Arunjana Das's blog

 The Taliban have one more feather in their turbans - Bunner district in Pakistan. According to reports, it is  around 70 miles from the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, where probably the most dysfunctional democratic head of a nation resides. According to news media reports, the Taliban had tried to take over the ditsrict before but were thrown out by the residents who fought back and threw them out. This time, evidently, they were outnumbered and overwhelmed.
 

 A city in Illinois is up in arms. Granite City in Illinois has fallen prey to joblessness like the rest of the country. As reported by the New York Times, the 130-year old steel mill had shut down last December on account of lack of orders, rendering around 2000 workers in the town unemployed. NYT reports that there is some work going on for constructing an oil-pipeline. Surprise, surprise. Where does the steel come from? India.
 

 Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath - the late poetess, committed suicide a month ago. As we all know, Syvia Plath too had attempted committing suicide several times in her life. At the end of one such episode, she was admitted in an institution where she was given electroconvulsive therapy. On the long term, though, it didn't help of course, and she took her own life on February 11, 1963. Some people say that her husband, Ted Hughes, who had left her for another woman a year before Sylvia died, was abusive towards her. We have no way of knowing if that was true.

The New York Times reported today about researchers in Brooklyn who have had success with the memory molecule, or what they call, the Speed-Dial molecule. In plainspeak, according to the NYT, it will soon be possible to edit memories in humans. They have conducted successful tests on mice.
 

One more rocket-launch from the rogues. North Korea yesterday tested a long range satellite-launcher over the Pacific. According to reports, it is capable of launching a satellite weighing 220 pounds on an orbit 250 miles high, although if it were to be used to launch a warhead,  it can probably carry 2200 pounds with a range of 3700 miles. That means US cities are now within reach of its warheads.
 

A couple of days before the Senate passed President Obama's $3.5 trillion budget, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show asked guest, Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, "So, who will finance this deficit?".
 
The deficit in question is $15 trillion in about a decade from now, a figure projected by Orszag's office.
 
Again, who will finance this deficit?
 
"Who would you call?" asked Stewart.
 
"Foreign creditors," replied Orszag.
 

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A few days back, EcoGeek reported about a contraption called the EcoDrain. According to EcoGeek, it helps save energy by retrieving residual heat from spent hot-shower water and using it to further heat up the water, thereby lowering exogenous electricity requirement for the heating process.
 

 
A couple of days back, Tata Motors, the largest automobile company in India, announced the launch of Nano, the cheapest car in the world, with the basic version available for approximately $2500!
 
The basic model, however, costs what it does because it truly is a basic model, no air-conditioning, power steering or power windows. You can, however, get all this if you pay a little more for the higher versions.