Dawn of science

His improved telescope gave Huygens a better vision of the sky, but his ideas about light lay buried for a century.     

Dawn of science

The idea of ‘spontaneous generation’ of life comes under rigorous scrutiny — with the help from an unexpected quarter, the advent of microscopy.     

Dawn of science

In mankind’s quest for knowledge, spanning the last four thousand years, certain developments stand out as milestones in the progress of science. This new series, intended for the general reader, will highlight such key events in the growth of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering in an approximately chronological manner.     

Snippets of physics

It is well known in Newtonian gravity that a spherically symmetric density distribution produces a force outside it which falls as the square of the distance. Surprisingly, the converse is not true! Just be cause the force falls as inverse square outside a density distribution, you cannot conclude that it must be spherically symmetric. This article, first in a new series, explores this and related issues. This is based on an article originally published by the author in Physics Education, Vol 22, No. 4, p.263, 2006. T Padmanabhan works at IUCAA, Pune and is interested in all areas of theoretical physics, especially those which have something to do with gravity.     

Snippets of physics

Scaling arguments and dimensional analysis are powerful tools in physics which help you to solve several interesting problems. And when the scaling arguments fail, as in the examples discussed here, we are led to a more fascinating situation. T Padmanabhan works at IUCAA, Pune and is interested in all areas of theoretical physics, especially those which have something to do with gravity.     

Dawn of science

But for the phenomenal rise of the Arab civilisation, the earlier Greek scientific traditions could have been lost forever.     

Oxidant status and lipid profile in vegetarians and fish eaters

Habitual consumption of moderate amounts of fish is associated with reduced mortality from coronary heart disease. However the beneficial effects of fish enriched diet seem contradictory, due to the susceptibility of the PUFAs in them to oxidation. It is also acclaimed that vegetarians in general, have a lower serum total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol and a better antioxidant status. This contradiction was the basis for the study, where the validity of the above finding was tested in a general population consuming a vegetarian or predominantly fish diet as a regular dietary habit. The oxidant status and the lipid profile of 23 vegetarians and 22 fish eaters was studied by estimating the plasma lipid peroxides measured as malondialdehyde (MDA) and the lipid parameters viz. Total Cholesterol (TC), HDL-Cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglycerides (TG). Statistical analysis was carried out to compare the MDA values and the lipemic status between the two groups. MDA was also correlated with the various lipid indices among the study groups. None of the compared and correlated values was statistically significant, although certain altered trends were seen. From this study, it may be concluded that oxidant status and lipid profile does not vary significantly in the two groups, suggesting that neither a vegetarian diet nor a fish diet has a definite benefit over the other.