Shahzad Gani 🍉

Smog Season, Snake-Oil Season Personal mitigation – N95 masks, sealed rooms, purifiers – can reduce exposure for some but leave most of the population behind. Over time, they may even reduce collective pressure for systemic change...

"The winter haze over North India is not only a meteorological artefact. It is a visible record of policy decisions not taken over the spring and summer." - @shahzadgani.bsky.social in The Wire. #IndiaAQ

Delhi tuurt door de smog naar het vliegtuigje dat regen moet maken India: Het smogseizoen is weer begonnen in New Delhi. Met een vliegtuigje vol ‘regenopwekkende stoffen’ probeert het stadsbestuur de lucht schoon te spoelen.

It’s smog season in Delhi, a phrase I’ve drafted in at least 4 articles in 4yrs. This year, city govt turned to cloud seeding - but that quick fix led to no induced rain in Karol Bagh. Earlier on Tuesday I spoke to @shahzadgani.bsky.social about his scepticism for @nrc.nl: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

To seed or not to seed?

Here’s a piece Shahzad Gani @shahzadgani.bsky.social and I wrote for The Hindu newspaper.

Applications for PG Admissions (1st Semester 2025-26) to IIT Delhi are now open.

Did you know that in addition to our MTech and PhD programs, we also have a relatively new MS(R) program at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi?

home.iitd.ac.in/pg-admission...

Excited to share that Prof Katrianne Lehtipalo will be delivering the IIT Delhi Institute Lecture on 12 February (Wed) 3pm.

Let me know if you are interested in attending (in-person).

@katriannelehtipalo.bsky.social

The Noise, Aerosols, and Air Quality (NAAQ) research group wishes you a very Happy New Year!!

AR charges no article processing charges or in fact any other fee to authors and readers. This mode of publication is commonly referred to as Diamond Open Access.

AR covers all aspects of aerosol-related research. The main subject areas comprise aerosol technology, atmospheric aerosols, aerosol measurements and instrumentation, aerosols and health, and fundamental aerosol research.

Excited to join the editorial board of Aerosol Research (AR), a Diamond Open Access journal publishing high-quality aerosol research—free for authors and readers!

www.aerosol-research.net/about/aims_a...

NAAQ research group PhD students (L to R): Gaurav, Aasif, and Kajal!

Learning something new every day with them—today, we discussed the recent Nature papers on New Particle Formation from Isoprene.

Assessing Air Quality During India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP): 2019-2023 Did air quality improve during India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)? Since its inception in 2019, 131 cities were designated as non-attainment …

Freshly published: Assessing Air Quality during India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

India’s One Nation One Subscription deal enriches publishers and benefits few Contrary to its intended goals of reducing subscription costs and improving access to scientific literature in India, Muthu Madhan argues the much-hyped One Nation One Subscription policy risks sig…

"the ONOS scheme reflects a failure of informed science policymaking in India. Yielding to for-profit foreign publishers and calling it a game-changer and ‘atmanirbahar’ (self-reliant) is a major irony."

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

You wait ages for a @natureportfolio.bsky.social paper on new particle formation and two come along at once... (courtesy of HALO and CLOUD)

Big news here is isoprene is involved. I was asked to do a News & Views, which you can get here without a paywall.

rdcu.be/d2piI

Important note: #BRICS countries don't even get a discount.

Looks like @eurogeosciences.bsky.social journals are getting an APC revamp.

www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/about/articl...

We're coming close to 14 months of this happening over and over again: Israel assassinates aid workers, so aid operations are paused or stopped, making the people they were helping even more vulnerable than they already are.

This is genocide.

Work with air quality or climate data? Here are a few ways to visualize them.

Python codes: github.com/urbanemissio...

What other interesting visualisations can be made?

#stats 🤖📈

Let the data talk: embrace exploratory research Open-ended research is essential to building solid hypotheses in the social sciences — without it, even the best-planned analyses can fail.

Great article on the importance of exploratory (hypothesis-generating) research. Written about the social sciences, but totally applicable to the physical sciences as well.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Here’s a starter pack with the fantastic women in #AirQuality!

go.bsky.app/NQ6j7BU

Who is missing?

✍🏽 We are now accepting applications for the 2025 OpenAQ Community Ambassador program!

Lead your community in clean air advocacy using open data. Apply now (closes Jan 13): link.openaq.org/2025AmbassadorAppInfo

#CleanAir #AirQuality #CommunityLeaders #CommunityAmbassadors

🚨 Advanced Aerosol Science Intensive Course 🚨
📍 IIT Delhi Sonipat Campus
📅 3–13 Feb 2025

A joint course by CAS, IIT Delhi and INAR, University of Helsinki.

🧪For Indian PhD students (2nd year & above)
⏳Apply by: 31 Dec 2024

🌐https://forms.office.com/r/DjA74Hm8RZ

@jairofunez.bsky.social @sandeepbak.bsky.social

Yesterday during a lab meeting, my mentor informed me that I may no longer progress in my career due to my so-called 'infamy.' I was told that I was to blame for the challenges I've been facing in publishing my work—that my 'negative' political activism might be provoking the particularly unusual hostility of peer reviewers. Apparently, several 'respectable' figures in the scientific community have contacted him to voice their disapproval and even urged him to terminate my employment. This also highlights how the cowardly silence of my 'allies' perpetuates bigotry and exclusion. To my 'colleagues' who feel entitled to pass judgment on my existence as a Palestinian scientist—one who cannot turn away from the human instinct to preserve life while witnessing the daily murder of my people—I regret to inform you that I will continue to exist, unapologetically, with no regard for your comfort or supremacist ideals.

Fortunately, science is not confined to institutions. It lives in my mind and heart, and I can enjoy it fully—even from the solitude of my imagination; even if I were to become homeless. Home, however, is precisely what I am fighting for. I only wish I had the privilege to contemplate nature, without the existential threat of Zionism. From my perspective at the margins here at MIT, I have come to see academia for what it truly is: a stronghold of racism, classism, and spiritual rot masquerading as enlightenment. Apologies in advance if I don’t respond to comments on this post—this is a deeply personal reflection, shared primarily for myself.

"Fortunately, science is not confined to institutions. It lives in my mind and heart, and I can enjoy it fully—even from the solitude of my imagination; even if I were to become homeless. Home, however, is precisely what I am fighting for." - Afif Aqrabawi

The Economist covered our "Strain on scientific publishing" paper.

What is this all about?

We collectively churn out more & more papers *per scientist*, an increasing pace, in a rapidly changing publication landscape.

Why? How? Want to make sense of this? 🧵

www.economist.com/science-and-...

For a number of years now, I’ve had a policy that I don’t submit to nor will I review for MPDI and Frontiers. This analysis supports that decision.

It’s no reflection on the many excellent papers and studies that have been published in them, but rather on their editorial and business practices.

I’m excited to announce that I will be teaching an undergraduate course on "Fundamentals of Air Pollution Science" at IIT Delhi, starting in Jan 2025.

What topics do you consider essential for such a course? 👇

"How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?"

- Edward Said

Twitter vs Bluesky 🤣🤣🤣

Both places for hard facts it seems!

My goal is to make the syllabus & course materials openly accessible (excluding lecture recordings for now). Recommendations on reading material, videos, in- class experiments, etc. are welcome.

In the context of contemporary air pollution challenges, especially in India, what should every fresh graduate know? Would love to hear your thoughts on foundational concepts, emerging trends, and practical knowledge that you think is essential.