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Wednesday March 31 2021

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Sanity Break #1

Aww, look at that! US Naval officers singing ‘’ from ‘Swades’ at a dinner for the Indian ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu. Too good!

Sanity Break #1

Headlines that matter

EVER GIVEN’S REAL ‘SUPER’ HERO The moon played the star role in rescuing the megaship stuck in the Suez Canal. The salvage crew realised that they could never extricate the boat by themselves, but instead would need the magic of an extra-high tide to help it float. It arrived on schedule thanks to a supermoon—when a full moon coincides with the closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit—on Sunday night. Point to note:   > “Raising the stakes further, seven days after a spring tide, the sun and moon are at right angles to each other in relation to > the earth. At that point, the bulge in the ocean caused by the gravitational pull of the sun partially cancels out the influence > of the moon, meaning that tides are lower.”   In other words, missing that supermoon window would have been devastating to global commerce. (Wall Street Journal via )   THE GREAT PANDEMIC: A QUICK UPDATE  * In a published in leading newspapers, 24 world leaders—including UK prime minister Boris Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel—warned against vaccine nationalism, which is leaving poorer countries unprotected. They also called for a pandemic treaty to ensure international cooperation. * Moving on to a very clever example of vaccine diplomacy, China has doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Palestine—which comes as a huge relief since Israel has refused to inoculate even Palestinian workers within its borders, despite having a surplus of vaccines.  * The recommended shelf life of the AstraZeneca vaccine is six months. But Indian authorities have asked that it be extended. * Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that China withheld raw data—which is critical to identifying the origins of the virus—from the WHO team. This immediately triggered a joint statement signed by a number of countries—including the US, UK, Australia, Japan etc.—asking for a new investigation.   * The US, Australia, Japan, Canada, the UK and several have now expressed concern about the mission, and  called for “transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence.” * Stanford scientists have for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines from vials that were set aside to be discarded. And they have published the genetic sequences on an open source platform. Why they did it: Scientists need to know the difference—whether they are looking at a vaccine (which has the genetic material of the virus) or the virus—when they look at a sample.  * Here’s a reason to hang our head in shame: While health authorities have prioritised vaccinating frontline workers, sanitation workers have received zero jabs: “Few have their own protective gear or even clean water to wash their hands..If they are not vaccinated, then the cities will suffer.” has this important story.  * Mumbai municipal authorities asked permission to conduct a door-to-door vaccination campaign to ensure invalid senior citizens and those with disabilities get their jabs. The Union government . * A leading doctor in Goa for rising numbers of deaths: People have now started treating Covid like the common cold—and staying home until the symptoms become very serious. It’s a different variety of pandemic complacency.   A SHOCKING HATE CRIME IN NEW YORK A 65-year-old Filipina woman was brutally attacked—without cause or provocation—as she was walking down the street. A man hurled racist insults and then kicked her to the ground, and then stomped on her torso and head. She has been admitted to the hospital with serious injuries. What makes the incident even more shocking are the security guards who watched the entire attack from inside a building—and then closed the doors without offering help to the victim. Watch the below. ()   THE GREAT MOBIKWIK LEAK The data of 110 million MobiKwik customers may have been leaked from the company's servers. Last month, a security expert raised the alarm on Twitter—but the company stoutly denied the claim, and threatened action against the “media-crazed so-called security researcher.”    But Entrackr and others have since verified the existence of the leaked dataset now on sale on the dark web. This includes information usually submitted during account verification or KYC validation: scanned images of Aadhaar card and passport, phone numbers, emails, credit card details and their location.   MobiKwik now claims “it is entirely possible that any user could have uploaded her/ his information on multiple platforms.” Nice PR move! has the most details.    Talking about payments: All those recurring payments you’ve set up—on Netflix or Airtel etc—will not work after April 1. The reason: The Reserve Bank of India has now set up strict rules that require companies to get your explicit consent for such automated transactions on your debit or credit card. What this means: Your bank will not approve any such recurring payments after this date. You will have to directly pay the next month’s bill to the company—and continue to do so until payment platforms and banks figure out how to comply with this new rule. has lots more details.   NIKE IS UPSET OVER ‘SATANIC’ SHOES Rapper Lil Nas X’s collab with an art collective yielded a modified version of Nike Air Max 97s—which were dubbed 666 or ‘Satan Shoes’. The reason: The black-and-red sneakers feature an inverted cross, a pentagram and the words "Luke 10:18"—and a drop of real human blood on their soles. Mercifully, the blood was donated by members of the art collective. Nike, however, is not amused—and has sued to block their sale. You can see a devilish pair below. () SPACE SHRINKS YOUR HEART A new study finds that long-term weightlessness alters the structure of the heart, causing shrinkage and atrophy. And low-intensity exercise isn’t enough to prevent it. Here’s why:   > “The gravity we experience on Earth is what helps the heart to maintain both its size and function as it keeps blood pumping > through our veins. Even something as simple as standing up and walking around helps pull blood down into our legs. When the > element of gravity is replaced with weightlessness, the heart shrinks in response.”   The good news: It doesn’t make the heart weaker or any less healthy. What it shows is how miraculously adaptive our heart is—in many ways than one, as we all know. ()   Speaking of interesting studies: A new study looked at whether Indians are more invested in their national identity or their regional one. The answer: Nearly one in three are more invested in identifying as Indian—mostly in the Hindi heartland. But 30% identify more strongly with their regional identity—especially in Jammu & Kashmir (65%), Tamil Nadu (56%) and Mizoram (51%). has more details on this fascinating study.    BABY TORTOISES FOUND AND RESCUED! Airport officials on Galapagos Islands found 185 baby tortoises—wrapped in plastic and hidden in a suitcase. Environmental experts are calling the theft “brazen” and cruel. Ten of the tortoises were found dead, and five more have died. The rest are not doing well. Below is one of the survivors, and there are more photos . has the story.    A far happier find: Six-year old Siddak Singh Jhamat received a fossil-hunting kit as a Christmas gift. He used it to uncover a Paleozoic Era fossil in his back garden in England—dating back to 251-488 million years ago! Also: This kid is ridiculously cute! ()    Speaking of young geniuses: Seventeen-year-old Dasia Taylor used beetroots to develop special sutures that turn from bright red to purple when a surgical wound becomes infected. ()   DINE WITH DATA: ALL ABOUT VEERA HEALTH 🚺 Editor’s Note: Here is DWD’s weekly installment of one cool, innovative or just plain quirky startup from around the world. We really ❤️  this one!   Company: Veera Health 🚺   About: PCOS affects 1 in 10 women in India, and there's no service that provides all PCOS care under one roof. Women have to shuttle between gynaecologists, dieticians, and other 'consultants' to get holistic care.    Veera Health comes in to fill that exact gap. It's a single-care service, solely concentrated on treating PCOS. It wants to be the one-stop solution for PCOS-related diet, mental-health, skincare, and even exercise routines. 🤯   Veera Health officially launched three months ago and already has made $10,000 in revenue, growing at 300% month over month in paid customers. The company is also a part of Y-Combinator's Winter Batch of 2021.    Food For Thought: Veera also promises a support group of other women with PCOS, so that affected individuals can navigate the vast variety of symptoms with real-time feedback. 👭👭   DWD Take: Y-Combinator funded 39 startups from India, and we're gunning a whole lot for this one. Veera's journey seems steep and ambitious, and we're here for it!    URL:     About DWD: sends you a short summary on one new startup every day, delivered straight to your Whatsapp inbox!

Secret Handshake

Sanity Break #2

SH/Sadler—i.e. Julia SH and Nic Sadler—won the top honour in the advertising/beauty category of the Tokyo International Foto Awards. Here’s how they explain this series titled ‘Fresh Meat’: “The techniques of “beauty photography”, seen as a kind of black art in the 90’s, are now common knowledge. There is a new generation of people who have comprehensive knowledge and skill in managing their image; knowing what camera angles are flattering to them, and using digital beauty filters to enhance features and minimize others. All of this leaves us with a question: What do we consider beauty in 2020? With an unrelenting quest for youth, admiration and a highly controlled self image, how far are we straying from the maxim that ‘beauty is only skin deep’?” See the entire series . See more of their provocative art around the theme of beauty .

Sanity Break #2

Smart & Curious

A LIST OF CURIOUS FACTS One: Rohini Balakrishnan—a scientist at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore—has two crickets named after her. One native to Mexico: Oecanthus rohiniae. And one found in Kerala: Teleogryllus rohini. has her story.   Two: The first ever dinosaur bone fragment was found in 1676 in a limestone quarry in Oxfordshire, England. No one knew what this giant chunk of bone actually was. A chemistry professor decided it must belong to some ancient race of human giants. And a hundred years later—studying the good professor’s drawing—gave it a suitably scientific name: Scrotum humanum. Yup, that’s the official name of the first dino we found: balls. It would later be more suitably renamed Megalosaurus. Sad. See the misleading drawing below. has more details and links.   Three: There’s a grasshopper trapped in one of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, ‘Olive Trees’. If you care, it was already dead when he accidentally painted over it.  There’s a fabulous interactive version of the —be sure to scroll in the gallery to Figure 13 to check out the hapless grasshopper. has the backstory.   Four: You know that tiny ‘coin’ pocket inside the front pocket of your jeans—the one that seems entirely pointless? It dates back to 1879, and here’s :   > According to the Levi Strauss website, ‘this extra pouch has served many functions, evident in its many titles: frontier pocket, > condom pocket, coin pocket, match pocket and ticket pocket, to name a few.’ But it was originally called a ‘watch pocket,’ and > when attached to a fob (the other end clipped to, say, a belt loop or vest’s button hole), the pocket watch would be easy to > retrieve—unlike coins, for instance.   Five: An Archie comic from 1997 correctly predicted what schooling will look like in 2021. Note the astonishingly accurate sign on the wall: “Video monitor must remain uncovered at all times.” Check it out . (h/t founding member Kruthika Ravi Kumar)   Six: Lots of times when we declare a species extinct what we really mean is that Western scientists assume it is extinct. For example: The high-altitude starry night harlequin toad—which is called gouna by the South American tribe that reveres and protects them. After tribal members reluctantly shared news of their existence with Western conservationists, they are working together to save this endangered toad. has this lovely story. has a list of seven species that ‘returned’ from extinction.  

Smart & Curious

Feel Good Place

Did you know that cats kick ass at ‘Fetch’?   There’s nothing a little dip in the jacuzzi can’t cure.   WTF is going on with Alabama?   This is a very good girl!  

Feel good place

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