Sayan’s BlogWorld

On a personal note - this list saves the best for the last.

This mysterious dying out of vultures was widely reported about a year back- with upto 95% decline in some areas. I remember that after reading the report last year, I had decided to see whether I could spot any vultures- over the next few days I didn’t spot a single one during casual observation. The problem was compounded by the fact that vultures don’t win the popularity contest among animals but most educated Indians do recognize the fact that they are important to the ecosystem as scavengers.

What is quite interesting is that the drug being blamed - diclofenac is widely prescribed for human use as well. Apparently, it was not known earlier that it affects vultures so much and probably other birds as well. The Peregrine Fund has appealed for quick steps before three major vulture species become extinct. , they also have a pdf of the original Nature article here.

UPDATE: The three South-Asian vulture species have been classified as critically endangered. It will be really sad if such once widespread species become extinct.

This is a really cool article on how a new technique can visually map structures upto 30nm in size- even indivicual viruses. This revolutionary technique is an innovative use of the Raman effect. ( Sir C.V. Raman got the Nobel prize for this discovery bearing his name. He later went on to start the Indian Institute of Science and the Raman Research Institute- both in Bangalore.)

Booch has almost single-handedly brought software engineering practices into the limelight and into classrooms (sometimes to the resentment of the students). This article throws some light into what are the latest trends in this rapidly evolving arena. What is interesting is that ‘patterning’ is gaining so much interest in a variety of fields.