Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Thank you Mendeley

I would like to thank Mendeley, for acknowledging my efforts to popularize the use of Mendeley. They have sent merchandise for future attendees of my Mendeley workshops in the twin cities.
It is a free reference manager and academic social network. It has been acquired by Elsevier and can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research:
  • Automatically generate bibliographies
  • Collaborate easily with other researchers online
  • Easily import papers from other research software
  • Find relevant papers based on what you're reading
  • Access your papers from anywhere online
  • Read papers on the go,

Monday, January 2, 2017

Daggar [Pakistan], becomes Lightning hotspot on Earth

Daggar the lightning hotspot on earth

In early childhood nothing is more frightening than lightning followed by roar of thunder.
Daggar a small town roughly 100 km from the capital Islamabad has become one of the top 10 lightning hotspots across globe.
Daggar Buner, from Islamabad, Pakistan
Six out of top 10 hotspots are located in content Africa.The Congo Basin in Africa used to hold the lightning title, and it still has the most hotspots of anywhere in the world.lightning map

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Google translate AI invents its own language

Google AI evolving

Stepping into unchartered, untrained language, Google Translate AI based on neural network  can now translate a complete sentence on languages it was not even trained for.
Google Translate AI evolving 

During my PhD in Korea, where English was not an extensively used language among the locals, I translated text through Google translate from korean to english. But students from Indonesia, Russia, VietNam, Egypt or Mongolia for whom, English was not primary medium of communication, had to translate between from Korean to English and then English to their language and off course vice versa.  This new capability would work wonders.
As stated by article  in recent issue of Scientific American, if for example neural network was trained to translate between English and Japanese, and English and Korean, it can also translate between Japanese and Korean without first going through English. This new capability would accelerate the ability of Google translate system to translate between a large number of languages without the need to translate to a popular common language first.
Currently, Google Translate is being used for translating a whopping 140 billion words from 103 languages every day.
More at
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114748-google-translate-ai-invents-its-own-language-to-translate-with/

Friday, December 30, 2016

20 Foods to eat and avoid on empty stomach

20 item EDIT to breakfast menu 

20 Foods you should consider adding to your breakfast and those you must avoid on empty stomach

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Elsevier unavailable for Germany, Taiwan Peru from 2017

Elsevier unavailable for Germany, Taiwan Peru from 2017

Scientists in Germany, Peru and Taiwan would most likely lose access to Elsevier journals, after negotiations between governments/funding agencies for the trio and the Dutch journal failed.

“It’s very unpleasant,” says Horst Hippler, spokesperson for the DEAL consortium of state-funded universities and research organizations, which is overseeing negotiations in Germany. “But we just cannot accept what Elsevier has proposed so far.”

More at http://www.nature.com/news/scientists-in-germany-peru-and-taiwan-to-lose-access-to-elsevier-journals-1.21223

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Come on bull, hit me now.

In urdu we often say آ بیل مجھے مار , O Bull come and hit me. or

"when you are in deep shit keep your mouth shut"
I would certainly follow the safety first approach by Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), to listen enough before speaking.
According Drake equation there is finite probability for an intelligent life form elsewhere in multiverse.


Same is being done or at least planned to be done in near future by sending a message about our presence on pale blue dot.
Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI), a San Francisco-based organization plans to call upon aliens if any on distant planets, instead of waiting for them to contact us here on Earth. They plan to send signals to planets at Proxima Centauri, the next astronomical neighbor.

Famous scientists have already showed concerns about the controversial plan.
Searching for trouble? A thesis on the same subject outlines the trouble expected if the aliens are hostile.
The article on Phys.org accounts the critique by scientists on the subject.

We shouldn't draw attention to ourselves, say science fiction writer David Brin and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
"We have almost zero idea of whether aliens are likely to be dangerous," physicist Mark Buchanan wrote in journal Nature Physics.
Other experts say it's worth waiting until we're better conversationalists - and, then, use use well-established groups with international consultation.
"Babbling babies are not always appreciated during adult conversation," said Andrew Fraknoi, chair of the astronomy department at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. "Listening and learning is how children become adults, and why not try that for a while?"
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-scientists-worlds.html#jCp

Book mentioned by Imran Khan about Lost Islamic History

Imran Khan in his tweet today mentioned reading books about Islam. I really appreciate a Pakistani PM actively quoting Islamic on internati...