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  – healthy obesity, astrology as a science, energy subsidies and more

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

1. India’s poor risk their health to mine electronic waste

The UN estimated in 2012 that, for the first time, developing countries were producing more electronic waste than developed ones. In the same year, India imposed some regulations about how it is handled. Electronic waste, often comprising consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops, contains valuable metals such as copper and gold as well as disease-causing substances like flame retardants and carcinogenic heavy metals. But India’s rules have fallen flat. Photographs of rural women and children processing the stuff are proof. (3 min read)

2. Civilian drones in Indian skies are winging it

For the price of a smartphone, you can get yourself a drone in the bigger markets of India’s metros, or online, and use it to deliver pizzas. On the other hand, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation seems inappropriately slow to catch up: “We are looking at regulations being developed in other countries for reference.” It seems India will continue its experiments with technologies markedly susceptible to abuse. (5 min read)

3. Can you be healthily obese?

Scientists have identified a protein that seems to mark a controversial distinction between healthy and unhealthy obese people. In a study, they found that obese people who had twice-as-high levels of heme oxygenase-1 displayed insulin resistance, the precursor of type-2 diabetes. However, even if the notion of “healthy” obesity prevails, that the healthily obese will be at a slight disadvantage compared to healthy, lean people won’t change. (4 min read)

+ The author, Priyanka Pulla, is a Bengaluru-based freelance journalist and Takshashila Institute scholar.

4. Some people think astrology is a science

It is no secret that India’s belief in astrology is too high for its own good. Based on past studies and his own work, a sociologist argues that the reason so many people believe that astrology is a science is because they also believe in “conformity and deference to higher authority of some kind”. Together with the thesis that people high on authoritarianism tend to pay blind allegiance to conventional beliefs, he finds that people who value obedience as a virtue are likelier to think astrology is scientific. (6 min read).

5. A dramatic decline in suicides in China thanks to urbanisation

Despite suggestions that Chinese authorities underreport numbers, the country’s rapidly ageing society has seen a rapid decline in the number of suicides among young rural women: a 90% drop in little more than a decade. Experts say it’s because of migration and the rise of an urban middle class. “Moving to the cities to work … has been the salvation of many rural young women, liberating them from parental pressures, bad marriages, overbearing mothers-in-law and other stresses of poor, rural life.” This is the exact opposite of what urbanisation has done to suicide numbers in the West. (5 min read)

Chart of the week

One of the factors that hampers Asia’s energy security is subsidies on the primary energy products—electricity, petroleum products, coal and natural gas. The chart below shows 15 Asian countries and the amount of post-tax subsidies on these products they spend as a percentage of their GDP. Almost all of them predominantly spend on petroleum products. The more developed among them—Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea—don’t subsidise electricity. India and China are heavy on coal. Click here for an interactive version with access to the data.

Screen Shot 2014-07-05 at 13.04.43

For more, follow curators Akshat and Mukunth on Twitter. Feel free to send in feedback at curiousbends@gmail.com. Enjoy the weekend!

Curious Bends – food prize, TB’s weakness, India’s big brother and more

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

1. World Food Prize goes to Sanjaya Rajaram 

“The 71-year-old veteran plant scientist has been declared the winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize this week. Born in Varanasi in India and now a citizen of Mexico, he has been chosen for his contribution to increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tonnes in the years following the Green Revolution.” (2 min read)

2. Tuberculosis bacteria has a chink in its armour

With an increase in the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the need to develop new ways to fight infection has never been more urgent. Now researchers at the Indian Institute of Science have found a new anti-microbial target in TB bacteria, and it holds potential for new drugs. (4 min read)

3. Now we know why drugs don’t work on pancreatic cancer

“The quirks of pancreatic cancer make it one of the most lethal. The survival period after diagnosis is only four to six months. The widely believed reason for this failure has been that in pancreatic cancer, the tissue that surrounds the tumour, called the stroma, blocks the delivery of chemotherapy drugs to the tumour. But new research has turned that logic on its head.” (3 min read)

+ The writer, Mohit Kumar Jolly, is a graduate student at the University of Rice. This week he is blogging from the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting.

4. The biologist who played with animal poisons

Professor KS Krishnan, one of India’s top biologists, passed away earlier this year. “His fundamental impact was the ease with which he repeatedly linked his questions with the most innovative solutions. He was too smart to pursue science as a set of minor achievable goals. The exciting things he talked about were too broad to be limited to just one discipline. He was a man of science who loved molecules and molluscs in equal measure, researching the unexplored world of animal poisons, looking for that missing miracle cure for some of the most dreaded human diseases of the nervous system.” (3 min read)

5. India’s big brother is coming to Surat

Not the reality TV show, but the Orwellian character who watched over the action of the country’s citizens. Citizens of Surat, however, are celebrating. Their city will become the first to setup a network of closed-circuit cameras. The hope is that it will reduce crime, but past evidence on the use of such networks is not clear. Without proper laws in place to protect citizens’ privacy, India must debate surveillance before it is too late. (4 min read)

Chart of the week

An ageing population is going to be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, but solutions around the world differ wildly. Spot India and China in the chart below, and then hope that India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan will start acting rather than creating controversies. Those in the US can weep a little, too. Credit: 2013 health report by the OECD.

Screen Shot 2014-07-01 at 07.03.07

For more, follow the curators Mukunth and Akshat. Get in touch with us at curiousbends@gmail.com.

Curious Bends  –  the history of the zero, flooding Asia’s rivers, maddening imprisonments and more

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

1. Was the zero really reinvented in India?

The academic and scientific environment in India leaves a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, many Indians are sated on the copious vestiges of the past, one of which is a claim to the invention of the zero. How true is that claim? The investigation takes the reader from Switzerland to Babylon and then from Rajasthan to Cambodia to reveal a bizarre story. (27 min read)

2. Climate change will increase flow in Asia’s big rivers

Climate change will affect emerging nations the most. Apart from slowing down economic growth, it also exacerbates their under-preparedness by threatening to disrupt ecosystems that support millions. In fact, the five big river systems of Asia that are fed by Himalayan glaciers—of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween and Mekong—together support 1.3 billion people. According to a new study, climate change will increase water flow in them until 2050. Are policymakers prepared to confront how this will alter cropping calendars? (2 min read)

3. Suicide statistics, squalor & recidivism haven’t ended solitary confinement

Delve into the deceptively placid world of solitary confinement, its passions-packed history, the costs of running them, and the emotional and psychological damage it inflicts on those who underwent it. There is no alternative to the strong prose in this piece, so sample this: “One winter in Shawangunk, in Ulster County, NY, two inmates on either side of his cell devised a simple game. From morning to night, as Billy watched, envelopes of excrement went from one side to the other, careering past his cell like hockey pucks flying into a revolting space-time dimension. Most of the projectiles landed, and remained, just outside his cell door. After several days, he yelled: ‘If you have a beef with each other, go at it like men. Don’t do this bozo shit!’ … They came up with a new game. For five long weeks, they tirelessly banged on Billy’s cell with their sneakers.” (40 min read)

+ The writer, Shruti Ravindran, is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist. She recently graduated from Columbia University.

4. The amazing micro-engineered, water-repelling surface that lives outside your window

The curious incident of water-repelling leaves in the garden inspires two physicists to explore how some leaves in nature are superhydrophobic—that is, completely water-averse. Using a high-speed camera and some high school math and physics, they show how this cool effect comes about. (7 min read)

5. An interview of T.V. Jayan, science editor of The Telegraph (India)

This interview was published in 2011. However, Jayan’s views on science journalism in India are no less pertinent. He talks about understanding science, misreporting, sensationalisation and ethics. He has advice for aspiring science journalists, too: “Read, read and read.” (9 min read)

Interactive story of the week

Immerse yourself in the wonderful story lives of Vumbi pride of lions at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Produced by National Geographic, the story has 23 short chapters and a compassionate aesthetic to help you understand the complex lives these animals lead, how they grow up, how they hunt, why they eat what they eat, the tribes that live around them, the people who kill them and what we can do to help them. The Vumbi might have provided narrative fodder but their stories are true for every lion in the wild.

Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 11.33.10

We received many helpful replies to our survey (if you filled it out, thank you!). One popular request was to send out Curious Bends twice a week, and we’re going to give that a try.

If you have any suggestions or other feedback, send them to curiousbends@gmail.com. You can also find Akshat and Mukunth on Twitter. Have a nice week!