-eyed and worn out — and wanting something more. The reviewer is non-fiction book critic for The Times


Economic Times
22-06-2025
- Economic Times
Harvard doctor's simple tip can boost your happiness in one minute. A startup CEO is already practicing it
iStock Harvard doctor Trisha Pasricha proved that one-minute chats with strangers can boost happiness, echoing a University of Chicago study. In a parallel tale, startup CEO Harsh Pokharna found the same truth during spontaneous meetups in Jaipur, reinforcing that real connection starts offline. (Representational image: iStock) It wasn't a research lab or a stethoscope that Harvard doctor Trisha Pasricha turned to recently—it was the simple, brave act of chatting with strangers while waiting in line. A physician, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and the Ask a Doctor columnist for The Washington Post, Dr. Pasricha tested a charming scientific theory on the bustling platforms of Boston's Green Line: that one-minute conversations with strangers can actually make you happier. 'It is scientifically proven that you can boost your happiness in one minute by talking to a stranger,' she began in a video she shared on Instagram, proceeding to engage unsuspecting commuters in playful and warm exchanges. Whether she was joking about being a Celtics fan or asking if someone wanted to be a pediatrician, the result was almost always the same—people smiled, talked, and lingered in conversations they hadn't planned for. The experiment wasn't just a cute social video. It was rooted in evidence. According to Dr. Pasricha, several studies, including one from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business in 2014, showed that people who spoke to strangers during their daily commute felt more positive afterward—even though they originally assumed their fellow travelers wouldn't be interested. 'I had a great time,' Dr. Pasricha said, visibly moved by the simplicity of connection. 'Most people were down to just keep talking for minutes and minutes on end.' Interestingly, this scientific truth found a surprising echo in the world of tech entrepreneurship. Harsh Pokharna, the CEO of Bengaluru-based fintech startup OkCredit and an IIT Kanpur alumnus, unintentionally embarked on a social experiment of his own. During a break in his hometown Jaipur, Pokharna posted a casual Instagram story inviting people to hang out. What began as boredom soon turned into an unexpectedly fulfilling journey of human connection. From random DMs to heartfelt discussions about therapy, dating, and dreams, Pokharna's days became filled with spontaneous meetups that mirrored the spirit of Pasricha's scientific adventure. 'There were no rules, no agendas—just organic human connection,' Pokharna noted, as he sipped coffee, played badminton, and took walks with strangers who soon felt like old friends. Both Pasricha and Pokharna's experiences—one rooted in medical science, the other in lived curiosity—prove the same point: in an era dominated by curated lives and digital walls, the art of spontaneous conversation is a quiet rebellion. It's free, it's freeing, and it might just be the one-minute happiness hack we all need. Pasricha's dare at the end of her video is more than an Instagram caption—'I dare you to try this with a stranger today'—it's an invitation to revive something ancient and humane: unfiltered, real-world connection. For a society struggling with loneliness, digital fatigue, and emotional burnout, it may be time to treat these micro-interactions not as throwaway moments, but as therapeutic encounters. Both the doctor and the startup CEO, from Harvard labs to Jaipur streets, remind us that wellness isn't always found in a prescription bottle or a productivity app. Sometimes, it's waiting in line with a stranger, ready to say hello. ( Originally published on Jun 19, 2025 )