Arunn

Most of us receive spam or junk mail every day. A close reading of these emails provides some interesting insights to those of us who deal with teaching and research in English language, particularly in the context of language and culture. This article will attempt to analyse the linguistic features and discourse strategies of spam emails, mail which is unsolicited and unwanted by the recipient. The ‘Dearly beloved’ genre of spam emails, where an unknown sender sends a message to the receiver, pleading for kindness, mercy, or charity and promising monetary gain in recompense. A close reading of such spam mail can lead to interesting findings on the interdependent roles of language, culture, and technology. - Arunn

The great majority of Indian scientists emigrate to the West not just because of attractive salaries or creature comforts. It is the excitement of being where things are happening, to be among the best and the brightest that leads us there. Scientists congregate where other scientists are, to share ideas, technology and entertain collaborations. Not surprisingly great institutions often have large numbers of very talented and highly recognized leaders in their fields. The density of talent definitely matters in attracting talent! - Arunn

Nature, Vol. 462, No. 7271. (19 November 2009), pp. 342-345. Stable isotope ratios of oxygen and hydrogen in the Antarctic ice core record have revolutionized our understanding of Pleistocene climate variations and have allowed reconstructions of Antarctic temperature over the past 800,000 years (800 kyr; refs 1, 2). The relationship between the D/H ratio of mean annual precipitation and mean annual surface air temperature is said to be uniform 10% over East Antarctica3 and constant with time 20% (refs 3–5). In the absence of strong independent temperature proxy evidence allowing us to calibrate individual ice cores, prior general circulation model (GCM) studies have supported the assumption of constant uniform conversion for climates cooler than that of the present day3, 5. Here we analyse the three available 340 kyr East Antarctic ice core records alongside input from GCM modelling. We show that for warmer interglacial periods the relationship between temperature and the isotopic... - Arunn