Author: vijayraghavendran

Biped I am, Who walks upright and thinks with a one and a half kilo mass of flesh. And gosh, this flesh does produce emotions and questions, and I bet you would agree with me.
Research News

Neurochemistry of power

The neurochemistry of power has implications for political change By Nayef Al-Rodhan, University of Oxford Power, especially absolute and unchecked power, is intoxicating. Its effects occur at the cellular and neurochemical level. They are manifested behaviourally in a variety of ways, ranging from heightened cognitive functions to lack of inhibition, poor judgement, extreme narcissism, perverted behaviour, and gruesome cruelty. The primary neurochemical involved in the … Continue reading Neurochemistry of power

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Chemistry, Research News

Antimicrobial action of bleach

In my AS level chemistry class, students study the disproportionation reaction of chlorine with alkali. In this reaction chlorine gets oxidized and reduced. While studying this topic one of the students asked how chlorine actually kills microbes. This news article published by the British journal Nature in 2008 responds to his question: …Now, researchers have found that bleach can kill bacteria by attacking proteins, quickly destroying … Continue reading Antimicrobial action of bleach

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Research News

Table salt under pressure

Everything around you is made of elements that scientists have studied in quite some detail over the last 200 years. But all that understanding breaks down when these elements are subjected to high pressure and temperature. Now, using an advanced theoretical understanding and extreme conditions, researchers have converted table salt into exotic chemicals. Salt is made from one part sodium (Na) and one part chlorine … Continue reading Table salt under pressure

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Excel, Technology

Databases – retrieving records

Link to files used in my video. Excelisfun’s one of the several formula  based methods to retrieve records from a list based on a criteria – Video. It is much faster than the array formulas which can produce the same result. Cameron Crest’s video on query function in google spreadsheets is a missing manual for on query functions. His blog lists the spreadsheet employed in … Continue reading Databases – retrieving records

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Education, Excel, Technology

Individualised reports from Google forms

This video explains how one can create a mail merged document from form submissions. A simple mail merged document will give one report per record. This video employs excel formulas to accomplish individualised report per student when there are multiple records for the same student. The source files can be downloaded here. Videos on incrementing cells can be viewed in the two videos from Mike … Continue reading Individualised reports from Google forms

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Odds and sods

Recreating a 400 year old book

On the night of January 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei, a resident of Padua, walked onto his balcony and tipped his telescope toward space. He spotted three stars near Jupiter and graphed their positions in a notebook. Six days later, he looked through his telescope again and found the same stars—but their positions had shifted. They were, he realized, moons orbiting Jupiter. Galileo had long believed … Continue reading Recreating a 400 year old book

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Research News

The life and times of a pharmaceutical drug

One of the chapters in the A level (final year of high school) Salters Chemistry in the UK was drug discovery and clinical trials. The story line book covered this topic in 5 or so pages. What was not mentioned were the actual difficulties and the hurdles that the scientists underwent to discover a new drug. This article published in ‘The New Yorker‘ takes us … Continue reading The life and times of a pharmaceutical drug

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