The Blog
The Odd Couple
The first of these stories featuring an old couple and a host of zany characters appeared in the Tamil weekly Kumudham in 1963 and has entertained fans ever since. The writer was Bhagyam Ramasami; the illustrator Jayraj. Sita Patti [full name: Sitalakshmi Appusamy], the madisar-clad sixty-plus bombshell, is the president of a ladies...
Read MoreElephant Conservation Conundrum
Those who grew up in southern India may fondly recall temple elephants with their tinkling neck-bells. As children, we didn't notice the shackles on their legs. Elephants have iconic status in India, they were used in warfare, and also in construction and transportation, apart...
Read MoreThe Cricket Woman
Physical courage is generally not a requirement for studying science, but field biology seems to call for this quality. Swati Diwakar spent many a night in an evergreen forest in South India collecting data for her dissertation on crickets taking the occasional viper bite in...
Read MoreThree Smart Bras
Did the Wonder Woman's bra confer any special protection on her? Was it good for anything more than, you know, the usual? I am not well up enough on my superhero comics to know the answer to this question, but here are three added-values...
Read MoreAn Interpreter of Interesting Research
No news story has written itself for me, thus far. This is not a complaint, it is a boast. As a science journalist, I work hard to file good articles, or copy, as we say in the business. I translate jargon into narrative for a...
Read MoreWhat’s that smell?
Eat no onions or garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath,” a Shakespearean character entreats actors in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Alliums are aromatics, eaten precisely for their smelly qualities. But what if you’re forbidden onions and garlic for life? Some vegetarians...
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