Atheist doctors more likely to care for poor than religious ones.

A large cross sectional survey of U.S doctors, recently published in the Annals of Family Medicine suggests that non religious or atheist doctors are more likely to practice medicine among the poor than religious physicians, even though most of the world's religions encourage service among the poor.

According to the results of the survey, 31 percent of physicians who were more religious—as measured by "intrinsic religiosity" as well as frequency of religious service attendance practiced among the poor. Compared to this, 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none were practising among the underserved.

This goes against the popular myth of religious people being more altruistic and caring.

Read the news article and the original study.

Music vs Science: 6 great songs with the most absurd science related lyrics

Many song writers have used science as the inspiration for their lyrics. Some times you can only wonder at their scientific acumen and attraction towards to Blackholes and other celestial phenomena.

My list of Top 6 science related nonsensical lyrics.


6. Champagne Supernova - Oasis

Supernova is defined as the death explosion of a massive star, resulting in a sharp increase in brightness followed by a gradual fading. Champagne Supernova? No idea... you need to be writing under the influence (WUI) to come up with that! Or it could be some thing mundane like the yellow pages inspiring Chris Martin to come with the classic "Yellow".


5. Supermassive Black hole - Muse

This rock group from Devon has attained success with their unique mix of progressive rock and electronic sound. Front man Mathew Bellamy is known for his eccentric interests including global conspiracy, mars and apocalypse. Their latest album "Black Holes and Revelations" was a big hit. The first single "Supermassive black hole" claims

"(You set my soul alight)
Glaciers melting in the dead of night
And the superstars sucked into the supermassive
Supermassive black hole
Supermassive black hole
Supermassive black hole."

Great song to listen to.. but the science? Surely absurd.












4. Mammal - They might be giants.

This American alternative rock duo are known for their science related lyrics.

"Mammal, mammal
Their names are called
They raise a paw
The bat, the cat
Dolphin and dog
Koala bear and hog"

Koala bear is a marsupial mate!


3. Final Countdown - Europe


Swedish Rock group wrote this famous song inspired by David Bowie's "Space oddity". Great opening rocker for their concerts.

The song goes.......

"We're heading for Venus
and still we stand tall
Cause maybe they've seen us
and welcome us all
With so many light years to go
and things to be found
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so"

So actually how many light years to go to Venus? 6.01 light-minutes in fact!

2. Drops of Jupiter - Train

Train won Grammy Award for best rock song for their 2001 single Drops of Jupiter.

"Now that shes back in the atmosphere
With drops of jupiter in her hair, hey, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that theres time to change, hey, hey
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like june, hey, hey

Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated"

Sail across sun... return from stay on the moon... with drops of Jupiter in her hair! Sublime nonsense!



1. Black hole Sun - Soundgarden

Chris Cornell is a rock god and pioneer of grunge music with one of the best vocal ability in the business. But he cannot escape the Black hole attraction either. His biggest hit with Soundgarden is the Black hole sun


"Black hole sun
Wont you come
And wash away the rain
Black hole sun
Wont you come
Wont you come"

Black hole sun washing away the rain! Scientific absurdity surely cannot get any better than this.

Cat senses impending death!

Oscar the cat, adopted as a kitten at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode island, USA is reported to have an uncanny ability to predict impending death of the inmates with remarkable accuracy

A few months after the adoption the staff noticed that Oscar would go around the home sniffing and observing patients and then sleep next to certain patients. What astonished the staff was that whoever Oscar slept with would die within 2 hours. The cat has apparently predicted accurately the death of 25 inmates. Now whenever Oscar is found curling up and sleeping with a patient the staff calls the family to inform them of the impending death!

This news has received wide media coverage and even an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. It is surprising that NEJM has published such a report even though it is anecdotal. Extra ordinary claims need extra ordinary proofs.

Assuming this is true, how is the cat sensing the impending death? Cats and other animals are known to sense or predict impending natural disasters like earth quakes. Some think the animal is able to smell some chemicals emitted by the dying. Some are of the opinion that the cat is picking up reduced movements of the dying inmate.

What ever it is, this is one cat I wouldn’t want curling up next to me. Read more here

$100 laptop for sale later this year?

Scientific American reports that the XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop is going on sale even though it was originally intended for only the developing world.


These are low cost, low spec machines which use flash memory instead of a hard drive and use linux as the operating system. The faculty of MIT labs have realised that there is a market for this laptop even though much higher spec machines are available at the $350-$525 mark it might be sold for. This is proabably due to the ruggedness of the machine and the ability to power the machine with a hand crank or solar power.

see the article here

Walk like an Egyptian : World's first prosthetics?

A recent article in National Geographic magazine shows what could be the earliest known functional prosthetic. This big toe which is made of wood and leather is dated between 1000 and 600 BCE. A group of volunteers are about to test this prosthetic to study whether it really works.

Search for water and life on Mars

In 2004, Opportunity one of the Mars rovers discovered Mars had surface water for millions of years long enough for life to develop in that planet. Is there still any water present in Mars? This is an area of controversy. If water is present, it is well hidden beneath the surface.

NASA's Phoenix robotic space craft is scheduled to be launched in August 2007 will land in Martian artic circle in June 2008. Its robotic arm will be digging for water under the surface and obtain information about the geological history of water.
Another exciting objective of this mission will be to look for habitable environment suitable for microbial life. Some evidence suggests that the subterranean ice on Mars periodically melt to create a habitable zone. Phoenix, by digging up to half a metre down will look for evidence of degraded organic molecules.

Compared to the long living Martian rovers, this stationary robotic craft will have a shorter life span. Since it is landing nearer to the pole, after about 3 months, the sun will start setting soon and space craft will be frozen for the winter covered with solid carbon dioxide.

But during those 3 months, let us hope that this Phoenix which has risen from the ashes of the ill fated Polar lander will change the way we think about the desolate planet and life as we know it.

Check out this Newscientist article on the same