March 18, 2009

PAF claims 6 more lives in IIT Bombay

Hostel 5, IIT Bombay: PAF this year is turning out to be a horror for the reptile community in IIT as six more causalities have been reported late on Tuesday night. The people working for PAF desperately wanted a tube light holder and they forcibly removed it from a Sophie’s room. This is what they found in the inside of the tube light holder, 6 cute little lizard eggs.

One of them was on the verge of hatching but that was not to be because of the interruption and sudden change of habitat. The poor little embryo couldn’t make it. The other 5 are currently battling for their birthdays (hatch-days may be) under strict surveillance and protection at an undisclosed location but wing authorities have confirmed that they are somewhere inside the wing and doing fine so far.

A detailed post mortem was conducted on the still unborn embryo and as shown in the photo, the embryo was in a fairly developed stage with the blood vessels and muscles almost formed with a fully grown heart and liver. Scales are just appearing on its still translucent skin. Though no official case is registered as yet but just imagine on humanitarian grounds, the plight of the poor lizard mother. The hostel G Sec was not available for comment.



courtesy GNN: gtoos news network :p
Photo courtesy: Varun Perumal
Special thanks to Soham Basu

March 11, 2009

Es'sense' of humor

Ever wondered how all those funny guys come up with all the funny stuff? I did... in fact I have been doing research on that for one month now. Now most people I know laugh when I use the words "research" and "me" in the same sentence (even before I finish the sentence). May be it has got to do with my rather offbeat research techniques. For instance my research in humor goes like this. I try to figure out how I come up with funny stuff and then generalize the results on how all the funny people come up with all the funny ideas. "A rather controversial method" you might say. The surprising thing is that this is nothing new. Sigmund Freud did this all his life and he is now considered the father of psychology!

Sense of humor is an interesting paradox. It has no funny definition! Also, the notion of sense of humor changes with the gender. A guy is said to have a good sense of humor if he has the ability to make people laugh. A girl is said to have a good sense of humor if she laughs at whatever the guy-with-good-sense-of-humor says. I know it is unfair but yes, it is pretty easy for the girls, all they have to do is laugh!

Speaking of research, some topics are easier to do research on than others.



I'll illustrate most of my research findings in simple sketches because sketching gives me a lot of pleasure:


Here are some of my research findings illustrated:

Sometimes, giving pep talk to depressed bald people can get quite tricky. Even humor might not help.