Latest news with #Curie
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Readers Respond to the February 2025 Issue
The article 'How to Recycle Space Junk,' by Moriba Jah, addresses how cluttering space with detritus will have, and is having, a deleterious effect on various activities, particularly in low Earth orbit. Why not design major satellites with a small thruster that, when a satellite nears the end of its life, will push it into a trajectory that will take it into the sun? Oh, pollution of the sun, you say? Can that occur from sending a chunk of metal and silicon—even one that is boxcar-size or bigger—into a fusion furnace? HAROLD SHAW PENOBSCOT, ME. Jah rightly focuses on junk in Earth orbit. Attention should also be given to junk in orbit about or on the surfaces of other bodies in the solar system, however. This is especially true of bodies that may have human-occupied facilities on their surface or in orbit about them in the future. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] JAMES W. SCOTT VERNON, N.J. JAH REPLIES: Shaw's idea is intriguing. There are a few significant challenges to consider, however. The approach would require a considerable amount of energy because Earth's orbital velocity around the sun is extremely high, and a satellite would need to be deorbited to head into our star. That is far more energy-intensive than just pushing it slightly into a lower orbit. And the trajectory would require a very precise launch window. Otherwise the satellite could just end up in a different orbit around Earth and, worse, could collide with other satellites. Moreover, although this plan could indeed have a very minimal effect on the sun's fusion process, the risks of creating a concentrated debris field in certain regions of space or inadvertently triggering an unwanted chain reaction would remain. And the environmental cost of the needed fuel could be significant. An alternative, which is currently being researched, involves using robotic 'tugboats' that would rendezvous with defunct satellites to push them into a safer orbit or to reenter Earth's atmosphere, where they would burn up. Another idea is to capture space debris with specialized nets or harpoons. Scott is absolutely right that as human exploration and activity expand to bodies such as our moon and Mars, we must consider the potential for space debris to accumulate there as well. Such objects not only would pose a collision risk to future spacecraft but also could complicate the long-term sustainability of lunar and Martian settlements. Methods for mitigating space junk around the moon or Mars could include 'cleanup' missions using robotic systems to collect and deorbit it or even the development of infrastructure to prevent it from accumulating in the first place. New international frameworks will need to be developed to address these challenges. In 'Marie Curie's Hidden Network' [Q&A], Clara Moskowitz talks to author Dava Sobel about her book regarding Curie and the women who worked in the famous scientist's laboratory. In the discussion, Sobel emphasizes that Curie's approach to recruiting female scientists was characterized by a neutral stance—that 'she had nothing against hiring [women].' When observing videos of enthusiastic groups in technical roles, I often find myself morbidly counting the people of color. Women have become relatively better represented in science, but people of color remain glaringly less so. Ideally, candidates are chosen based on résumés and credentials. But studies consistently show that résumés with names suggesting people of color receive significantly less interest than otherwise identical ones. This effect is often demonstrably subconscious, suggesting that to be selected, such individuals need to stand out—echoing Curie, who went on to win two Nobel Prizes, defying stereotypes. As we navigate into an uncertain future, let us take a moment to recognize that it required a scientist of Madame Curie's extraordinary caliber to remind us of the essential work that is still needed to harness the full potential of all available human capital. K. CYRUS ROBINSON TAMPA, FLA. 'Growing the Adolescent Mind,' by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, identifies adolescence as a time of opportunity for growth. 'Transcendent thinking' is used throughout the article to describe the ability to 'muse in an abstract way' about a given situation, including by considering different cognitive perspectives. This phrasing is misleading. 'Transcendent thinking' usually refers to mystical or 'peak' experiences, which are ineffable, holistic, and outside of time and space. Immordino-Yang also claims a cause-and-effect process in which reflective, emotional thinking makes brain networks communicate more effectively. It could instead be that changing brain connections allow for the expansion of reflective and emotional thinking. The author notes neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's work with a patient known as EVR, whose case involved the latter causation: as described in the article, brain surgery changed EVR's social and emotional intelligence. Encouraging adolescents to see the bigger picture is important, but we must work with their current brain capacity. FREDERICK TRAVIS FAIRFIELD, IOWA IMMORDINO-YANG REPLIES: Travis points out a common misunderstanding. My colleagues and I coined 'transcendent thinking' to describe thinking that is abstract and 'transcends,' or 'moves beyond,' the concrete here and now. 'Transcendental' refers to mystical or out-of-this-world experiences (although some have used 'transcendent' this way). It is also a good point that we cannot prove that teens' transcendent thinking causes brain development. It cannot be only that changing brain connections allows this thinking to occur, however. In my team's study of teenagers in Los Angeles, the level of transcendent thinking at the beginning of the study predicts future brain development, irrespective of the teens' brain development at the start. The level of transcendent thinking also does not correlate with brain maturation at the study's start. Our data are consistent with an at least partly causal explanation, and we are now working to demonstrate this conclusively at the University of Southern California's Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education ( It's interesting that the February issue has two feature articles about 'blobs': 'Anatomy of a Supernova,' by Clara Moskowitz, and 'A New Understanding of the Cell,' by Philip Ball. But the two types of blobs couldn't be more different and are many orders of magnitude different in size. CHRIS LANDRY HUDSON, N.H. 'Redefining Time,' by Jay Bennett [March], should have given the full English name of BIPM as the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. In 'The Missing Planets,' by Dakotah Tyler [March], the deck summarizing the article should have said that exoplanet demographics reveal a puzzling lack of worlds in a certain size range.
Mint
01-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
This fintech is turning MFs into instant payment wallets—but will users bite
Imagine paying your neighbourhood store, auto driver, domestic help using money parked not in a bank savings account, but in a mutual fund. Thanks to fintechs integrating mutual funds with UPI, this is now possible—offering not just convenience but significantly better returns. While bank savings accounts now yield as little as 2.7–2.75%, liquid mutual funds offer returns of 5–6%. That means your idle cash doesn't just sit—it grows, even as it remains instantly spendable. In a low-interest environment, this could make mutual funds a compelling alternative to traditional bank deposits. At the centre of this new experiment is Curie Money, a fintech startup that aims to blur the lines between your investment account and your payments app. Curie lets users make UPI payments that are instantly debited from their liquid mutual fund units—essentially turning your investments into a real-time, spendable wallet. Read this | Cashback is passe. These fintechs offer crypto, digital gold as card rewards The idea builds on a facility the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has allowed since 2017: instant redemptions of up to ₹ 50,000 or 90% of the investment (whichever is lower) from liquid and overnight funds. But unlike asset management companies (AMCs) that offer this with a separate redemption request, Curie links it directly to UPI payments. Scan a QR code, approve the payment, and the redemption request is auto-triggered in the background. It's UPI as usual, except you get emails and SMS alerts from the AMC about the units redeemed. There's a catch, though. Sebi hasn't explicitly allowed or barred UPI-linked redemptions from such funds. The regulator permits instant redemption but doesn't specify how that money should be used. As long as fintech companies respect industry limits and investor safeguards, the setup is broadly compliant, although it falls in a regulatory grey zone, said industry experts. If anything goes wrong, the responsibility would lie not with Sebi or the National Payments Corp. of India but with the mutual fund's AMC, they added. Curie, which operates as a mutual fund distributor, has just emerged from beta testing. The number of transactions—and the value moved—is still minuscule. It supports bank accounts from multiple lenders, but works best with Yes Bank due to deeper integration. And it only enables investments in regular plans, which allow it to earn distributor commissions. However, liquid funds carry relatively low expense ratios—for example, ICICI Prudential Liquid Fund's regular plan charges just 0.3%. Read this | Are instant-redemption liquid funds better than savings accounts or sweep-in FDs? One friction point is psychological: each transaction sends an SMS and email from the AMC, which can stress some users. There's also a minor delay due to backend integrations—it takes a few extra seconds compared to a normal UPI payment. Curie has tried to reduce this by offering users the option to load up to ₹ 2,000 into UPI Lite, which doesn't require a PIN, but that feature doesn't earn interest—undermining the core appeal of the product. With inflation hovering at 5-6%, and lifestyle costs rising faster still, savings accounts and even sweep-in fixed deposits offer little real return. The gap between what you earn and what things cost is widening. Liquid funds help plug that gap with a key advantage: returns that are not just higher, but more efficiently taxed. Liquid mutual funds invest in short-term debt and are considered low-risk. When redeemed—even for just a few days—they offer pro-rata returns (5-6% annualised). And unlike bank FDs, which incur tax on an accrual basis and attract 10% tax deduction at source, mutual funds don't have automatic deductions. "Each redemption is taxed under the first-in-first-out (FIFO) system of accounting. Out of the redemption amount, only the gains over and above the principal investment are taxed," explained chartered accountant Chirag Wadhwa. This means investors are not taxed on the entire withdrawal amount but only on the incremental gains, making mutual funds a more tax-friendly instrument compared to traditional bank products. "If treated as capital gains, short-term losses can be set off against short-term gains, and long-term losses against either long- or short-term gains," Wadhwa added. Losses not used in a given year can be carried forward for up to eight years—offering investors room to optimise taxes. Business income treatment may apply in some cases, but the tax arbitrage over FDs remains meaningful for most users. In contrast, Chirag said, FDs are generally taxed on an accrual basis, unless specifically opted for cash basis taxation, and banks typically deduct TDS at 10% on the interest. "There is no TDS on mutual funds, provided the income from redemption is considered as capital gains and not business income," he emphasized, highlighting another operational advantage in favor of mutual funds. For this model to scale, regulatory and market support must fall into place. Abhishek Kumar, a Sebi-registered investment advisor and founder of SahajMoney, said Curie and similar platforms are acting as market makers by providing liquidity through liquid funds. But to grow, they'll need wider AMC partnerships (Curie currently lists only one on its website) and more bank integrations to enhance user choice. But the biggest barrier may not be technology—it's psychology. Read this | The psychology of risk: Perception vs reality Girish Ganaraj, a certified financial planner, a Sebi-registered investment advisor, and founder of Finwise Financial Planners & Advisors, said retail investors still associate mutual funds with long-term, equity-linked investments. In contrast, savings accounts and FDs are perceived as 'my money in my account"—immediate and accessible. That perception gap makes users hesitant to treat mutual fund units as readily spendable cash, even when the product allows it. Vishal Dhawan, another Sebi-registered investment advisor and founder of Plan Ahead Advisors, echoed this view. 'Mutual funds continue to be perceived as instruments for equity market exposure," he said, pointing out that few investors are aware of their short-term liquidity potential. That disconnect is one of the key challenges preventing the widespread adoption of instant redemption features. According to Ganaraj, UPI could be the killer hook. By linking mutual funds directly to UPI payments, fintechs eliminate the friction typically associated with fund withdrawals. That could help reframe liquid mutual funds as viable, even superior, alternatives to savings accounts and sweep-out FDs—especially given their lower costs and better tax efficiency. The stakes are high: more than ₹ 84 trillion is currently parked in savings and current accounts. Even a modest shift from this pool into mutual funds would mark a dramatic expansion of the retail investor base. For now, though, scale remains limited. The ₹ 50,000 per AMC redemption cap means fintechs must partner with multiple fund houses to enable meaningful transaction volumes. Curie can expand its tie-ups to offer users more flexibility, potentially enabling instant redemptions of ₹ 2–3 lakh with just five to six AMCs. The technical risks have already been evaluated. When Sebi first allowed instant redemptions, it required AMCs to maintain cash buffers to meet sudden outflows—ensuring liquidity in most scenarios. Looking ahead, the opportunity could grow dramatically if Sebi raises instant redemption limits or extends the facility to other fund categories—such as money market or arbitrage funds, particularly those taxed as equity. That would significantly boost the tax efficiency of mutual funds compared to savings accounts. Under the new tax regime, deductions under Sections 80TTA and 80TTB—on savings account interest—are no longer available, and such interest is taxed at slab rates. In contrast, arbitrage or equity-oriented funds enjoy preferential tax treatment, especially when held for over a year. If regulators act on this, mutual funds could become an even more compelling alternative. Also read | Sachet-sized mutual funds can still be difficult for the house help as an investment option Ganaraj believes the redemption cap should be raised to ₹ 5 lakh to make this a truly viable replacement for traditional cash savings. The vision is bold: a digital savings account powered not by banks, but by mutual funds. Whether it takes off will depend on how fast regulators move—and how willing investors are to rethink what 'money in the bank" really means.
Forbes
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Here's The Wild Story Behind Albert Einstein's Fan Letter To Marie Curie
A fan letter from Albert Einstein to Marie Curie launched a lifelong friendship between two of the most famous scientists of the 2oth century. (Original Caption) Madame Curie in her laboratory ca. 1905. From a rare photograph. "Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say," Einstein began. A few sentences later, he went on, "I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels." At the time, Einstein had just become a full-fledged physics professor at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Curie was a Nobel laureate in the middle of a media firestorm. She had just won her second Nobel Prize, but the French tabloids had also just published the torrid details of an affair between Curie and a married colleague, physicist Paul Langevin. And the public were more interested in the scandal than the science. "I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling," wrote Einstein, who had met Curie and Langein at a scientific conference in Brussels, Belgium just before news of the affair hit the Paris press. He described the tabloid's readers as a "rabble" of "reptiles," and advised Curie, "If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated." Curie had already been a controversial figure just by being a woman who not only worked in physics, but made important discoveries and ran her own prestigious (if not exactly safe) laboratory. November 1911 debacle wasn't Curie's first time in the public eye: the French Academy of Sciences had recently turned down her application to join, a decision which came after months of public debate and fierce criticism of Curie in the press. With a 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics in hand, Curie sounds like the sort of candidate who should have been able to write her own ticket to any scientific instutition in the world -- but in 1911, the French Academy of Sciences had never admitted a woman into its ranks. Besides that, Curie may have lived in Paris, but she had been born in Poland. She lost her bid by two votes to Eduoard Branly, who had made a name for himself for his research on wireless telegraphs and radio signals (but who never won a Nobel Prize). And as if being a woman in the almost exclusively male realm of physics research didn't make her controversial enough, now she had slept with a married colleague -- and carried on such a lengthy and blatant affair that the couple had rented a secret apartment in Paris for themselves. In his November 1911 letter, Einstein described Langevin and Curie as "real people with whom one feels priveleged to be in contact." Einstein, of course, eventually ended up divorcing his first wife after an affair he started in 1912 (with his cousin), and under the divorce settlement, the money from Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize went to the first Mrs. Einstein. Curie and Einstein remained close friends until her death in 1934. Their meeting at the scientific conference in Brussels back in 1911 might have been the begin of that friendship, but it's likely that Einstein's letter of support in the midst of the scandal over her affair with Langevin cemented it. And the postscript on that otherwise deeply personal letter is peak science nerd friendship: "P.S. I have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in Planck's radiation field," Einstein added, almost as an afterthought. "My hope that this law is valid in reality is very small, though."
