Deepavalli 2010

Happy Deepavalli to all of our readers. This is still one of my favourite festivals; the food, fire crackers , sweets and kite flying(my favourite). Kite flying is not as popular as before and I think its illegal to sell/fly them in Chennai. But in my youth I was consumed by kite flying and spent a better part of 2 months every year flying them. Still have some great memories.

Last but not least; Deepavalli movie releases are high anticipated events and I am happy to say the tradition continues. Have a great weekend.

Prabhakar

GRAPHENE

Announcing the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. As most of you know this is a yearly award prior to the Nobel Prize announcements which celebrates research which make people laugh , then think.The yearly awards are given out at the Harvard Sander's Theatre in Boston.

ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.

REF: A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs

Note- Snot(Muku Chali) can show the disease pattern in whales and its relationship to decrease in their numbers.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.

REF: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception,"

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.

REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design,"

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.

REF: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention,"

PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.

REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," .

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," .

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.

REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.WHO

MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.

REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,”

BIOLOGY PRIZE- not suitable for a family blog like ours. So please google if interested.

Now this year is of interest because the 2010 Physics Nobel prize winners Geim and Novoselov from Univ of Manchester , UK, were Ig nobel winners in 2000. The Ig nobel prize was given to Dr Geim when he managed to levitate a live frog using a magnetic field.

The physics nobel prize was for investigating the ultra thin carbon flake known as Graphene. Graphene is not only the thinnest material known but also the strongest and hardest and its applications are going to be wide. Stay tuned

Not Enough Latrines

The XIX Commonwealth Games (CWG) opened on Sunday Oct 3, 2010. If you have not already heard, India is hosting the Commonwealth games this year; but all is not well. There has been an incessant drumbeat of things going wrong, leading up to the games. There were some factors one doesn’t have much control over like- heavy monsoon, terror alerts and Dengue fever. But the main problems started when the international athletes came into New Delhi and found their accommodation were uninhabitable. When the quarters were being built, they forgot to build toilets for the construction workers. They in turn freely used the toilets and ruined their good work. A year ago the federation regulating the games reported that the preparation is far beyond schedule.

After this was debated in the media with pictures of the dirty quarters in major media, the authorities stepped in the correct the problem. But the damage is done. I have no doubt that the games in themselves will be conducted in a very professional manner and the games will have wide following. But I was really hoping for a great CWG, not a mediocre one and then India would have been in the running for hosting the Olympics in the future. That would have been the prize to savor.

Now is there a need for toilets in India in the public space. The answer is yes. The dark and narrow urine streets of Chennai do not count as toilets in the public space. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which gives away 3 billion dollars per year for global health care, has invested a lot on building toilets. Up to a million and a half children die due to poor sanitary causes in the world every year. One of the success stories have been in North India where women refuse to marry men without toilets in their houses. “No Loo, No I do”.

And why do men find it hard to hold on and pee when ever they feel the urge and how do women hold on for long periods of time? These are tough questions . Maybe men should try wearing Diapers.

Prabhakar

The Bolton Wanderers

This picture is from our recent visit to the UK. We had a lovely visit with Jeyam and Manu. The kids had a great time . Bolton being close to Manchester, I was able to make a pilgrimage to old Trafford (home of Manchester United) and paid my respects. Overall it was a great reunion for me and my family.

A side trip to Edinburgh didn't disappoint either. The city was in the middle of their annual Fringe Festival.

If others have any photos of classmates meeting , would be happy to share in the blog.

prabhakar

Fresh Air

I think all of us remember the the hot august night when we had our reunion last year. Now after a year we were able to install an A/C unit at the surgical oncology unit at Govt Royapettah Hospital. This money came from the surplus remaining from the reunion . Over time its going to help hundreds of poor patients providing comfort after major surgery . More importantly will give great relief from the noise of the giant fan in the post op ward.

Thanks to Vasanthy and Viswanathan in completing this project.

prabhakar

Post Vuvuzela Time

So how was the world cup for all of you. I have been having a great time. The final was not particularly good , but it was the right result. Even though I support the Dutch, they played a negative game. So in my opinion they deserve to lose.

But there have been many disappointments along the way. The refereeing decisions ever really bad, particularly for England. The hand ball by Uruguay which , should be a goal for Ghana was very unfair. They should ban that player for life. I could not stand the fake plays to draw fouls and penalties , dont know how they can look in the mirror and feel good about themselves. Its about time they included video review for goals scored.

But there were some good things come out of this world cup. South Africa delivered a seamless world cup and all the talk about violence etc didnt happen, thankfully.And it was great to see Maradona back and looking good.

So the wait for the next world cup begins. The next one will be a special one- Brazil 2014.

Viva Brasil.

prabhakar

The Beautiful Game

Its time again to enjoy the beautiful game in South Africa. I have been a dedicated follower of the soccer world cup since 1978. Who can forget Paolo Rossi of 1982, Maradona, Platini, Zico , Socrates(the Doctor) of 1986. Over the years I find less time to watch all the matches, but always try.

I have found the games more of a celebration and would be following Brazil, Argentina, England , USA , Ivory Coast. There are always suprises . The big suprise this year is North Korea in the world cup. How did they manage to qualify without the resources and money? When will India field a team? Hope we do in the near future.

So over the next month I will keep blogging about the world cup and hope you enjoy it. Let the games begin. Game on.

Prabhakar