Vasudevan Mukunth

Southern Asia

Deputy Science Editor at The Hindu

I don't unmix science and politics. Deputy science editor, @the_hindu: mukunth dot v at thehindu dot co dot in.

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Articles

How did human music originate?

5 days ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

The origins of human music are obscure because of the many contexts in which it could have arisen and for a variety of purposes. Archaeologists have found musical instruments among the remains of Egyptian and Indus civilisation sites as well as in similar settlements around the world since the dawn of prehistory. Some theories also suggest human music co-originated with human language, although the evidence is iffy.
Daily Quiz | On the ‘virtues of end-to-end encryption’

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

Daily Quiz | On the ‘virtues of end-to-end encryption’ YOUR SCORE Copy link Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit 0/5 RETAKE THE QUIZ 1 / 5 | Name the cryptographic system in wide use today that secures data by using a pair of keys: the public key, which encrypts the data, and the secret private key, which can decrypt it. Answer : Public-key (or asymmetric) cryptography DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER? YES NO SHOW ANSWER 2 / 5 | Name the concept in cryptography that generates new keys...
The mechanics of crowd control: anticipation, preparation, prevention

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

In his 1997 book ‘Dominance Without Hegemony’, historian Ranajit Guha recounted how Mahatma Gandhi, “perhaps India’s foremost ideologue of self-discipline”, created an “elaborate” set of rules about how people should behave around him as they travelled the country. To Gandhi, Guha wrote, a haphazard crowd was “unmanageable”, “uncontrollable”, “undisciplined”, and ultimately entailed a “mobocracy”.
What is the total allowable catch?

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

The total allowable catch (TAC) is a limit on the total quantity of fish that fishers can catch in a particular area. It’s usual for agencies and governments worldwide that have jurisdiction over fisheries or fish stock in seas, oceans, lakes, etc. to impose a TAC to prevent fishers from catching and removing too many fish from the water body. TACs are important so that the fish population in a water body can maintain a minimum size every year that allows it to sustain itself.
Blood of man bitten by hundreds of snakes leads to strong anti-venom

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

For millennia, there have been stories of people who tried to make themselves immune to poison by regularly ingesting small, non-lethal doses of it. The practice is called mithridatism after the Pontic king Mithridates VI (135-63 BC), who reputedly immunised himself to various poisons this way. Mithridatism is no longer practised today because scientists have developed safer, surer ways to protect the body against many toxins.
The Science Quiz: Mathematical puzzles

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

The Science Quiz: Mathematical puzzles YOUR SCORE Copy link Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit 0/6 RETAKE THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Visual: Name the game whose starting setup is shown here. The point is to move the entire stack of disks to another pole, one at a time, but at no point allowing a larger disk to sit atop a smaller one. Answer : Towers of Hanoi DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER? YES NO SHOW ANSWER 2 / 6 | Pick a positive integer. If it’s odd, multiply by 3 and add 1 (so 5 becomes...
The Science Quiz: Don’t go to these places for summer break

2 weeks ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

The Science Quiz: Don’t go to these places for summer break YOUR SCORE Copy link Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit 0/6 RETAKE THE QUIZ 1 / 6 | Visual: The red dot here shows the location of the world’s third-deepest trench, off the Philippines. It shares its name with a ship that bombed Chennai (then Madras) during World War I. Name it. Answer : Emden DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER? YES NO SHOW ANSWER 2 / 6 | Mount ____, named for a famous Nordic god, in Canada features the world’s...
Chasing solitons

2 weeks ago | rootprivileges.net | Vasudevan Mukunth

Every once in a while, I dive into a topic in science for no reason other than that I find it interesting. This is how I learnt about Titan, laser-cooling, and random walks. This post is about the fourth topic in this series: solitons. A soliton is a stable wave that maintains its shape and characteristics as it moves around. In 1834, a civil engineer named John Scott Russell spotted a single wave moving through the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal in Scotland.
The Science Quiz: Entities that lie at the edge of physics

2 weeks ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

The Science Quiz: Entities that lie at the edge of physics 1 / 6 |Name the man in the picture. The mass of a subatomic particle named for him is very close to a figure that, if that had been the actual mass, could have destroyed the universe as we know it. Credit: Bengt Nyman2 / 6 |The _____________ ___________ is the name for the condition in which spacetime suffers a catastrophic breakdown.
Science Quiz | The places where things stay the same

3 weeks ago | thehindu.com | Vasudevan Mukunth

Science Quiz | The places where things stay the same 1 / 6 |This map shows radiation leftover from the Big Bang right after it happened. It depicts how the temperature of the radiation is anisotropic: different at different distances. What’s this radiation called? Credit: NASA2 / 6 |If the contour lines on a map show all the points that are at the same altitude, an ________ will show the set of all points that have the same steepness. Fill in the blank.