If you’re a fan of the hit TV series House like me, then you were probably disappointed that his diagnostic team split up at the end of last season. In the season premiere last week, House found himself without a team to contribute to the perplexing medical cases he undertakes, and his boss is adamant that he recruit new fellowship candidates. In the second episode, which aired this past Tuesday, House sets out select his new diagnostic team amongst a group of 40 applicants. And one of the applicants is Lawrence Kutner, played by Kal Penn

Kutner is described as “enthusiastic”, “a radical thinker” and “the only one who believes House’s. crazy moves aren’t craze enough”. When the patient suffers a heart attack during therapy in an oxygen chamber, Kutner hits her with defibrillator paddles. This saves the patient, but also sets her on fire! Later in the episode, the doctors suspect that the patient has liver cancer and are trying to find a way to detect the cancer without operating; Kutner comes up with the idea of getting her to do tequila shots and measuring the response! Now doesn’t this sound like a future version of Kumar… that is if Kumar ever ended up in med school?!

At the end of episode 2, the 40 applicants have been winnowed down to ten, and they include Kal Penn’s Lawrence and another desi doctor, Jody Desai. Next week’s episode promises a Survivor-like cut-throat team competition and I’m rooting for Kutner, I’d love to see what other crazy idea he comes up with!

The TOI reports that urban Indians have one of the most exciting sex lives in the world [via Deepti].

• 68% of Indians surveyed think their sex lives are exciting, compared to 38% in the UK and 36% in France.

• 74% are comfortable telling their partners what they like in bed, compared to 58% globally and 49% in the UK.

• 63% say they have enough variety, compared to 47% in the UK and 9% in Japan.

• Fidelity is still important and the results indicate that Indians have had fewer sexual partners than most other countries. Indian men average six lovers and women average two, compared to 13 and 7 globally.

These statistics were taken from the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey. As Deepa says in her blog, we do reproduce like rabbits so it’s no surprise that desis love getting it on!

But of course being a stats person, I can’t help but be suspicious of the methodology. The survey was conducted online and received ~23, 000 responses from 26 countries. Did people themselves select to take the survey? Or did Durex recruit people to take the survey? If they recruited, then what was their sampling and recruiting procedure? For e.g., did they pass out flyers at night-clubs?

What was their response rate like? Keep in mind that 23,000 is not that large a number. And they haven’t provided any break-down by country. What if only 500 people from India took the survey? Is that representative?

Participation rates and selection bias are particularly important for sex surveys. Research suggests that sex survey participants are not representative of the population at large; they engage in more frequent sex, have more varied and unusual sexual histories, and have more exposure to erotic material.

There’s also the possibility of response bias. The wordings of the question could lead folks to answer in a particular way. People may also give answers that they think are socially desirable, for e.g. men usually report more sexual partners than women.

Of course, this is a survey carried out by Durex so all my questions about methodology and bias probably don’t matter!

If you’re interested in sex surveys and statistics, here’s an interesting Slate article on sex surveys after Kinsey’s pioneering work. Oh, while you’re over at Slate, you may want to check out other fascinating articles in their sex issue, including the questions sexperts can’ answer, the weirdest sex stories of 2007 and an illustrated history of the butt!

India has nominated Eklavya: The Royal Guard to the Oscars.

Eklavya was released in February this year. It was director Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s first effort after a gap of seven years; his last directorial feature was Mission: Kashmir in 2000. This is the third time that a film by Chopra is going to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the first being An Encounter with Faces in 1980, followed by Parinda in 1989.

Eklavya has an all-star cast including Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Sharmila Tagore, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen, Jackie Shroff, Jimmy Shergill and Boman Irani. It got some good reviews from the critics, but failed spectacularly at the box-office, grossing only 19,25,00,000.

As you may remember, the movie is a period film about palace intrigue, and the loyalty of an old guard who carries a secret about a royal family. The movie had its negatives – slow pace, heavy dialogs, one-dimensional characters and a predictable plot. But I thought the movie was shot beautifully with striking visuals and a very dark and brooding feel. There’s just one song in the movie, Chanda Re, and its a sweet love song.

Some folks are questioning the logic behind selecting a movie that was rejected by the masses, but I am not surprised with this nomination because India has had a long history of nominating period films with a focus on elaborate costumes and sets. In the last decade, our list of nominations include Earth, Hey Ram, Lagaan, Devadas and Paheli! But I don’t blame them, these movies seem to hold a lot of charm for Western film crictics.

What do you think of Eklavya’s chances at the Oscars? What other movie would you have nominated?