Author: Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News. He has previously worked at Quartz, The Economist and The Conversation. His writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian and The Hindu. He has a PhD in chemistry from Oxford University and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

Curious Bends – flying cars, a teen innovator, fighting Ebola and more

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1. The flying car may finally become a reality thanks to interest from humanitarian organisations

The last thing you’d expect an Amazonian tribe to inspire is a flying car, but that’s the story behind the Maverick, being developed for humanitarian aid workers. Backed by French investors (and its army) the Maverick’s creators promise a vehicle to negotiate most disaster-prone areas with 250-kg payloads and three crew. (8 min read)

2. A plane crash attracts world headlines but nobody cares about 380 people dying on Indian roads

This is a bizarre, take-it-in-your-stride tragedy that sits at the nexus of bigger yet similar issues: bad public infrastructure, lack of driving etiquette and dysfunctional policy. It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to believe that the truck that rams into a scooter crossing the road isn’t to blame — and there are those who agree. It takes more than unfortunate, accidental events to kill more people per day than AIDS does. (8 min read)

3. Turning breath into words

Arsh Shah Dilbagi, a 16-year old from Panipat, India, has built a device that allows breath to be converted into words for the disabled. Dubbed an “augmentative and alternative communication” solution, it helps convert a person’s shorter and longer exhalations to the dots and dashes of Morse code and synthesise speech. While not yet widely tested, Arsh is a finalist in the 2014 Google Science Fair on the back of its strength, and expects to be able to integrate it with Google Glass one day. (2 min read)

4. An NGO reunites mentally ill homeless people with their families

Since March 2006, the Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation has reunited more than 2,500 mentally ill homeless people with their families. This is a heart-warming service. But when you ask why it exists, you realize you’re exploring why mentally ill people end up lost on India’s streets. Why did they leave home? Were they sent away or did their caretakers not care enough? Complicating the problem further is the fact that in many parts of rural India, mental illnesses are not understood for what they really are — although there is at least one outstanding exception, and the sign of a way ahead. (4 min read)

5. Featured longread of the week: The hunt for Ebola medicines is being accelerated

“The biggest problem remains containment, especially in the months before new medicines arrive. Virologists, such as Dr Ball at Nottingham, worry that increasing human-to-human transmission is giving Ebola the opportunity to become more transmissible. Each time the virus replicates, new mutations appear. It has accumulated and hung on to some mutations, like ‘cherries on a one-armed bandit’, he says. Nobody knows what would happen if Ebola hit the jackpot with a strain that is even better-adapted to humans. But the outcome could be grim, for Africa and the rest of the world.” (8 min read)

Chart of the week

More than 840,000 people killed themselves every year around the world. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), India is the single biggest contributor to this morbid statistic, which is too high a number for something that can be prevented. The reasons may be complex but the WHO is hoping an internationally driven project could propel significant change. Read the report hereand see a visual analysis by Vasudevan Mukunth here.

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Curious Bends – LED Diwali, insecticide-laden uniforms, Tokay geckos and more

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1. Continue the festival of light, get an LED bulb at 97.5% discount provided for by govt subsidies

“Rs 400 LED bulb would be available for just Rs 10, at a steep discount of 97.5%. And it is not part of any festival special megasale offer. Instead the scheme has been formulated by the government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL, a joint venture of public sector companies of Ministry of Power) along with electricity distribution companies. EESL would procure LED bulbs in bulk and sell them to households at Rs 10. The electricity distribution companies will then repay EESL over a period of five to eight years from the savings that accrue due to use of this energy efficient lighting technology.” (3 min read, downtoearth.org)

2. One way to fight dengue: wear insecticide-laden school uniforms

“Using data from dengue studies in Thailand, the study examined the cost-effectiveness of uniforms treated with insecticide under various scenarios. Aedes aegypti, the vector of the dengue virus, bites during the day when most children are in school. In Thailand, children aged 5–14 make up about 65% of dengue haemorrhagic fever patients. Using the WHO-definition of cost-effectiveness, intervention would be cost-effective if it could reduce dengue incidence by 50 per cent and that the uniform for each child would cost US$5.30 or less per year.” (2 min read, scidev.net)

3. Brain gain: how some Indian scientists in the US are being encouraged to migrate back home

“Since 2009, Young Investigator’s Meet in Boston has helped about 80 young scientists get back to India with new, independent careers. The goal is to have around 300 people in the next 5 years and about a thousand scientists in the next 15–20 years back in India. These thousand people could influence the next generation of scientists to think differently,” Parayil says. (8 min read, natureasia.com)

+ The author of this article, Subhra Priyadarshini, is the editor of Nature India.

4. The solution to India’s sanitation crisis lies in changing behaviour not building toilets​

“India’s toilet crisis is largely about its men. Women want the safety and privacy of a toilet at home. But how do you convince a man to give up his scenic open-air loo, with its cool breeze and its ringside view of a verdant paddy field for a cramped, smelly, dark room with a hole? Dog trainers, marriage counsellors, dietitians, hypnotists — currently, Arghyam is enlisting ideas from anyone who has successfully nudged someone to make a behavioural change in men.” (7 min read, livemint.com)

5. Saving tigers and rhinos means losing pangolins, Tokay geckos and star tortoises?

“Come Diwali and it is not just apparel and electronic goods doing brisk business online. It is owls as well. Rummaging through difficult-to-find data and trends, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau’s (WCCB) cyber wing has noticed how the smuggling of owls picks up during Diwali-the nocturnal bird is said to be the vehicle of Goddess Laxmi. The trade is not limited to owls. There is an alarm over the sudden spurt in trade of pangolins across north India-a phenomenon that has been observed over the last six months, endangering the scaly, small mammal.” (4 min read, indiatoday.com)

Chart of the Week

China no longer has a stranglehold on the world’s supply of rare earth metals

“In the end, Gholz argues, China didn’t get that much benefit from restricting rare earths — save for the release of a fishing captain who had been detained by Japan. Japan has now adjusted and is less vulnerable to trade pressure over rare earths than once believed. The United States, too, managed to wiggle out of China’s rare-earth grip in short order. A few years ago, military planners had worried that crucial weapons systems might be at risk if China disrupted the rare earths supply. But subsequent analyses have shown that this was unlikely.” (4 min read, vox.com)

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I love gadgets but here’s why I’m immune to the temptations of new devices

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Despite my love for new technology, I’ve become averse to adopting it right away. This may be a reflection of having conservative parents who worked as retailers in the tech industry. Even though my dad had access to the latest gadgets, he hardly ever switched to using them everyday. When advising clients, he made it clear which devices actually offered value for money. Most of the time the newest device wasn’t on that list.

Even when I had enough money of my own to spend, my aversion for new tech remained. It was clear to me that future-generation devices are always much better than the first-generation ones. After removing the inevitable kinks and adding the much-needed features that the first device missed, the second device does the job significantly better.

Another reason for not wanting to upgrade to a new device is the result of a wider trend, and it has only become more obvious to me in recent years. The new devices on offer won’t make my life that much easier. My first smartphone was a touchscreen Pocket PC device, and it was tonnes better than any Nokia phone on offer at the time. I could look at full-sized images, browse the internet on Wi-Fi, manage a planner and use Google Sync.

Then I bought a Blackberry 8320, which seemed like a step in the past. But it wasn’t. Although I missed the touchscreen, the ease of using a full keyboard was quite something. Finally came the iPhone 4S, which changed my life in more ways than any phone had.

Now we have the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Sadly, they are nothing but the same old iPhone with a bigger screen. Apart from tiny upgrades in the operating system, which is available on older devices, there is nothing about the new iPhones that is attractive to those not part of the cult. There are Android phones which offer a lot more, but none of those features are enough to change my mind.

The Apple Watch may be gorgeous, but I won’t be buying a first generation device. Mostly, though, a smartwatch seems to be nothing more than an additional layer of distraction right now. This is true of Google Glass, too.

There is hardly a profession where reading and replying to every text message, email, Facebook or Twitter notification as soon as you can is important. Most things can wait, and they must if we are to do anything productive in life. The suggestion here is not to become a Luddite, but, when a screen is only a wrist-flick away or in your eye, the temptation is too high.

The only reason I may end up buying a new internet-enabled device is if I am forced to. This could happen either because the device stops working, gets destroyed or doesn’t perform as I need it to. My nearly three-year-old iPhone 4S runs iOS7 and I have no complaints whatsoever (I won’t be upgrading to iOS8, because that would be suicide. Reviews suggest that the user experience becomes choppier.) My nearly four-year-old iPad2 runs iOS7 and works perfectly well. My four-year-old MacBook Pro 17″ runs Mac OSX Mavericks and runs like a leopard. My four-year-old Kindle 3G does everything I need it to.

I love you, gadget-makers, but to get me to actually buy something new you will have to do a lot more.