Tag Archives: developmental biology

The birth defects of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Pāṇḍu and related matters

This note has its origin in a conversation with Sharada. We originally intended to incorporate the core of it into one of our usual fantastical stories. However, following a second conversation with her, we decided that it might be best … Continue reading

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A note on tales of fratricide, warfare, cannibalism and incest

The Osman conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmet-II, bothered by the civil wars his predecessors had to fight to take the throne, institutionalized the system of fratricide. In this system, the rival brothers of the sultan, who took the throne, were all … Continue reading

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Some elementary lessons from iterative fractal maps

The famous Sierpinski gasket was one of the first fractals we wrote code for when we got access to a computer. It impressed us enormously that an intricate object with self-similarity over all scales could be generated by a rather … Continue reading

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On feathers, fleas and big stem birds

Should the Mesozoic dinosaurs have been depicted with feathers or not? This question seems to have been asked by very few people until the last 15 years. Of course we had Robert Bakker and Gregory Paul presciently do this, but … Continue reading

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