Indian Genes

Marcella's interest in astronomy and atmospheric optical phenomena (photometeors) over time led her to create a scientific dissemination site (www.greenflash.photo) with about 1000 photometeor images and videos, even rare ones, observed throughout Italy and above all on the Iblei mountains (Rg) and on the Dolomites in Cadore, landscapes chosen for the great diversity of orographic, climatic and day and night luminosity, as well as for their position at the two extreme latitudes of Italy. In 2011 he received from the Minister of Public Administration the national prize for innovation in teaching in schools "Innovascuola". In 2015, his photo "Moon and Antelao" is included in the Shortlist of the Royal Museum of Greenwich photo competition "Astronomy Photographer of the Year", which selects the best astrophotography of the year from all over the world. The photo was then also published in the volume "Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2015" published by the Royal Observatory of Greenwich in collaboration with the BBC, the photographic site Flickr and the Collins publishing house and exhibited inside the Astronomical Observatory of Greenwich.The same photo will become the December image of the 2017 Greenwich Astronomical Observatory calendar. In 2016 he exhibited his photos in a personal exhibition in San Vito di Cadore (Bl), with more than 100 photos of atmospheric optical phenomena from all over Italy. The event was the first exhibition in Italy complete with video dedicated to photometeors. The work of dissemination through video and photography continues in the following years and many of his images are published by the major national astronomy magazines (Colelum Astronomia, Nuovo Orione and Le Stelle, Focus) and internationally (Astronomy Now, Sky and Telescope) as well as by websites of primary scientific importance such as those of Spaceweather, USRA and NASA. In 2016, he documents the visibility of the Maltese archipelago from the province of Ragusa and his images and his videos are broadcast by the Maltese national TV which, in the interview, define his works as the first shots of the Maltese archipelago by the iblei. Since 2017 he has been a member of the board of directors of CISA (Centro Ibleo Studi Astronomici), UAI delegation (Unione Astrofili Italiani) for the province of Ragusa, which aims to actively promote astronomy in the province of Ragusa, contributing with conferences on atmospheric optics. In September 2018, NASA publishes an image of him that captures the Moon setting next to the active crater south-east of Etna. In 2019 the national magazine "Nuovo Orione" publishes the calendar with its images: 12 photos that tell the sky of the Dolomites and the Iblei. For the summer solstice of 2019, NASA publishes his work on the solar Analemma, a work selected for its didactic value and for the singularity in creating an "Analemma at sunset".On May 31, 2020, his photos of the Green Ray taken on the Sun, Moon and planets, become NASA 's photo of the dayIn the summer of 2020 he sets up two twin exhibitions, in northern and southern Italy, between the municipality of Isnello (PA) and San Vito di Cadore (Bl) On September 26, 2020, his photo Moon Pairs and the Synodic Month ” becomes NASA 's photo of the dayOn November 11, 2020, his “Colors of the Moon” photo becomes NASA 's photo of the dayOn October 16, 2021, on the occasion of the “International Observe the Moon Night 2021”, NASA chooses its photographic work, created in collaboration with Gianni Sarcone, “ Moona Lisa ” as the astronomical photo of the day.Collaborate on the 2021 calendar of “ Severe Weather Europe” for the month of February  For professional deformation, he always combines his passion for photometeors with his profession, focusing his works on the didactic, informative and originality value, trying to grasp what has never been produced yet, simplifying to make it affordable for everyone.Component of the Pictores Caeli is a group of astrophotographers born to share ideas and suggestions on astrophotography. The goal is the union of mutual technical and artistic skills to develop high quality images, certified by a shared brand.The purpose of  Pictores Caeli is to restore the sense of wonder that one feels at the moment of observation and shooting, narrating sidereal events, contrasts between architectural and natural elements, and stimulating suggestions that go beyond phenomenal objectivity through the photographic medium.Although a lens and an observation point determine an interpretation of reality,  Pictores Caeli follows a shared protocol in order not to alter the scientific data, using and experimenting with the best shooting and post-production techniques.Photography for  Pictores Caeli is conceived as an art form, and represents a moment of contemplation, growth, knowledge, research, experimentation and sharing.

Simon Conway Morris is an English paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and astrobiologist known for his study of the fossils of the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian explosion. The results of these discoveries were celebrated in Stephen Jay Gould's 1989 book Wonderful Life. Conway Morris's own book on the subject, The Crucible of Creation (1998), however, is critical of Gould's presentation and interpretation. He has held the Chair of Evolutionary Paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge since 1995.Simon Conway Morris speaks exclusively to Indian Genes! In his new book From Extraterrestrials to Humans, he cheerfully challenges six assumptions—what he calls ‘myths’—that too often pass as unquestioned truths amongst the evolutionary orthodox. His convivial tour begins with the idea that evolution is boundless in the kinds of biological systems it can produce. Not true, he says. The process is highly circumscribed and delimited. Nor is it random. This popular notion holds that evolution proceeds blindly, with no endgame. But Conway Morris suggests otherwise, pointing to evidence that the processes of evolution are “seeded with inevitabilities.” If that is so, then what about mass extinctions? Don’t they steer the development of life in radically new directions? Rather the reverse, claims Conway Morris. Such cataclysms simply accelerate evolutionary developments that were going to happen anyway. And what about that other evolutionary canard: the “missing link”? Plenty to choose from in the fossil record but what is persistently over-looked is that in any group there is not one but a phalanx of “missing links”. Once again we under-score the near-inevitability of evolutionary outcomes. Turning from fossils to minds, Conway Morris critically examines the popular tenet that the intelligences of humans and animals basically are the same thing, a difference of degree not kind. A closer scrutiny of our minds shows that in reality an unbridgeable gulf separates us from even the chimpanzees, so begging questions of consciousness and Mind.Finally, Conway Morris tackles the question of extraterrestrials. Surely, the size and scale of the universe suggest that alien life must exist somewhere beyond Earth and our tiny siloed solar system? After all, evolutionary convergence more than hints that human-like forms are universal. But Dr. Conway Morris has serious doubts. The famous Fermi Paradox (“Where are they?”) appears to hold: Alone in the cosmos—and unique, but not quite in the way one might expect. 

Dr. Lee Clare is responsible for the coordination of the Göbekli Tepe Project. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Cologne in 2005, majoring in prehistoric archaeology. Following the completion of his PhD in 2013, which focused Early Holocene climate-culture interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean, he joined the Orient Department of the DAI as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2015 he took on the position of research coordinator of the DFG long-term project at Göbekli Tepe, and in 2019 moved to the DAI’s Istanbul Department where he is now acting consultant for prehistoric archaeology. His areas of academic interest include Neolithisation and Neolithic dispersal processes, Early-Middle Holocene absolute chronologies, culture-climate interaction, prehistoric conflict and cognitive evolution.The mound of Göbekli Tepe is situated a few kilometres to the northeast of the modern town of  Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey. The tell is situated on the highest point of the Germus mountain range towering 750 m above the Harran plain. With a height of 15 m, the mound, which is completely artificial, is spreading on an area of about 9 ha, measuring 300 m in diameter. This immense ruin hill was formed of the debris of monumental constructions dating back to the 10th and 9th millenium BC. Göbekli Tepe was first noted as an archaeological site during a combined survey by the Universities of Chicago and Istanbul in the 1960s (Benedict 1980 – external link) due to its remarkable amount of flint flakes, chips, and tools, but the architecture the mound was hiding remained unrecognized until its re-discovery in 1994 by Klaus Schmidt. Excavations started the following year and are still ongoing, until his untimely death in 2014 lead by Klaus Schmidt. They revealed an monumental architecture not suspected in such an early context and illustrating the outstanding role of this site – not as a settlement, but as a place of cult and ritual.

In conversation with Indian Genes in this Exclusive, Avi Loeb the Harvard University professor who is now heading the Galileo Project, explains his shocking hypothesis, details in this conversation have not been heard before and Avi Loeb, opens up to all matters related to the search for Extraterrestrial life including some details about his own life you may not Know. Avi Loeb is no stranger to controversy. The prolific Harvard University astrophysicist has produced pioneering and provocative research on black holes, gamma-ray bursts, the early universe and other standard topics of his field. But for more than a decade he has also courted a more contentious subject—namely, space aliens, including how to find them. Until relatively recently, Loeb’s most high-profile work in that regard was his involvement with Breakthrough Starshot, a project funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Yuri Milner to send laser-boosted, gossamer-thin mirrorlike spacecraft called “light sails” on high-speed voyages to nearby stars. All that began to change in late 2017, however, when astronomers around the world scrambled to study an enigmatic interstellar visitor—the first ever seen—that briefly came within range of their telescopes.

Having spent most of his life exploring the relationships among consciousness, mind, body, and society, Anoop found that our understanding of these is outdated and incomplete. He encourages audiences to rethink consciousness and unveil a more complete experience of life that also informs solutions to real-world challenges including mental health, bringing healing to healthcare, and upgrading our education. Anoop communicates his vision through the lens of the Three Minds–a framework inspired by the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta that places consciousness at the heart of reality.​Anoop is board-certified in emergency medicine and holds a master's degree in management. He is the author of Michelangelo's Medicine and Is This a Dream?, and is a columnist for Emergency Medicine News.heck out my latest episode!

Anoop Kumar MD, speaks exclusively to Indian Genes. Having spent most of his life exploring the relationships among consciousness, mind, body, and society, Anoop found that our understanding of these is outdated and incomplete. He encourages audiences to rethink consciousness and unveil a more complete experience of life that also informs solutions to real-world challenges including mental health, bringing healing to healthcare, and upgrading  our education. Anoop communicates his vision through the lens of the Three Minds–a framework inspired by the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta that places consciousness at the heart of reality.Anoop is board-certified in emergency medicine and holds a master's degree in management. He is the author of Michelangelo's Medicine and Is This a Dream?, and is a columnist for Emergency Medicine News.

In this exclusive episode Jonathan Mcdowell speaks to Indian Genes about Space Exploration & Its impact specifically Space Debris.The main-belt asteroid 4589 McDowell was named after him in 1993.Jonathan is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is a staff member at the Chandra X-ray Center. McDowell is the author and editor of Jonathan's Space Report, an e-mail-distributed newsletter documenting satellite launches.McDowell has a BA in Mathematics (1981) from Churchill College and a PhD in Astrophysics (1986) from the Institute of Astronomy, both at the University of Cambridge, England. After high school, McDowell worked for six months at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and held a summer job at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh before he began his PhD studies. His first post-doctoral position was at Jodrell Bank followed by another at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. McDowell then moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he spent a year at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1992, McDowell returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and currently works there as a staff member at the Chandra X-ray Center.

Jeffrey Hawkins speaks exclusively to Indian Genes, he is the American founder of Palm Computing and Handspring where he invented the PalmPilot and Treo, respectively. He has since turned to work on neuroscience full-time, founding the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (formerly the Redwood Neuroscience Institute) in 2002 and Numenta in 2005. Hawkins is currently Chief Scientist at Numenta, where he leads a team in efforts to reverse-engineer the neocortex and enable machine intelligence technology based on brain theory. Hawkins is the author of On Intelligence which explains his memory-prediction framework theory of the brain. In March 2021, he released his second book, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, which details the discoveries he and the Numenta team made that led to the Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence.

Indian Genes talks exclusively to Alfred Mele, Alfred Remen Mele is an American philosopher and the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is also the past Director of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Project (2014-2017) and the Big Questions in Free Will Project (2010-2013). Mele is the author of twelve books and over 200 articles.Mele attended Wayne State University and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1979. He taught at Davidson College from 1979 until 2000, when he took up his present position at Florida State University.

Seth Shostak from SETI speaks exclusively to Indian Genes in this very engaging episode. Seth claims to have developed an interest in extraterrestrial life at the tender age of ten, when he first picked up a book about the Solar System. This innocent beginning eventually led to a degree in radio astronomy, and now, as Senior Astronomer, Seth is an enthusiastic participant in the Institute’s SETI observing programs. In addition, Seth is keen on outreach activities: interesting the public – and especially young people – in science in general, and astrobiology in particular. He’s co-authored a college textbook on astrobiology, and has written three trade books on SETI. In addition, he’s published more than 400 popular articles on science including regular contributions to NBC News MACH, gives many dozens of talks annually, and is the host of the SETI Institute’s weekly science radio show, “Big Picture Science.”