THE BOX MOVE

Navigating through the world of science, the fourteen of us, students at the LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) decided to pen down what the study of Science represents to us in terms of Music, Art, Literature, Politics or Popular Culture. Here you will find original Blog pieces ranging across the General Sciences, as well as more incisive essays in the Work section, and even personal musings in the Profiles. Watch this space as we put pieces together, make links, and break into the box move.

Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
12/27/2011

Our curiosity of the unknown has pulled us towards this subject and our irrepressible need to formulate explanations has lead to a myriad of theories being laid across the table.

The Kinect device opens before us this exact possibility amongst dozens of others. Kinect allows us to see the world just in terms of differences in depth.

The Box Move began as a blog, but since October 2010, has had plans to expand (ambitiously) into Pakistan’s first popular science magazine.

When a camera takes a picture, it’s “flattening” the world it’s viewing. So while it might be pretty obvious to us looking at this picture that the building is upright, and the ground is not, it is not that obvious to a computer.

The idea, which is by all means an acceptable one calls for a top down approach. Unfortunately science tends to work bottom up, connecting pieces of a puzzle together and then zooming out to try and figure out what the bigger picture is.

I recently did a summer internship at CERN and this article is about sharing that experience.

I worked on Mean-Shift segmentation over this summer. This is a brief summary of my experience.

The whole story is an anagram of sorts, you can dissect it in so many different ways, arranging and rearranging the parts, giving importance here, disregarding there, and every time coming up with something that makes some sense.

Blushing, according to the article, is one human expression that Darwin struggled to explain. He pointed out that while humans of all races blush, animals and primates don’t.

ON THE FRINGE
Further links in the world of Science and Technology:
Find more in the On the Fringe side-column of the Blog

NewYork Times: What is this mysterious thing called self-control? Psychologists Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney discuss this and more in their book Willpower. Read a review here.

Economist: Scientific misconduct as blogged about by us earlier. The plot thickens. Read more here.

Nature: All of us should know that 2011 is the Year of Chemistry and all of us should know about carbon nanotubes and graphenes. Find out here.

ScientificAmerican: Tasmanian Devils, not just the stuff of Looney Toons, are fast becoming extinct due to a facial tumor disease. Read more here.

The Economist: Protein folding now uses computer gamers. A game called FoldIt might increasingly eclipse the Rosetta protein-folding algorithm. Play the game here and read the Economist article here.

ScienceDaily: Where we find out that giant pulsating stars can host other hot giant exoplanets. Read more here.

UPDATE: Our Publication is now up as an e-zine. Take a look at the Publication page here.

Contributors:

NIMRA ASI
Cranky Biology Major bibliophile sock-enthusiast with a visceral hatred for cheese and a penchant for gypsy attire.

HASSAN BUKHARI
Clumsy rugby-playing Physics Major with a particular fondness for radicalism, baldness and being awkward.

KAMIL AHSAN
Pretentious Biology Major debater with a tendency towards snobbery, indie music and forced intellectual conversation.

MEHR UN NISA
Sporty, foul-mouthed Physics Major with an inappropriate comfort level with integrals, onions and making short films.

MAHEEN RASHID
Quirky Computer Science Major with difficulties ranging from being understood, taming hair and resembling a lizard.

WAFA VELJEE
Irritatingly bubbly Math Major songstress with emphases on promiscuity, SAFA-organizing, and inappropriate fondling.

NAYAB ABIDI
Straight-laced Biology Major fine artist with a liking for being unnecessary, nitpicking and dwelling on her OCD.

ASADULLAH NAWEED
Loud-mouthed Computer Science Major MUN-er with authority issues and a tendency to rave about courses.

HARIS BAIG
Self-assured Computer Science Major excessive hugger with a passion for Bob Dylan, bragging and text messaging.

MEHDI MUJTABA
Federer-loving Electrical Engineering Major with a strange liking for strawberry cheesecake, Twilight and Freakonomics.

ANUM KHAN
Uncouth Biology Major who spends much of her time denying the existence of cute babies, being demanding and too old.

SAFA MEHMOOD
Prudish Electrical Engineering Major MUN-er with a proclivity for long mid-semester holidays, giving sermons and being scandalized.

SYED ALI RAZA

RABIA ASLAM

ALI RAZA

ABDULLAH KHALID

Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
12/27/2011

Between Man and Machine
12/25/2011

Launching The Box Move Publication
11/15/2011

Unflattening Pictures
11/07/2011

Psychology's Freudian Slip
10/29/2011

The CERN Experience
09/26/2011

Mean-Shift Segmentation
09/13/2011

Crop Rag Hearts
08/28/2011

Theories in Strangeness
08/26/2011

Contributors: