Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scripted history today by successfully launching a record 104 satellites, including India’s earth [sic] observation satellite, on a single rocket from the spaceport in Sriharikota. This is the highest number of satellites ever launched in a single mission.

The previous record was held by Russia, with 37 satellites launched at one go. The 104 satellites include 3 of India’s own and 101 of ISRO’s international customers, including 96 from USA. (The article states ISRO’s previous record as 23 satellites launched together in June 2015, but I can’t find a record for that. The closest I could find was this: 20 satellites launched in June 2016.)

As much as this is making news, and as much as ISRO should be proud, this should come as no surprise for space enthusiasts— ISRO has been quite a force in space technology, especially using its PSLV launch system, for quite some time now.

The four stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), used for this launch, was developed by ISRO in the 1990s to launch satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits for its own remote sensing satellites. (Other than ISRO, only Russia commercially launches satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits.) PSLV was also used by ISRO for Chandrayaan 1, its lunar probe, and Mangalyaan, its Mars orbiter, becoming only the fourth space agency to reach Mars orbit.

As an aside, the Sun-synchronous orbit is a very interesting concept: it is an orbit where the satellite passes over any given point on Earth’s surface at the same local solar time. This allows the satellite to be in constant sunlight as it passes over particular regions— which is great for imaging, remote sensing, spying and weather applications. The technicalities of such an orbit are very involved and very interesting: look up the Wikipedia page I’ve linked to above.

Fun fact: due to the mechanics of the orbit, a sun-synchronous orbit is stable without external thrust only on oblate spheroid planets. This means that such orbits work on Earth and will work on Mars, but on almost spherical planets such as Venus, it will require external thrust to maintain its orbit.

Last Fall, Apple included a fingerprint sensor in its latest iPhone, and called the technology ‘TouchID’. A few days ago, Samsung did the same, including its own fingerprint sensing technology in its latest Galaxy S5 phone.

The blogosphere has been aflutter about one small difference between the two launches: when Apple launched their technology, there was a huge uproar about the implications of using fingerprints as an authentication tool. As everyone has been pointing out, even a US Senator, Al Franken, issued a public email (PDF) addressed to Apple asking for clarifications and explanations regarding the technology and its implications. In contrast, Samsung’s new technology has received no such attention.

Apple: Think Different.

Here are my two cents on the reasons:

First, Samsung’s technology has followed Apple’s by almost half a year. In this time, users have had the chance to use the technology first hand, and have realized that the world has not, in fact, turned on its head. Thus, a similar technology from Samsung, even though its implementation is way more far reaching, has not brought any new questions or paranoia.

Second, and more importantly, Apple is a modern cultural and technological icon. There’s no way around it—anything that Apple does is subject to way more scrutiny than any of its competitors. And this is because—even if subconsciously—we have come to expect greatness, caution and prudence from this company and its products. Hence, for example, the attention to Apple’s Chinese production lines, even though every other technology company uses the same companies, and the attention to Apple’s tax schemes, even though every other company does the same—perfectly legal—thing.

This is how it should be.

Apple has shown itself to be the leader of the pack, the pioneer of modern technology; the company to follow, imitate and plagiarize from. Apple has similarly shown leadership and candor in other matters: when scrutinized about their tax practices, they actually suggested tax reforms; when a bill to solidify employee non-discrimination was on the table, Apple endorsed it, and their CEO Tim Cook personally talked about it. And, oh, even without a law being present, Apple of course already had in-house rules of similar effect, as a matter of principle; it simply would not do for it to be otherwise.

With great power, as they say, comes great responsibility, and this extra scrutiny, the extra attenion and paranoia, is the flip side to their influence and strength—their curse along with their blessing, if you will.

May Apple carry this curse with pride and with distinction, for times to come.

I wrote a small piece on fair use of our biotechnology on my Tumblr, but since I’m planning to write longer pieces on this blog, I wanted to cross-post it here as well.

Joe Hanson, of It’s Okay To Be Smart, wrote:

Can Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Save an American Icon?

What I find so interesting is that the techniques being used to save this tree, and one day reintroduce it to the wild, are not that different from those that are used to create genetically modified crops. How does saving a dying species by inserting a gene differ from creating an herbicide-resistant soybean, or rice that produces extra vitamins? I have my opinions, but I want to know: What do you think?

My thoughts are below.

The two are different in only the following way—in one case, we’re using our technology to help another being survive better; in another case we’re using technology to extract more from a being we intend to use as a ‘resource’, in this case food.

I think they’re both fine uses of our technology.

As humans, we have always wanted to modify our surroundings to suit us better. That’s who we are; that’s what defines us as a species and helps us move unflinchingly deeper into the unknown.

It was the same when we invented agriculture; it was the same when we domesticated animals; it was the same when we forced natural selection to go in a certain direction to create “man’s best friend”.

The only difference today is that instead of indirect approaches, we’re learning to make pin-point, particular modifications exactly as we require.

Yes, this is a sensitive topic, and rightfully so. With great power does come great responsibility, and we’re only now learning to harness the power of genetic engineering. I feel we should find it easy to stay on the straight and narrow as long as we remember one rule—no interference for the fun of it. I’ll explain more.

Only organisms capable of photosynthesis are able to produce their own energy. Every other living being must depend on other living beings for energy and sustenance, and we are no different. As long as our genetic engineering endeavours are focussed towards areas that we must harvest for our nutrition, we should be okay. Genetically modified crops are okay—as long as we understand the effects of what we are doing. Edit*: There is a lot of ambivalence towards genetically modified food crops, but the problem isn’t the technology itself, but that we don’t yet understand* the technology well enough to implement it perfectly. Let’s keep at it; we’ll get there.

In addition, being the sole species on this planet with advanced technology, we owe it to our planet-mates to share. Just as in this example of chestnut trees dying from a fungus, when we see an organism dying from infection, and we realize we can help—by all means, we should! We already try to help species that we are afraid will become extinct (often, unfortunately, to our own greedy exploits)–why should that help not include our latest and greatest knowledge?

Let’s just not play with our planet-mates simply because we can. That would be abuse of power, no?

We’re all familiar with the Google home screen, yes? That minimalistic, simple page with essentially nothing but the search box and the search button—seems like great design, doesn’t it? It seems like a well-thought-out decision on what should and should not be on the home page.

Well, guess again:

“We didn’t have a webmaster and I don’t do HTML.”

That’s what Sergey Brin, Google cofounder, is said to have explained.

“He put together the simplest web page he could to test out the search engine back when he was Ph.D. student,” Mayer told a Q&A audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. “The first version didn’t even have search button because the return button worked just fine. We just kind of stumbled into it.”

That iconic page design—and all because Sergey Brin didn’t care about HTML. (The article has some more tidbits; go read.)

This is an amazing discovery. It’s been known, of course, that some birds (and other animals) are capable of detecting the earth’s magnetic field. This is what gives them a sense of direction, and they seem to know exactly where they are going. Until now, exactly how this detection happened was not completely known, although it was guessed that vision was involved.

Here’s the latest:

This ‘compass’ sense must be associated with the eyeball, because the birds cannot detect magnetic fields in darkness.

But now Oxford University and National University of Singapore scientists have shown that birds may really ‘see’ the invisible force of magnetism, giving them a compass on top of their normal vision: rather like aircraft ‘head up displays’ which overlay crucial navigation information on a transparent screen in front of the pilot.

The ‘technology’, so to speak, involves a special molecule in the eye. When a photon of light enters the eye and hits the molecule, it causes an electromagnetic effect in the eye—and since this effect also depends on the surrounding magnetic field, the effect translates into a ‘map’ of the earth’s magnetic field. All this, right in the eye of the bird!

The next question, I guess, ought to be: is the absence of light the only reason that the birds can’t navigate at night? Would they do fine if there was artificial ambient light at night? What happens if they are fitted out with a ‘headlamp’ of sorts, that reflects light back into their retinas? Is there a minimum amount of light that would be the threshold? This is all very exciting.

In related news, a protein in the human retina has previously been found to possess magnetic properties. This is possibly remnants of the same system—which poses the question: did humans ever have the capacity to detect magnetic fields? Is this a rudimentary evolutionary leftover, or did we shed our sensing capabilities as we gave up our migratory habits and settled down to a life of agriculture?

Really—the more we find out about nature, the more amazing it all is. (Well, granted—the Earth has had a few million years to test and improve new technology, but you’ve got to admit, this is pretty cool.)