Hey folks!

Pasta is no longer just a delicious Italian dish. It also heals wounds now.

Wait… what?!

No, we haven’t lost our minds. Scientists in England have just gotten creative and cooked up something really crazy. They’ve created pasta so tiny that a single strand is invisible to the human eye. It’s just about 300 to 500 nanometers thin or about 200 times finer than a human hair!

And they’ve named it… nano pasta.

Now, in case you’re wondering, they didn’t make it because the researchers got hungry mid-experiment. Nope. For years, they’ve been trying to design ultra-fine fibres for medical bandages. Something with holes big enough to let water through, yet small enough to block bacteria.

Enter starch. It’s eco-friendly, the second largest source of biomass on Earth after cellulose and perfect for the job.

But there’s a catch. Traditional methods of extracting starch from algae or sea shells require loads of energy and water. So the team needed a better alternative. And guess what? Pasta flour has starch. So it fit the bill!

One scientist, Adam Clancy, who was also a chef at a French restaurant before he went to college, suggested using a technique called electrospinning to roll out tiny spaghetti. So the team mixed flour and formic acid, loaded it into a syringe and used an electric charge to spin it out onto baking paper.

The result? Nano pasta or a biodegradable fibre that could be broken down in the body and help wound healing, bone regeneration and even deliver medicines to certain parts of the body! Or in simple terms, revolutionise the medical industry.

Pretty clever, eh? Who would’ve thought pasta could fix wounds?

That said, just don’t go around sticking pasta on cuts please. We really don’t recommend it.

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Manase by Amrit Ramnath

You can thank our reader Herradlin J S for this lovely recommendation! Also, it sounds great with your headphones on.

Ready to dive in?

What caught our eye this week 👀

Virtual Reality in court?

If you’ve seen “Minority Report”, a sci-fi movie starring Tom Cruise where technology predicts crimes before they happen, you might wonder if such tools could shape our justice system. 

Well, the day might be closer than you think because in Florida, Judge Andrew Siegel recently used a VR headset to see a crime scene from a defendant’s point of view. It’s like stepping into someone else’s shoes, quite literally.

In this case, a wedding venue owner was accused of threatening drunk and out of control guests with a gun, claiming it was self-defense to protect his family. And to back up his story, the defense team used VR to recreate the chaotic night, giving the judge a first-person perspective of what went down. With the VR goggles on, the judge wasn’t just hearing the story, he was immersed in it, feeling like he was right there in the middle of the scene.

For context, Virtual Reality or VR uses 3D visuals and sounds to create an experience that feels just like the real world. When you put on a VR headset, you’re transported to another place, and everything looks and feels lifelike.

And this could mark the start of a new era in courtrooms.

Imagine using forensic data to reconstruct a crime scene. Everything from the angle of a weapon to how deep a knife wound was. It’s much easier to see and understand in VR than trying to piece together data or rely on descriptions. But, of course, this raises some big questions.

Can virtual recreations be completely accurate? After all, they’re based on someone’s memory, which can be flawed or biased. And since VR is so immersive, it could make one story seem more convincing than another, even if it's not entirely true. Think about how movies pull you in emotionally, even when they’re fictional!

Setting up this kind of tech isn’t cheap either. Plus, there are concerns about privacy and how long such evidence should be stored.

And what happens if the VR recreation isn’t accurate? An innocent person could be wrongly convicted, or a guilty one could walk free. That could impact everything from insurance claims to legal accountability. So the stakes are high.

In the end, a video recording might get the job done just as well, but with VR, the idea is to make it even more immersive. So do we need VR after all?

The broader line of thinking here could be, what if this tech spills over into other areas? Imagine using VR to settle workplace disputes or even revisit historical events. We could one day “relive” moments from history and challenge what we think we know!

So yeah, while VR in courtrooms might not replace hard evidence like photos, videos or documents, it does show the justice system is open to innovation. And one thing’s for sure. Courtrooms of the future could look a whole lot different, with VR headsets right next to the judge’s gavel.

Infographic 📊

This Day in Financial History 📜 (Republic Day Special)

26th of January 1950 ― India becomes a sovereign republic nation as The Constitution comes into force

On this day, we, as citizens, collectively agreed to adhere to the rules and provisions outlined in a supreme legal document called ‘The Constitution of India’ and India officially became a sovereign republic. But what does that even mean?

Well, it’s the day we, as a nation, said goodbye to British rule and welcomed a new era, where we govern ourselves.

But we didn’t get there overnight. It took a lot of twists and turns to make this historic day a reality.

The journey towards India’s constitution started way before 1950, back in 1934, when M.N. Roy, a political thinker, suggested the idea of forming a constituent assembly. It was a bold idea. And a year later, the Indian National Congress took up the cause, asking the British to help set up a Constituent Assembly to frame our future constitution.

But here’s the thing. The British were not in a hurry to give us full control. It took seven long years until 1942 when the British proposed granting dominion status to India, along with a provision for a Constituent Assembly. They went, “Okay, maybe we’ll give you dominion status” — which is a bit of self-governance, but still within the British Empire. But of course, Indian leaders outright rejected this proposal.

And it wasn’t until after World War II, in 1946, when the British finally agreed to hand over power and started talks for real independence.

Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held, and the seats were divided based on population across provinces and princely states. The Assembly initially had 389 members. But, with the Partition in 1947, the number of members dropped to 299.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee. And Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected the first permanent president of the Assembly. And they wasted no time in setting up various committees that would start drafting the framework for our future government.

By 1948, the first draft of the Constitution was out for public feedback. And after plenty of debates, edits and re-edits, the final draft was adopted on 26th November 1949. And then it came to life on 26th January 1950, the day India officially became a sovereign republic. And today marks its 76th anniversary.

Fun fact: The entire drafting process effectively took 165 days over a period of 2 years, 11 months and 18 days and cost about ₹64 lakhs at the time. What’s even more interesting is that ours is the world’s longest-written constitution and was originally handwritten, not printed like most modern ones. Prem Behari Narain Raizada did the calligraphy, and each page was beautifully decorated by artists from Shantiniketan.

Pretty cool, right?

Anyway, happy Republic Day folks!

Readers Recommend 🗒️

This week, our reader Parth Shah recommends watching Ted Lasso, an Apple TV+ show. It revolves around an American college football coach who gets hired to manage an English soccer team, despite knowing nothing about the sport.

The catch?

The team’s owner actually wants him to fail. But Ted’s quirky and optimistic leadership turns out to be surprisingly effective.

Thanks for the rec, Parth!

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday!

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