Death be not proud - 3

Anna Politkovskaya, courageous journalist and critic of the Putin administration's brutal war of crimes in Chechnya, was shot dead at her apartment building earlier this week.

Vilhelm Konnander writes about Anna Politkovskaya murder and Vladimir Putin’s silence:

“The fact remains: When Russia’s “first journalist” is silenced, Russia’s “first person” stays silent. No word from Putin, no word from the Kremlin when the freedom of the press is trampled on by brutal suppression. The tacit message thus sent, resounds with piercing echo: Freedom of speech has no place in Putin’s Russia.”

White Sun of the Desert writes that Politkovskaya’s “death is a tragedy for Russia. If somehow the government was involved, it represents a disaster.”

Analysis: The assassination of Anna Politkovskaya is designed to warn others against exposing the abuses of Moscow's authoritarian nationalist drift

Chechnya: Articles by Anna Politkovskaya

"Russia's Secret Heroes", an excerpt from A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya.

Red October:Killing the Truth in Moscow

Edward Lucas posts the Economist’s obituary.

A Step At A Time translates an earlier interview with Anna Politkovskaya’s editor, Dmitry Muratov.

The Accidental Russophile compiles links on the tragic event; La Russophobe accuses him of “an early attack” on the murdered journalist.

A quick history recap perhaps is appropriate here:

First Chechen War (1994-96)
Second Chechen War (1999- present)

And earlier in September, Andrey Kozlov, the top deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank was shot dead, allegedly because of his efforts to clean up the country's banking system by closing banks that were involved in money laundering. Kozlov, in the late 90s, was responsible for saving Russia from financial ruin.

Meanwhile, a report says that there have been 655,000 deaths in Iraq since the US invasion of the country...all I can say is..

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" - 1 Corinthians 15:55

Chess World Championship - Update

Man..crazy! The high stakes of chess - who would have known that geeky geniuses could get so competitive, huh? :)

Today, I read this Amit Varma's blog:

I'd written earlier about the curious turns the World Championship unification match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov had taken, with Topalov accusing Kramnik of taking too many bathroom breaks, and implying that he cheated in the loo. Well, the action has hotted up since, with Topalov's manager having done an analysis that supposedly shows that 78% of Kramnik's moves were also the first choice of Fritz 9, a computer program. That hardly sounds like evidence to me: if another top player was put through the same situations, I imagine there would be pretty much that many moves in common. Something like 95% would have been more convincing.Here's the reaction of Kramnik's camp, which no doubt cheered up a bit after Evgeny Bareev and Peter Svidler, two top grandmasters, publicly took Kramnik's side. Former world champion Garry Kasparov put it all in perspective in a piece in the Wall Street Journal, while Yasser Seirawan, once a formidable grandmaster himself, explained the roles of the officials involved, and where they went wrong.

I had posted earlier about the Chess World Championship here.

Roddick rumors

Maybe those rumors about him & Sharapova were just that...rumors... because when you can 'flirt' with or 'date' (or whatever else they allegedly did) Sharapova...why'd you go for white-trash like Paris Hilton. It can't be the money (he has enuf)... And ugggh - save me the details, please!!

Paris and  Andy
After dating billionaire Greek heirs, rockers and actors, hotel heiress Paris Hilton reportedly has a new man in her life – tennis champion Andy Roddick. The couple were spotted flirting at Las Vegas' trendy Tao nightclub recently, and were also seen getting hot and heavy on the VIP bed in Vegas’ Pure nightclub.

Hydrogen as a Fuel

Much research & hype about fuel cell-driven cars hitting the market soon but critics argue that powering vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells is both inefficient and expensive despite what the US Dept. of Energy has proclaimed:

'This emerging technology can significantly reduce energy use and harmful emissions, as well as our dependence on foreign oil.'

So, people argue that GM's billion-dollar bet is a bad strategy for the beleagured company. You ask why? Well...because:

Hydrogen fuel must be extracted from fossil fuels or water--both energy-consuming processes. Once produced, the gas must be compressed or liquefied for distribution, and this process and the distribution itself take yet more energy. By the time the hydrogen has been delivered to the fuel cell for conversion to electricity, then, a significant amount of energy has been lost to these processes.

"Along the way, you've thrown away nearly three-quarters of the electricity. No one in their right mind would do that--if your alternative is to just string a power line from zero-carbon electricity and charge a battery onboard a car," says Joseph Romm, executive director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, and formerly in charge of energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Romm says a more promising alternative to internal-combustion engines are plug-in hybrids, which combine an electric motor powered by batteries with a conventional gasoline- or diesel-powered engine, but rely on the electric motor far more than today's hybrids. Plug-in hybrids, which are being developed by Toyota, with conversion kits for ordinary hybrids already available through several companies, would not eliminate the use of gas, but they would cut down on it significantly. In one type of plug-in hybrid, electricity from the grid can provide enough power for an average commute, at a fraction of the cost of gasoline.

Charging a battery in a plug-in hybrid would be around three to four times more energy efficient than going through the intermediate steps required to make hydrogen fuel from water, using a process called electrolysis, according to Ulf Bossel, organizer of the European Fuel Cell Forum, which supports fuel cells for electrical utilities.

There is more...read it at the article.

Also read:

News from 2003: Research, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, says that diesel and petrol hybrid vehicles will still be the best option at this point, despite the prospect of "aggressive research" on hydrogen fuel. The report undermines the prospects of early success for President George W Bush's recently announced $1.2bn drive to develop commercially viable fuel cell "freedom cars" by 2020.

Hydrogen's Dirty Secret and this quick enumeration of the negatives of fuel cells from Hybrid Car supporters - though there apparently are a few happy customers and many supporters* of fuel-cell technology too. What was that they said about ignorance being bliss?

* The Bumpy Road to Hydrogen - a paper by Daniel Sperling and Joan Ogden, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis. Presented at World Hydrogen Energy Conference, Lyon, France, June 15, 2006. The accompanying presentation can also be found online (pdf).

Learn about how Fuel cells work (including an animated video)and here's a riposte to some of the questions you've been hearing and reading about hydrogen and fuel cells.

Nobel Prize

Earlier this week, the 2006 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Andrew Fire of Stanford University and Craig Mello at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, for groundbreaking discovery in silencing genes. Called RNA interference, it occurs in plants, animals and people and is important for regulating gene activity and helping defend against viruses. In RNA interference, certain molecules trigger the destruction or inactivation of the messenger RNA from a particular gene, so that no protein is produced. Thus the gene is effectively silenced.

Amazing that the prize has been awarded to researchers just 8-9 years after their discovery!

But it's appropriate, said Bruce Stillman, president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., because the work ''is recognized now as one of the really revolutionary changes in the way we think about how genes are controlled.''

Apparently, this discovery has spawned a niche biotechnology industry almost immediately after its discovery in 1997. And earlier this week, I also read about a related research study

Scientists stop colon cancer growth in mice by blocking just one enzyme
Texas researchers have discovered what may become a potent new weapon in the fight against colon cancer. In cell culture experiments, scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and the University of Texas at Arlington determined that stopping the activity of a single enzyme called aldose reductase could shut down the toxic network of biochemical signals that promotes inflammation and colon cancer cell growth.

And today the Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to Roger Kornberg, the son of a Nobel laureate, for describing gene copying in cells, which can give insight into illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. The process of gene copying, known as "genetic transcription" is central to life.

"If transcription stops, genetic information is no longer transferred into the
different parts of the body. Since these are then no longer renewed, the
organism dies within a few days," the Academy said. Disturbances in
transcription contribute to many human illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease
and various kinds of inflammation, it added. Poisonous toadstools kill by
interrupting the process. Understanding transcription is also important for the
development of various therapeutic applications of stem cells, the Academy said.
Kornberg was the first to create pictures showing transcription in action. His
depictions were so detailed that separate atoms could be distinguished.

The God Delusion

Should be a very interested read - I've been meaning to read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (and his later books like A Devil's Chaplain / The Ancestor's Tale / Unweaving the Rainbow) for some time now but have not gotten around to reading it or any of the books by the other eloquent evolutionist (who died prematurely at age 60 couple years back!) - Stephen Jay Gould!

Richard Dawkins, has a new book titled, The God Delusion. In it, according to his Web site, he "eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being (and) shows how religion fuels war, forments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence." For a taste of Dawkins' evangelical atheism and disbelief in belief, check out this interview with him on the BBC's Newsnight Book Club. Link to YouTube video - via (with some hyperlinks added by me) a post by David Pescovitz at Boing Boing

Interview with Richard Dawkins - The renowned biologist talks about intelligent design, dishonest Christians, and why God is no better than an imaginary friend. You can also read earlier lectures, articles, letters, commentaries, and other interviews with him, where he argues persuasively that 'God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages.'

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages.

Dawkins marshalls a lifetime's arguments against believing in God Dawkins explains why he finds the resurgence of religion so annoying

Judgement Day - Book Review: Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion gives it to believers with both barrels.

An Excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book and an excerpt from Chapter 7 of the book, titled: The "Good" Book and the changing moral Zeitgeist.

Via BBC - Jeremy Paxman talks to Richard Dawkins, including some really interesting responses from readers & listerners. You can also read some extracts from the book here.

And ofcourse, it has gained its fair share of criticism from religious and conservative forces in society... though calling it a 'incurious and rambling diatribe' against religion is perhaps unfair.

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Related Books to read:

1. Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God by Dorothee Soelle
2. A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
3. The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
4. Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins
5. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett
6. Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
7. The Trial of God by Elie Wiesel
8. The End of Faith by Sam Harris
9. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
10. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett
11. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
12. Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think: Reflections by Scientists, Writers, and Philosophers by Alan Grafen
13. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer
14. The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience by Cliff Pickover
15. A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit by Alan Lightman
16. Nature Via Nurture by Matt Ridley

History repeats itself?

The 'war on terror' that ruined Rome

In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world's only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome's port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped. The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But an event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.