Science

A 72-year old resident of Kolkata named Kartick Chandra Paul has spent the last few decades of his life trying to convince people that the Sun revolves around the Earth with the other planets revolving around the Sun. He does his convincing through the use of graffiti and illustrated leaflets that adorn the walls and lamp-posts of South Kolkata.

The 'science of life' aka Ayurveda is now getting chic in India as well. According to this article on Livemint, some serious spin has been imparted to it "at Threesixty°, the buzzing world-cuisine restaurant at The Oberoi, New Delhi". Prior to being served, you are apparently 'sized-up' based on your build and personality which places you in one of the following categories:

The theoretical physicist, Ashoke Sen, is one of nine recipients of the newly created Fundamental Physics Prize. The prize is awarded to scientists who have made notable contributions to fundamental research in physics. Sen was selected for his ground-breaking contributions to the field of string theory and particularly,

Altruism has long been a contentious issue in evolutionary biology as it is a counter-intuitive fit in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. While altruistic behaviour has been studied in colonies of bacteria, a recently published paper indicates that it can also occur at a cellular level. Bikul Das, a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown that certain human embryonic stem cells, in times of stress, produce molecules that not only benefit themselves, but also help nearby cells survive.

A 16-year old Indian German named Shouryya Ray is being lauded for solving two physics problems that have apparently plagued scientists since the time of Newton.

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on the Indian government's policy to not share seismology data with international bodies due to concerns that this might compromise the security of our nuclear testing programme. The October 8th earthquake is now apparently forcing a reevaluation of this policy:

Kapil Sibal, the minister of science and technology, acknowledged to reporters in Delhi last week that "India surely needs to network with the rest of the global earthquake community. It needs to re-think on all old issues."