Dear Email Subscribers

Dear Email Subscribers-

Starting with this post, emails to you will be delivered courtesy MailChimp. Feedburner which has been sending you updates to my blog all these years is discontinuing its email subscription service from July. Your email addresses have already been transferred to MailChimp, so there is no need for any action on your part. 

I did get some feedback while I was testing out this new service. For some Gmail addresses, post were being directed to the Promotions folder. Please do keep an eye out for Rapid Uplift mails in your Promotions folder too and manually move them to your inbox so Gmail learns to treat them as Not Spam. I am still tinkering with the style aspects so you can expect subsequent emails to have differing formatting. The content however will remain strictly geology! :)

Over the years, I've had the privilege of being followed by a substantial subscriber base. Naturally I don't know most of  you personally. Feel free to press the Reply button and drop a line. I would love to hear from  you. 

Thank you again for your support and motivation.

Suvrat Kher

Notice To Readers: Comment Moderation

Dear Readers:

If you have left a comment on my blog over the past two years or so and not gotten a reply from me, it is most likely because you posted a comment one week after the publication of my post. After one week, comments are routed to a moderation queue. I am supposed to get a notification by email of pending comments. I noticed today that this email notification setting was turned off! As a result, I have been unaware of the many comments that were languishing in the moderation queue. 

I apologize for my oversight. I have reset the notification settings and I should now be receiving an email regarding any comments pending moderation. You can also email me directly. You can find my email address on the Profile Page. 

As always, a big thank you for your continuing support of my blog.

Musings: Two Million Page Visits

Recently, someone who spends most of the day staring at excel spreadsheets told me that geology is a 'dry' subject.

Another typical reaction I get about geology is an inquiry as to why I choose this unusual or fringe field. That too mystifies me. How can a science that is so central to understanding how the earth works be 'fringe'?

Geological knowledge makes the world turn. But the search for metals, oil and coal is not its only utility. For the past 4.6 billion years, the earth has been in a state of constant churn, a dynamic driven by the transfer of chemicals and heat between its interior and the surface. Rocks, organisms, and air feed of each other in an intricate web of energy exchanges. As historians of the earth, we build narratives about this evolution by delving into the rocky archives of past oceans, terrains and climate. We try to understand the processes connecting these different realms on timescales both vast and fleeting.

These history lessons from the deep past give geologists a unique perspective on how the surface of the earth, our home, will change in the near and distant future, changes caused by the interaction of human activity and natural process. Geoscientists will have a critical role to play in solving the big challenges of resource management, environmental degradation and climate change.

Refreshingly, I saw a different attitude towards geology in younger minds. A few weeks back I was asked to judge a school earth sciences projects contest. The children had prepared some wonderful demonstrations of how geology and our daily lives intersect. They were curious about the subject and passionate about applying the science to better our future. This early immersion in earth sciences might just make them more responsible and better informed stewards of our planet.

That day gave me some hope for the coming decades.

I write to tell these richly rewarding stories about geology. Maybe I have succeeded somewhat in my endeavor.

I am forever seeking newer audiences for my writings. A request to you to pass on the link to my blog to your friends. You can also subscribe directly by email or follow me on Twitter.

As for my friend, I am happy to say that he responded well to a treatment of 'one week in the Himalaya', so much so that towards the end of the trip he asked for a geology book list.

You Now Have Easier Access To Some Of My Favorite Posts

This was suggested to me by Indian Top Blogs who reviewed my blog some time back and I've been wanting to do this for a while. Give readers easier access to posts written long back. I've created categories just below the blog banner image that describe some of my favorite topics and experiences. These are not necessarily the most popular posts by the metrics but are topics which I've enjoyed covering.

Great Conversations- I love listening to a good science conversation and these posts cover some of the more engaging talks I've come across.

My Book Shelf - I've posted passages from books that I had been reading at that instance, often with my commentary and thoughts.

Humor - Can't live without that!

Field Trips - Can't live without that either!!

Maps - Wouldn't be a geology blog if I didn't cover interesting maps.

Geology and Livelihoods - Where I explore the myriad ways in which geology impacts our lives.

I might add categories, so readers following my blog via email or feed do go over to the site once in a while to see if any new category has been added.

5 Years And I Am Still Blogging!

Just realized that its been 5 years to the day that I started blogging!

Here is my very first post, an essay on early human evolution and the topology of the evolutionary process  - The Trunk-Less Tree Of Life

Yeah.. I still feel pretty enthused about the whole blogging experience, so expect a fairly regular supply of posts!

And I got some recognition from Indian Top Blogs, who after a survey of the Indian blogosphere placed my blog in their platinum category, which is in their top 50 list.

And I am now tweeting @rapiduplift... so do follow this space as well as my Twitter feed.

Thanks for all your support over the years!

Request To Indiabioscience.org: More Science Please

Why don't Indian scientists working in India write about their research on open platforms? There are scientists who are blogging, but they write about campus life and the sociology of sciences and not about their research. And recently I came across a group blog Indiabioscience.org, which is a platform for biologists to:

The goal of IndianBioscience.org is for Indian biologists (junior and senior, working in India or abroad) to unite as a community- to find and exchange information, to make new contacts and find collaborators, to share perspectives, to attract a new generation of young people to scientific careers, and to welcome back talented Indians who previously might have established their careers abroad.

I went through the collection of posts from the contributors. Most of them are opinions of how to improve science education and the status of science in India, or on their personal experience of setting up research labs in India or negotiating the administrative maze, or advice to young postdocs and PhD candidates. 

All very useful.. but where is the Science? 

One of the stated goals of this initiative is " to attract a new generation of young people to scientific careers". I am not sure that young people will find it engaging to follow this blog and be inspired to take up a career in science if all the scientists on this forum come across as experts in university administration and pedagogy and have little to say about their research.

I find it boring to read post after post on "my views on improving Indian Universities / education / how to deal with various personal problems". 

Instead, why not tell us more about your own work?.. start a conversation with young aspiring students about your day in the lab and the nitty-gritty of science.

Interesting Blogs I've Started Following Of Late

Here are a few interesting blogs I've come across over the past year or so:

Anubhooti: Blog Of A Forest Officer - An Indian government officer blogging? !! Hurray.. :) Mohan Chandra Pargaien is a Forest Officer and blogs about environmental issues.

Earth Science Erratics - Erin Parker - Extremely engaging conversations on the challenges of teaching geology to school students. 

Earth Pages - In this Wiley-Blackwell’s  community site for the earth sciences, Dr Steve Drury writes about interesting research in the earth sciences.

Midway - Short opinions about Indian education and society by an academic.

Musings of Dheeraj Sanghi - Mostly about the Indian higher education system by a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Paleowave - Kaustubh Thirumalai writes about stable isotopes, foraminifera and paleo-oceanography.

The Archaeobotanist -  Among other things, opinions and views on the evolution and history of crops by Dorian Fuller.

The Salt - A food blog at NPR.

Watershed Moments - Musings of a Canadian hydrologist. 

Why Nations Fail -  Economic and political perspectives by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.

Paleowave Is A New Earth Science Blog By An Indian Academic

A few weeks ago I complained that I knew of only one geology blog by an Indian geologist besides mine. Kaustubh Thirumalai responded by pointing out that he has been blogging at Isotope Dope. That was his old blog. He now has a brand new blog titled Paleowave.

Kaustubh is a stable isotope geochemist with an interest in  reconstruction of Holocene paleo-climate and paleo-oceanographic conditions using foraminifera as a proxy.

I have dabbled quite a bit in stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon for my research on diagenesis in Ordovician carbonate rocks, using the proportions of different isotopes of oxygen and carbon that occur in carbonate rocks to infer both the origin of fluids flowing through the rock and the temperature of the fluid. That in turn can be used to infer basin history, more specifically the timing and extent of sea-levels changes and the establishment of fresh water aquifers and also the subsequent burial history of the sediment.

So I am looking forward to reading and learning more about Kaustubh's research which applies the stable isotope tool to understand a different aspect of the more recent past.

My Popular Posts Over The Last Two Years

Its nearly year end and time to get a little reflective. I'm basing this on Google Stats for the last two years. Here are 5 of my most popular posts:

Indian Sedimentary Basins And Shale Gas

Plate Motions: Is The Driver Bottom Up or Top Down

Mapping India: Land Degradation and Desertification

India Basin-Wise Shale Gas Estimates

Geology Will Be Central To India's Climate Change Challenge

Two of them are about the hot energy source of the day and two about ecological challenges we face. My post on the recent Sikkim / Nepal earthquake came a close sixth.

My blogging is not restricted to topics about India but in a sense I am pleased that my writings about Indian geology continue to capture a fair amount of attention. There is not much information about Indian geological issues in the popular media and in the public domain, so I guess I am contributing somewhat to redressing that lacunae.

Thanks all for supporting this blog.

Reporting on a Revolution Has Been Renamed Rapid Uplift

I got me a new blog name this new year. In a civil ceremony Reporting on a Revolution has been rechristened Rapid Uplift.

I think the new name has a restless dynamic geologyey feel to it. It is more in tune with the broad theme of my blog of a changing planet..being reshaped and re sculpted through geological processes and biological evolution. I have to admit that the focus of this blog has changed somewhat over the last two years. My initial purpose of keeping a tab on poor and sensationalistic science reporting especially by the Indian media prompted the blog title Reporting on a Revolution.

Over time though I have found myself writing more and more on geology related themes often not taking cues from media reports or without any intent to criticize media reporting but writing simply because I found a particular story interesting.

Rapid Uplift will continue this geology centered science outreach attempt.

Do update your blogrolls. The page and feed URLs are unchanged.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Science Books For Science Majors

Chris at Highly Allochthonous has tagged the entire geoblogosphere with this meme.

Here's what it is about:

Imagine: YOU are asked to assign a half-dozen-or-so books as required reading for ALL science majors at a college as part of their 4-year degree; NOT technical or text books, but other works, old or new, touching upon the nature of science, philosophy, thought, or methodology in a way that a practicing scientist might gain from.

Listed below are books that I would recommend. They made me think hard and long about science and its impact on people and society at large.

1. For Geology majors: The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester. One of those heroic stories where the reader starts rooting for a happy ending. This is the story of William Smith who in the 1790's embarked single handedly on a two decade old effort to create a geological map of England and against what seemed as hopeless odds succeeded. And oh... formalized the study of geology in the process.

2. The Limits of Science, The Threat and the Glory by Sir Peter Medawar. No one explained the nature, benefits and limits of science better than Peter Medawar. Immaculate prose, rigorous logic and sparkling wit. David Pyke in an introduction to his book writes:

Sir Peter Medawar was three great men. He was a great scientist, a man of great courage - and a great writer.

A lot to learn from his writings.

3) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. How can you major in science without reading this? A book on evolution that inverts our traditional view of life and leaves us a little bewildered but enthralled.

4) The Atheist and the Holy City by George Klein. Not very well know but has some of my favorite essays on science and scientists. Worth reading even if just for one essay, Are Scientists Creative? Klein is a well know cancer biologist and there are several other gems on science and human nature in this book.

5) Life Cycles by John Tyler Bonner. I love this little book. Organisms are life cycles and it is these life cycles that have been elaborated through evolution to form the diverse and complex biosphere. The book has the feel of a personal memoir, a "career in science" kind of a book, but manages to pack an intellectual punch as well.

I like Chris's choice of Paradigms Lost. But since he has covered it I won't add it to my list though I do recommend it as well.

A Collection of Geological Haiku

The Haiku meme I started some time back got quite a good response. I have posted below links to all the aspiring poets in the geoblogosphere who contributed. As I had hoped the meme mutated as it spread through the population of geologists. My initial rule of a reference to a geological time period was made more fluid and rightly so I think to a reference to the passing of geological time or a reference to a geological process. Bloggers also wrote short accompanying explanations and posted visuals too. That made for some imaginative and evocative verse.

If I have missed anyone let me know and I will update the list.

In no particular order:

• Bryan at In Terra Veritas
• Silver Fox at Looking for Detachment
• Lockwood at Outside The Interzone
• MJC Rocks at Geotripper
• JJ at The Ethical Palaeontologist
• Life Long Scholar at The Musings of a Life Long Scholar
• Kim at All My Faults Are Stress Related
• Dave at Geology News
• Short Geologist at Accidental Remediation
• Neat Rox at Neat Gemstones
• Chris at Highly Allochthonous
• Kenneth Clark at Office of Redundancy Office
• Sciencewomen at Sciencewomen
• Rob Clack at Dem Bones Dem Bones
  
• Suvrat at Reporting on a Revolution

To end this thread since climate change is the issue all of us are going to be grappling with over the next few decades some thoughts:

warm chill warm
a mere blip Holocene
until the big freeze

Happy First Blogiversary To Me

No, it is not today. It was two weeks ago but I missed it!

Its been just over a year since I started this blog. My motivation to start writing was really a personal one. I like writing about science. The decision on what topics to concentrate on was also easy. I am passionate about geology and evolution and there was never any doubt that these would be the central themes of this blog. I decided early on to concentrate on discussing the science itself. Geology and evolution are not widely read in India and although the blogosphere crosses national boundaries and reaches audiences worldwide I did have in mind primarily Indian readers. There is definitely a lacuna in covering these topics in Indian science writing of any sort and so I hope this blog is helping bridge that gap a little.

The choice of these topics and writing primarily on nerdy science stuff did mean narrowing the size of the potential audience but that is something I expect and accept. I remember a conversation with a geology faculty during my Master's training in Pune. He emphasized that once you are specializing in science you will start living in a self contained universe, corresponding and interacting with a very small group of people. You love what you do, you have to strive for quality and not worry too much about how many people read your work. It will be a very small number. I thought about that when a grand total of about 8 people read my PhD thesis!

That was before the blogosphere erupted. Today a super specialized scientist can publish a paper that 8 people read but simultaneously publish a blog post which is read by thousands. I can't claim that my posts are read by thousands, but it is something to strive for. It's good to know that there is a large audience for good science writing, even writings on very specific topics. I guess today my blog is doing okay for such a niche subject area. More than 8 people have read my writings and I have a small but growing subscriber base. I would love to have more readers and more interaction with science fans. I would love to have the Indian media read my posts and improve their coverage of science. Yeah, dream on!! That's hoping for too much!

But I do hope to keep writing and it will be interesting to see if my blog remains engaging enough to entice more readers to spend a few minutes of their busy day visiting this site.

My Five Minutes of Fame As Citizen Activist

I have been profiled in the Times of India, Pune edition. Check out this piece in Times e-paper. You may have to navigate to page 6 of July 25th issue once the e-paper downloads: Switch off at signals, save fuel


Almost a year ago I wrote a series of posts on air pollution and environmental problems facing Pune City. At that time my blog was virtually anonymous. A few friends knew I had started blogging, but the site meter counter moved only occasionally. Still, I like writing about science and I was curious about air pollution in Pune and I kept writing. I really had no expectations about the reach and effect those posts might have. I had underestimated badly the power of the Internet search:

how much CO2 emitted during vehicle idling
bus pollution graphs
comparing diesel and CNG emissions
forest CO2 sinks

These search phrases I can say changed the profile of my blog. I have had several thousand hits on those Pune City posts and hundreds of clicks on the images of the graphs and tables, which have most likely been downloaded. If at least part of the role of a science blog is outreach and education, then I am satisfied with the role my blog is playing. Last month a reporter from Times of India stumbled upon those posts and interviewed me. The article was published today. I don't expect editorial control over the content of the article, but I wish a draft had been sent to me before publishing. The article covers only one of the posts I wrote and I felt a broader coverage of my posts would have helped highlight the entire series. I think its best readers refer to my posts on these topics. Links below:

Part1. Idling and Pollution
Part2. PMT buses and Pollution
Part3. Rickshaws and Pollution
Part 4. Urban Forests and Clean Air
Part 5. Sensing Corruption Remotely
Part 6. Diets, Consumption and Global Warming

I like writing about the city I live in and the neighborhood I grew up in. Being profiled like this is always welcome but I will keep writing about local issues regardless.

Is Science Blogging Useful

The geoblogosphere is abuzz with a debate about blogging on peer reviewed science. Chris at Highly Allochthonous summarizes it here. My first reaction was, if you cannot blog about actual research what is left to blog about in science? I know this is an extreme reaction, I mean science ideas that you throw around at happy hour Friday are also fun to blog about but peer reviewed research represents the guts of science. Myles Allen the scientist against the idea of peer reviewed blogging is afraid that

criticism of peer-reviewed results belongs in the peer-reviewed literature. Direct communication over the Internet, far from creating a level playing field, just ploughs it up and makes the game impossible.

Blogs are often written in a hurry, ideas are put down in pixels without having thought through them, you can just have an angry knee jerk reaction to a result you did not anticipate or one that goes against your favorite theory. Allen thinks you should check informally with the researchers before blogging about it. He doesn't like this informal criticism of research and prefers it to be restricted to the comments and reply section of the journal. Let's be clear. I agree that science cannot be practiced in the blogosphere and the correct way to formally address your criticism is in the comments and reply section. But peer reviewed articles reveals the innards of the scientific method. The rationale for a hypothesis, the way data has been collected to validate it and how it is analyzed, a journal article is a way to formally present this inner working of science. Blogging about it makes the working of science transparent to just about anyone interested in it. Most of the general reading public do not have subscriptions to technical journals. Blogs written by scientists about science and peer reviewed research have opened up an immensely enriching learning avenue. I definitely have benefited from this.

Allen is fearful that a hasty reading of the research and airing of personal views by scientists may lead to confusion and bad press. This might occasionally happen, but scientists realize that blogs are not a formal means of communicating science and will read the blog as an informal assessment of the research and comment on it in that spirit. Yes, occasionally research does get misrepresented in blogs but the way ahead is to write another blog clarifying it. I prefer a feisty blog exchange than a sterile press report any day.

Update: Myles Allen has kindly clarified his position in the comments section. Kim Hannula who blogs at Shear Sensibility also has some good thoughts on this topic.

Some News About My Blogs

I started blogging recently. One reason was that I like writing about science. Another was to point out errors in science reporting especially in the Indian media in the very faint hope that some feedback might reach the media. I send my criticisms directly to newspapers, but the usual trend is that if my article is generally supportive of the media report it has a higher chance of being published. I cannot prove this (I plan to start collecting statistics), but just a trend I have noticed. My post on the editorial in Times of India on Junk DNA was not published in the letters section of the newspaper but received quite a bit of support from the blogosphere. It also caught the attention of the Online Centre for Media Studies, who have posted a synopsis of my post and a link to my blog. It's good to know some feedback is reaching would be and working journalists.

Another piece of news, although somewhat dated. My posts on the Ram Sethu controversy, Adams Bridge and Ram Sethu: A Dummies Guide, received a lot of attention. Again the reaction was mostly supportive, although one memorable comment - either written in jest or due seriousness I am not sure- stands out. I was invited to write an article by the Indian National Interest Review, an online magazine. You can download my article on the Palk Strait here.