Month: March 2023

Book Review: Passion for Mathematics by Clifford Pickover

Pooja Kashyap

Recently, I came across the works of Clifford Pickover. I finished reading Surfing Through Hyperspace and I found it extremely interesting, and so I decided to try another book from his vault – Passion for Mathematics. This book is equally fascinating. I liked the presentation of the content. Firstly, the various mathematical ideas are introduced with diagrams and puzzles, which helps in understanding the notion better. Secondly, quotes are sprinkled here and there to give the subject some poetic effect and depth to abstract concepts. Thirdly, the brain teasers and…

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Zinc Batteries for Sustainable Development: The New Hybrid Electrolyte

Pooja Kashyap

Zinc batteries have been explored as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for large-scale energy storage since long. Zinc-based batteries is preferred over li-ion batteries because it is abundant, low-cost, and environmentally friendly compared to other metals. However, their efficiency has been limited due to issues with the zinc metal anode. However, with the recent development of a new electrolyte that improves the efficiency of the zinc metal anode to nearly 100%, researchers envision that it could make zinc batteries a viable alternative.

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Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Pooja Kashyap

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a beautiful book written by Rebecca Skloot in 2010. It is about a poor African American woman who came down with a rare cervical cancer in 1950s. After giving birth to her fourth child, Henrietta grew suspicious of a lump in her cervix. To clarify things, she went straight to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The doctor took a biopsy by extracting sample cells for examination. Although she couldn’t survive, after a few sessions of x-ray therapy and radium treatment. She died at the age…

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Real-time Neural MPC: Deep Learning & Model Predictive Control Framework

Pooja Kashyap

Model predictive control (MPC) is a powerful technique that has gained popularity in recent years for controlling the movements of robotic agents. It involves using a model of the agent’s dynamics to predict its future behaviour. Followed by optimization of this behaviour to achieve a desired goal while also satisfying a set of constraints. MPC algorithms are capable of handling complex scenarios and can consider various factors such as the agent’s physical constraints, environmental conditions, and the dynamics of other objects in the environment. This makes MPC a popular choice…

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Altered Gravity can give Suppressive Effect: Immune System in Space

Pooja Kashyap

Short-term exposure to altered gravity, such as the brief periods of weightlessness experienced during parabolic flights, is generally not considered to be harmful to human health. However, it’s important to note that even short periods of altered gravity can slightly thought not exponentially affect the body in various ways. For example, during periods of weightlessness, fluids tend to shift from the lower body to the upper body, which can cause a decrease in blood volume and an increase in pressure in the head and upper body. This can result in…

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Book review: Surfing Through Hyperspace by Clifford A. Pickover

Pooja Kashyap

Surfing Through Hyperspace: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons by Clifford A. Pickover hovers around the concept of fourth dimension. In simple words, it’s a walkthrough of higher dimensions.   Clifford A. Pickover is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. A futurist and science writer, Pickover likes to contemplate realms beyond our 3-dimensional reality. Interestingly, he puts his ideas down on paper for readers like us to experience his visualizations.

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Dynamics between Quantum Entanglement: Coupling at a Distance

Pooja Kashyap

Entanglement is a unique and powerful feature of quantum mechanics. It allows two or more particles, such as photons of light, to become correlated in such a way that the state of one particle is immediately determined by the state of the other particle, regardless of the distance between them. This phenomenon has been studied extensively in the field of quantum physics. It has important implications for the development of quantum technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum computing.

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Book Review: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

Pooja Kashyap

In The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert explores the current state of biodiversity loss and the role that human activities have played in causing it. Kolbert is an American journalist and author. She is the editor of “The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009” and the author of “The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit,” “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” and “The Sixth Extinction,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2015. The Sixth Extinction provides a detailed analysis…

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Neuro-Stack to records Single Neuron Activity: Brain Mechanisms of Movement

Pooja Kashyap

New technologies have revolutionized many fields, including medicine and neuroscience. Advances in engineering, materials science, and computer technology have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated devices for recording and analysing biological signals, such as brain activity, with unprecedented precision and accuracy. For instance, electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive technique that measures electrical activity in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. With the advancement in electronics and computing the EEG signals can now be recorded with greater precision and resolution.

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Book Review: Running Rewired by Jay Dicharry

Pooja Kashyap

Running Rewired: Reinvent Your Run for Stability, Strength, and Speed by Jay Dicharry is more of a workable program than a book to read. Jay is a physical therapist, teacher, biomechanics researcher, in Oregon, USA. His REP Lab is a national destination for elite athletes because he diagnoses and rebuilds injured endurance athletes. Along with Running Rewired, he has also written Anatomy for Runners: Unlocking Your Athletic Potential for Health, Speed, and Injury Prevention, which I’ll be reading and of course reviewing in the near future.

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Book Review: The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan

Pooja Kashyap

The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan hovers around a hypothetical event that is, a time in the future when AI has totally eclipsed human intelligence. What then? There will be an exponential progress in technology that’ll create a future too difficult to predict.   Some experts, however, suggest that AI then can solve some of the world’s most pressing problems such as climate change, disease, and poverty. While others believe that the singularity could lead to the end of humanity as we know it.

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Molecular Atlas of Spider Silk: Fibrous Protein Assembly

Pooja Kashyap

Researchers at Southwest University in China have successfully constructed the chromosomal-scale genome assembly as well as the complete spidroin gene set of the golden orb-weaving spider. The chromosomal-scale genome assembly represents genome sequence; while the spidroin refers to proteins in spider silk. Different spidroins determine the varieties in spider silks.   With this new insight, researchers can dive deeper into the silk-producing capabilities of spiders. Eventually, this might lead to the development of new materials with desirable mechanical properties.

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