Ankur Jain's musings

Amazing piece of art installation near Golden Gate...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:00:36 -0700

Amazing piece of art installation near Golden Gate Bridge!

Installation of Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field is well under way! Dog walkers, runners, cyclists, and egrets all seem interested in observing these massive steel sculptures being moved into place.

Insect sized robot!! The demonstration of the first controlled...

Wed, 08 May 2013 07:42:21 -0700

Insect sized robot!!

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second.

Photo

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:02:24 -0700

instagram: Exploring the Dream Worlds of Os Gêmeos Brazilian...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 17:55:12 -0700

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Exploring the Dream Worlds of Os Gêmeos

Brazilian artists Otavio & Gustavo Pandolfo, identical twin brothers who create painted works together, are known under the moniker Os Gêmeos (@osgemeos), Portuguese for “The Twins.” Their distinct style features yellow-skinned, skinny caricatures that come from dreams they say they have both experienced. The twins’ stunning dream-world-to-real-world collaborative style is influenced by artistic family members in addition to traditional hip-hop culture and the diverse culture in Brazil.

Os Gêmeos have hosted exhibitions at the Los Angeles MoCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Dépayz’arts in France and Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon, just to name a few. In addition, their street art can be found in Berlin, New York, Portugal, Florida, London and across Brazil. Follow the progress of many pieces and murals through their Instagram account at http://instagram.com/osgemeos.

Starbucks in Delhi. Loved the ambience at this coffee place.

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 03:29:18 -0700

Starbucks in Delhi. Loved the ambience at this coffee place.

Astana (Астана), Kazakhstan’s Capital City Along the Ishim...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 12:00:51 -0700

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Astana (Астана), Kazakhstan’s Capital City

Along the Ishim River in the center of a vast steppe lies Kazakhstan’s capital city, Astana (Астана). Though a functional city since 1830, Astana only became the nation’s capital in 1997. The past 16 years have brought significant architectural developments, many of which display innovative designs to functionally cope with the city’s drastic temperature fluctuations and symbolically reflect traditional Kazakh culture. And where there’s been architectural innovation, there have been numerous Kazakh Instagrammers to share these wonders with the world.

The city’s main landmark, a 105-meter (344-foot) tall observation tower called Bayterek (Бәйтерек), evokes a Kazakh folktale about a bird that laid a golden egg in the tree of life. Astana also boasts a large pyramid structure, The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation (Бейбітшілік пен келісім сарайы), built to house space for diverse world religions, a full opera house and a natural history museum beneath the stained-glass doves that adorn its glass apex.

One of the city’s newest additions is the Khan Shatyr entertainment center, a series of parks, shops and sites of diversion spanning 140,000 square meters (35 acres) that is covered by the world’s largest tent. The transparent material allows sunlight in while simultaneously maintaining a stable temperature throughout the year.

Source: Instagram Tumblr Page

Colorful fruit bowl! This is quite nice!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:01:36 -0700

Colorful fruit bowl! This is quite nice!

Great way to build a movable balcony in a home!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 05:42:16 -0700

Great way to build a movable balcony in a home!

I think this can change the world!

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:00:52 -0700

I think this can change the world!

I went to Yosemite last summers (May 2012) with few friends from...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:12:04 -0700

I went to Yosemite last summers (May 2012) with few friends from Bay Area. It was a great weekend - we hiked, saw semi-frozen lake, amazing sun set, and then climbed a dormant volcano - all in a couple of days! Looking forward to more such trips!

Friends! Wow, I can’t believe that it’s been more...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:01:30 -0700

Friends! Wow, I can’t believe that it’s been more than a year.

The Albert Einstein Memorial In honor of theoretical physicist...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 10:18:00 -0700

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The Albert Einstein Memorial

In honor of theoretical physicist Albert Einstein’s 134th birthday today, we’re exploring the Albert Einstein Memorial located in central Washington, D.C. Known for creating hundreds of bronze sculptures and monuments, Robert Berks based this statue on a bust he sculpted from life at Einstein’s home in 1953. Berks depicted Einstein with papers in his hand and carved three equations into those manuscripts that represent Einstein’s important scientific advances: the theory of general relativity, the photoelectric effect and the equivalence of energy and matter.

What a difference 8 years makes: St. Peter’s Square in...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:29:00 -0700

What a difference 8 years makes: St. Peter’s Square in 2005 and in 2013! Technology is moving FAST.

"Luck is not an accident. Luck is created via the daily process of devotion to your goals +..."

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:00:28 -0700

“Luck is not an accident. Luck is created via the daily process of devotion to your goals + consistent action and relentless innovation —that over time (with patience) leads the world to call you lucky. So go Get Your Luck!”

Smiles after a long day of skiing! Went to South Lake Tahoe...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:13:16 -0800

Smiles after a long day of skiing! Went to South Lake Tahoe during President’s Day weekend (Feb 2013) with my classmates from Stanford and their wives. It was a great trip - we skied, did some sledding and had a great time.

People in this picture (from left to right): Jay, Saya, Ankur, Isha and Abeer

Andy Goldsworthy’s Winding Stone Wall Renowned artist and...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:46:00 -0800

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Andy Goldsworthy’s Winding Stone Wall

Renowned artist and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy is known primarily for his meticulous and fleeting works of art created from natural materials such as leaves, icicles, driftwood and snow.

While most are only able to experience Goldsworthy’s art through the photos that document each work’s brief existence, he has also built several large, permanent creations at sites around the world.

One such installation is a long and winding stone wall at the Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York, named “Five Men, Seventeen Days, Fifteen Boulders, One Wall.” The wall is one of the most popular sculptures in the center’s 500-acre sculpture garden.

@SituStudio’s Times Square “Heartwalk” Dumbo, Brooklyn-based...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 04:09:02 -0800

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@SituStudio’s Times Square “Heartwalk”

Dumbo, Brooklyn-based Situ Studio (@situstudio) recently built in Times Square “Heartwalk,” a heart-shaped structure constructed entirely of debris from Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath. Thefour-person groupof designers and builders shared their process of constructing Heartwalk on Instagram along the way.

“The genesis of the Heartwalk project was tied to reusing reclaimed material from Hurricane Sandy. The entire structure is fabricated out of boardwalks salvaged from different communities around the Tri-State Area,” says Situ’s Bradley Samuels. “Approximately 500,000 people pass through Times Square each day, and we decided that Instagram would be the most effective tool topopulate a gallerywith user-generated content.”

The Heartwalk sculpture, shared on Instagram through the #heartwalktsqhashtag, was the winning submission to the fifth annualTimes Square Valentine Heart Designcompetition and was commissioned by Times Square Alliance (@timessquarenyc) and Design Trust for Public Space (@designtrustnyc). It will be on display in Times Square until Sunday, March 10.

Functional Cure for HIV in a Newborn Infant Very cool news over...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:44:00 -0800

Functional Cure for HIV in a Newborn Infant

Very cool news over the weekend: Doctors report that they have been able to functionally cure HIV in an infected baby born to an HIV-positive mother in Mississippi. While only a few hundred HIV-infected babies are born in the U.S. every year (thanks to antiviral treatments in pregnant mothers), over 300,000 are born in Africa annually. So this is something that needs to be tackled, Ray Lewis-style.

Why It’s Cool: I want to emphasize that this is a “functional cure”. Like the “Berlin Patient” (who was functionally cured by a completely different process), the virus might still technically be there, but the baby is “cured” for all intents and purposes. Also, this was done by giving the newborn large doses of antiviral drugs that are already available and already used to fight HIV. About a month after birth, the virus was undetectable in the baby’s blood, and on visits months later (even after the mother stopped treating the child for some reason), no HIV was found. The most sensitive tests showed signs of HIV RNA and DNA, which means the virus was there, but no actual virus.

What Questions Remain: This research was presented at a science conference this weekend, and needs to go through the process of peer review to be double and triple-checked, because that’s what we do. Is this the best way to prevent HIV in babies? Not all babies born of HIV+ moms get infected, only about 15-45%. And with methods already in place, that number can be reduced to more like 1%. Did the baby actually have HIV to start? Mothers and babies actually share cells across the placenta, and they are floating in each other’s bodies. Maybe there’s a chance (this is one that I haven’t seen brought up elsewhere) that thetests done to “confirm” the HIV was there to begin with actually detected some of the mother’s cells? I don’t know. Time will tell.

All in all, this is a very cool report of something that hadn’t been done before. But like Sarah Boseley discusses at The Guardian, in the places where HIV+ babies are found the most (sub-Saharan Africa) the problem isn’t finding new methods. It’s getting those methods into practice, and getting mothers and doctors in Africa to take action (often against incredible social resistance). Just this week, “successful” HIV treatments were reported useless in Africa because simply people don’t use them.

Great application of careful medicine, but like the “Berlin Patient”, it probably won’t end up treating HIV where it’s most needed. Not unless something else changes first.

http://flip.it/JTiGj

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:12:10 -0800

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This is amazing. God bless the baby!

Life is fun on ski slopes! At Sierra-At-Tahoe - with Jay, Abeer...

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 19:32:31 -0800

Life is fun on ski slopes!

At Sierra-At-Tahoe - with Jay, Abeer and Saya.