Scientifica Philosophica !!!

Mind Bending Bugs

2011-11-17T20:22:00.000-08:00

Recently during our lab journal club, BP briefly discussed an interesting article came up in science. It reported the discovery of the gene for an extended phenotype (Hoover et al, Science (333) 2011). Extended phenotype is a concept first proposed by Dr. Richard Dawkins. The accepted notion is that gene codes for proteins which determines the phenotype (with lots of exceptions..). But Dawkins proposed that when we describe phenotype it should also encompass the effect that gene has on the environment surrounding the organism, mostly through its influence on the behaviour of the organism.

For example, there is a disease in European gypsy moth called 'tree top disease'. It is a condition caused by a type of virus called baculovirus ( and you are going to hate me when I spell out its zoological name: Lymantria dispar nucleopolyhedro virus. my apologies!). A normal moth hide in crevices or soil during day time to avoid predators and climb back to leaves during night to feed. In contrast, the virus infected moth climb to tree top to die!! Its body then get disintegrated and release millions of viral particle, resulting in a viral shower which infect other caterpillars at the bottom of the tree. So the virus somehow manipulate the behaviour of the moth to aid in its own propogation. If a particular gene product in the virus is causing this behavioral change in moth it will be a very good example of an extended phenotype, because the gene product in virus is causing a behavioural change in its host. And thats exactly what they got! In this case the gene was found to be ecdysteroid (egt) which inactivate the molting hormone in the moth. When scientists infected the moth with virus with no 'egt' the moth did not climb to tree top. Whereas, the moth was infected with virus containing a noram copy of egt gene the moth showed all the symptoms of the disease. Thus egt gene in the baculo virus caused the behavioural modulation of its host. The first gene identified of its kind.

But the phenomenon where a parasite modifying the behaviour of the host is nothing new to biologists. One case with particular interest for humans is Toxoplasma gondii. Its a protozoan parasite with cat as its primary host. A wide variety of warm blooded animals can act as secondary hosts (including but not limited to humans and rodents). The sexual reproduction take place in cats. In other organisms it exist by forming a cyst mostly in muscles and brain. The reason why we are discussing about it is due to its impact on infected rodent's behavior. Rodents, rat or mice for example, has an innate fear for cats, their natural predator. It is an evolutionarily conserved behaviour. Mice which are bred in laboratory for 100's of generations would still have this fear (ie an animal by himself or any of its bygone ancestors have never had to encounter a cat or its smell). If you expose one such animal to cat urine they show all signs of fear and they avoid that area. Whereas a toxoplasma infected rat do not show any sign of fear, infact they seems to be attracted to the cat smell. To be precise, the uninfected rats when exposed to cats urine showed neuronal activity in the 'defensive part of brain (ventromedial hypothalamus) whereas in a Toxoplama infected mice the same stimuli increased the neuronal activity in the reproductive part (posterodorsal medial amygdala) of the brain. ie, to a Toxoplasma infected rat, its arch nemesis cat will look like a potential sexual partner! Is there any creepy way to make yourself a lunch! And with this the Toxoplasma achieve its goal of getting into its primary host (cat). What an ingenious idea! I found a very informative video on the description of these findings and related ideas by Dr. Robert Sapolsky @ http://edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html.

Interestingly, study conducted in Glenn McConkey's lab (Leeds University, London) showed that Toxoplasma genome has two genes that code for Tyrosine hydroxylase, that produces L-Dopa (precursor of a neurotransmitter dopamine). Dopamine stimulates lots of neural circuitry corresponding reward pathway, pleasure seeking behaviors etc. The hypothesis is that Toxoplasma hijacks the brain circuit of mice and makes it act in a crazy manner. Studies have also shown an increasing concentration of dopamine in the limbic system (a part of brain responsible for emotional reaction, among many other things) of mice infected with the parasite. There are key experiments to do, like infecting mice with Toxoplasma with deletion of Tyrosine hydroxylase to test whether the animals behave normally. Another interesting question is how does this parasite the override the fear response of the mice (getting it ready for "dying for sex!). Well, then the obvious question is does it have any similar impact on human infected with Toxoplasma. In an individual with healthy immune system, Toxoplasma do not cause any major symptoms. But it can cause fatal damge to foetus (which do not have its own immune system developed) and also in patients with defective immune system (Eg. AIDS). Recently there are number of studies showing increased incidence of Schizophrenia in toxoplasma infected patients (again increased dopamine is one of the alteration seen in schrizphrenic brain!). Is there a causal link there? Too early to say.

In nature there are several interesting examples of mind bending parasites. Thers is one wasp which attack this poor caterpillar. It will not kill the caterpillar, but instead lay egg in it. After a couple of weeks the eggs would hatch and larvae would come out and form pupae. The fate of the caterpillar is very different. It will turn into a 'zombie bodyguard'. The caterpillar will stop eating, immobile and stays near the pupae. All it does it bang is head violently when a bug, which predates on the pupae (and caterpillar itself) comes nearby. By this it scares away the the bug and save the pupae. Eventually the pupae would transmogrify into wasp and would fly away; but the caterpillar would die away. Thus the wasp some how turns the caterpillar into not only an incubator for its eggs, but also a body guard for its offsprings.

Well, we are talking only about caterpillars and bugs (except weak links between human behaviour and Toxoplasma). But seriously, are there bugs in our brains too which makes us think and act differently from each other? We know about rabies virus turn unfortunate individuals to act violently. There are reports of gut bacteria altering the eating patten of humans (a whole separate story by itself!). Are we all the "extendend phenotype" of some virus surreptiotiously trying to perpetuate its nucleir acid codes hidden in our genome? I am not confident to say an absolute NO.

Picture courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Toxoplasmosis_life_cycle_en.svg

Loops

2011-10-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

Happen to listen to another show from Radio lab. Its an amazing show. I love it a lot. This time it was about loops.

There are several segments in the show. The one which enticed me most was a short discussion on 'Zero'. Think about it, zero (0) is the most familiar loop of all. Although we (at least I) never looked at it in that way. Robert Krulwich's explanation of how did ancient Indians came up with the idea of zero was funny "they drew a circle around nothing". Well, its funny but deeply philosophical. How could one conceive the idea of nothing? As ancient Greek philosophers asked " How can nothing be something?".

Zero: The most mystical number, a count of nothingness. And it got the perfect symbol also "0", a loop, something which doesn't have a beginning or an end. It is not surprising that this concept came from Indian philosophy. The theme about repetition is a 'repeating theme' in Hindu philosophy. The repeating cycles of births and deaths of living beings. The repeating cycles of creation and destruction of the universe etc... But the ultimate purpose of life is getting out of the loop. Once you get detached from material world you will escape from the maya (illusion) of the loop and achieve nirvana, the ultimate goal of life.

In addition to philosophical tones loops has some significance in practical psychology too. One of the key concept in transactional analysis is life script. Most individuals write a script on their life based on early childhood experience. Most of us became slaves of this self created script. It happens in cycles. Even before we take up an endeavor we know the out come at subconscious level, just like the scriptwriter who knows the climax of a movie. Our body and mind gradually enact this life script (without the conscious knowledge). That is why in lives of many individual the success or failure became a repeating pattern. For a more fulfilling life the goal should be to lead a script less life. I found an interesting read on it (http://ww w.relationships-explained.com/pages/Life-script.html).

As a biologist one loop that I am interested in is the case of stem cells. These are naturally immortal cells with ability for asymmetric division. There is another type of immortal cells, which are very popular and notorious, cancer cells. Cancer cells are those cells which has this boon of immortality. They achieve this by sabotaging the normal mechanisms present in cells which prevent the uncontrolled division of cells. It is a pathological condition because cancer cells are selfish and do not care about their neighbors. It grows in an uncontrolled fashion and cause havoc in normal environment of the tissues.

On the contrary, stem cells are naturally immortal. They are needed to replace the cells which are lost from the body due to various reasons (For Eg: growth of hair, healing of wound, continuous supply of blood cells....). They undergo the so called asymmetric division. Cells usually divide into two daughter cells. This division will produce two types of cells, one which exactly resemble the mother cells (self renewal) and other which is different from mother cells. The cell which is different from mother cells are the one that eventually develop to new type of cells to replace the old one (the process called differentiation). But the cell which is the exact copy of the mother cells remain as stem cells (so that when ever needed it can differentiate again). There is a hypothesis called immortal strand hypothesis, which suggests that the mother cells always retain one particular copy of the DNA strand to itself, so that it is safe from errors that may occur while copying it (It is not tested/proven in all adult stem cells). Anyway, if it is true the stem cells are immortal because they are in loop. They always remain in same location (so called "niche") to maintain their identity. Its the daughter cells which escape from the loop which form cell types which are diverse and more of practical use. Its the fate of the stem cells, but in this case this fate is good for the organism. I don't know what those stem cells might feel. Bored! frustrated!. Lest they have the feeling!

Image Courtesy: http://njms.umdnj.edu/gsbs/stemcell/scofthemonth/CSCsci.htm

Chances of survival

2010-09-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

I was reading a CNN report on two asteroids that passed near earth. They came even closer than moon distance from earth. Near earth asteroid 2010 RX30 (32-65 ft diameter) and 2010 RF12 (20-46 ft diameter) went passed within 0.6 and 0.2 lunar distance from earth. NASA reports nearly 5o million objects pass near earth every day! Pretty heavy traffic huh?

When Stephen Hawking said that the chance of survival of human race was very grim unless we find an efficient way out of earth there was lots of criticism about his pessimism. Well thats my opinion too. Earth is not a permanent abode for sure. The natural resources are getting exhausted, water and air are becoming unconsumable, environment is getting uninhabited and there are tons of flying objects we have to stay clear off.. Our only energy source, sun itself has an expiration date so even the best optimistic has to act proactively at one point.

That reminds me of a great short story I read sometime back. "The Star" by Arthur C Clarke. Its the story of some space explorers returning to earth after visiting a planet. The planet and all its inhabitants are dead. It was a very civilized society and they knew that their Sun is going to explode in forseeable future. But their technology was not advanced enough to take them out of their solar system.

So they just waited for the end, peacefully and patiently.. In the final years they spent time preparing a safe hold for all the valuables. Not of monetary values, but those things that truly represented their civilization, their people and culture. For some future space tourists..

Imagine a similiar scenario on earth. If we know that our solar system is going to perish in next 3 years what would we do? We can work frantically to make a space ship to send few people to space. Or send a bunch of people up in space in suspended animation, hoping that some technologically advanced alien forms will recover them and revive the human kind. But what will happen to you and me, or the majority of other humans, a zillions of life forms on this planets? How will we react? Most people do good deeds to please god, in exchange of a prosperous life. But if you know that, you and everything and everyone you love and care about is going to perish in next 3 years how would you react?

At philosophical level we all know that nothing will last for ever. We all are going to die.. but we dont care much because there is plenty of time. But if you have fixed time frame, then... Probably most of us would accept it and lead a quality life in whatever time available. Hopefully..

One of the explorers in the story "The Star" is a priest. On his way back, he is very disturbed. What he saw might have challenged his faith. The story ends with a beautiful question by the priest: "God, there were so many stars you could have used, what was the need to give these people to fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem? Has anyone heard that question? Only God knows!

For the last somany billions of years we have been protected from these cosmic calamities. For how long are we safe? Well, there is no point in worrying about that. Hope our society doesn't become complacent from the over dose of optimism floating around. These are scenarios that demand us to be realistic. Lets build one brick at a time that might help future generations for a flight to a safer heavens. Until then like the frog, which is being devoured by the snake, pleading for food (borrowed from Ramayana, hope the great poet Vatmiki would forgive me for destroying is beautiful verse!) lets go around and have some fun.

Memory and Forgetting

2010-09-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Listened to Memory and Forgetting, a Podcast in Radio lab. How memories are formed, stored and retrieved in our brain. The easy way to think about memory is by comparing it with computer hardware. The memory stored as binary digits or yes and no (1 and 0). The file cabinets with various memories. But the reality is much complex than that. Studies in LeDoux lab shows memories (in Rats can selectively erased). They make use of Pavlovian reflex in rats. First animals will be exposed to a sound followed by an electric shock. After a while when the animals hear the sound they freeze out of fear (with the expectation of the shock that follows). Injection of anisomycin (protein synthesis inhibitor) to lateral amygdala after training inhibited fear towards the sound. More interestingely another group of animals were conditioned with two different sounds followed with electric shock. After training to one of the sound(retrieval of memory a while after training) the injection was given and animal forgot the fear feeling associated with that sound whereas the fear associated with other sound was intact. It shows the memory to different reflexes, although formed simultaneously, are stored seperately in same part of brain.

They also discuss several interesting aspect of memory. For example one can implant false memory into once brain. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus explains that with proper set of questions and recreation of a particular experience you can meke one believe that a particular incident have happened in ones life. It challenges the validity of eye witness.

Another part of the show describe the story of Clive Wearing, a British musician afflicted with anterograde and retrograde amnesia. He was contracted with Herpes simplex encepalitis virus, which resulted in loss of memory. He is unable to remember any thing more than 7-15 min and have no recollection of any thing that happened in the past. But there are certain aspect of memory that is intact. For example he can still play Piano although he does not remember learing it. It shows the procedural memory (Implicit memory: aquired skills and tasks peroformed with out being too conscious about it, for example riding a bycycle) is intact. He loves and recognize his wife althoug he does not remember her name.

So, different types of memories are stored at different parts of the brain. Another patient of amnesia visit doctor every week. The doctor has to explain everything time who he was and why she is there etc. One day the doctor hid a pin in his hand and while shaking the hand gave a prick on the palm. Next time she visited him he greeted her and explained as usual but when he reached out his hand she froze. It was surprising because she can not remember anything about the Doctor who he was and why was she meeting him, but she could recognize a threat, suggesting the survival instinct is stored some other part of brain.

Brain, the final frontier of science. The basic biology research may not be sufficient to uncover the secrets of brain. Its too complex for that. Who knows how it works and how it reached todays form and how is it going to be like tomorrow?

Beelzebub

2010-06-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished "Lord of the flies" the magnum opus of Sir William Golding. Its a good example of an allegorical novel. Its the story of a group of young boys stranded in an island after a plane crash. Leaders emerge from the group along with establishment of law and order. Naturally, there arouse two groups due to the difference in priorities and eventually everything end up in chaos.

The story line may sound familiar (with several TV serials adopting similar story line), but the story itself mean very little. You may have to read the book carefully to get a full grasp of the story and you may find each character in the novel symbolises different things. The major characters of the novels ( and what I think they represent) are:

Ralph: is a natural leader. He symbolizes logical thinking, hope, rules, sanity and laws in a civilization. He make use of 'The Conch' (found by Piggy) and use it as symbol for law and order (only one person at a time, who has the conch should speak). He convene meetings and tries to establish democracy. Interestingly Ralph derives from the word meaning 'Counsel' in some language.
Piggy: Piggy is friend of Ralph and often a target of mockery and joke in the group. He represent reasoning and knowledge. He advices Ralph on several occasions. Piggy wears spectacle which the group uses to make fire in the island. The original purpose was to make smoke to get attention of some ships and thus get rescued. During the evolution of the social system, one glass of piggies specs will get broken, symbolizing loss of reasoning as chaos take over law and order in a society.

Jack: Jack also is a leader. However, believe in enforcing his leadership onto others on contrary to more democratic approach by Ralph. He symbolizes the inherent savagery that exist in every human beings.

Simon: Simon is the enlightened one. He listen to voice and follow his own voice. He is the one who found out that the "beast" that all boys are afraid of is a parachute stuck up among wood. But while trying to explain the truth to the savage group, he gets killed.

There are other symbolic characters in the story. As Sir Golding himself said, the correct interpretation of the story is the one that occur to the reader after going through the novel for the first time. To me the story remind me of the savagery that we all carry within us. It is not so long ago that our ancestors hunted for food and killed for survival and territories. The evolution was brutal, how many species have become extinct? how many lives have destroyed ? It is only those who were fit and lucky survived. The spirits of those killed by mother nature far outnumber the surviving souls. At the end of the day all that matter was whether I am alive or not.

Sir Golding adapted the name 'Lord of the flies' from the Hebrew word 'Beelzebub' which also mean 'Satan'. At the leisure of lack of adult supervision a group of cultured British boys completely turn into a primitive tribal group who started hunting down fellow humans and started stone age rituals and communication. More interestingly, the story also gave a hint on the probable beginning of belief in supernatural power and idol worships. At one point in the story, Jack behead a sow and stick it on a spear as an obeisance to the 'beast' that all the boys are afraid of (which in reality is a dead parachute diver). He explains that by doing so the beast would spare the tribe of trouble.

In wild we all are animals. It is the society and the rules implemented by the "group" for the betterment of the society that restrains the animosity within us. The law and order has to be implemented by force. We humans are still way far away from being mature to behave responsibly in the absence of a watch dog. We many never be one, because power always corrupts!

The Prejudiced Mind!

2010-04-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to a discussion about a scam that came out in Indian Premier League (IPL). Its about the involvement of a so called "new age politician" (a title awarded by indian media to any politician with an e-mail account!) Mr. Sashi Tharoor in establishment of a new IPL team. I believe IPL is an entertainment business, just like bollywood and as long as tax payers money is not swindled people should not waste their time discussing about it.

But something that caught my attention was a comment made by Mr. Tharoor, that he has done and is doing several important business for the benefit of the country, in his capacity as a minister of state, but none of them is getting any media attention. On the other hand, an issue that took only less that one percent of his time is dominating the entire discussion, for all wrong reasons.

Is anybody surprised? Well, at least I am not. The reality of life is that bad deeds are as important as a good ones (if at all not more important). More often it is the wrong choices that you make in your life that became the turning points that changes the entire course of ones life. In long run it may work for ones own benefit, but at the instant it is made, you would consider it as a wrong decision, compared to other options you have.

Evolutionarily thinking an ability to pay more attentions to mistakes and mishappening are ingrained in our genes. The knowledge that, fire can burn you to death is more important than that it can be used for cooking. First one is vital for your survival and second one enhances the quality of your life. You should first survive to enhance the quality of life, I guess. So, it is an inconvenient reality. Even if you are right 99% of times, the 1% mistakes that you make is extremely critical in governing your fate.

We humans are very much prejudiced. Another evolutionarily consereved trait, to be prepared for the dangers that awaited our ancesters at every corners of forests dominated by much stronger and agile animals. Several studies now show that, our brain make decisions even before we are actually aware of it. Say for example, if you want to move your left leg now, there is a point where you experience that thought and implement it by moving the muscles responsible for that motion. Electrophysiological and functional MRI studies have shown that the electrical activity in parts of brain that is responsible for this movement actually happens even before, you think that you want move your left hand. So the big question is what is starting this biochemical activity even before the so called "you " are aware of that thought?

So, the "prejudiced mind" prepare us to face worst. It is this prejudiced mind that make us to judge people even before we actually see them or listen to them. That is why we are averse to people who resmble someone who illtreated or cheated us in the past ("I had this feeling that he/she is going to.....").I believe, it is the prejudiced mind that pushes us to look for stains and mud on people faces. If someone is good and generous, that is fine, he/she is not going to do me any harm, at least. But I will be doing a great favor to my self if I know before hand that the person I am going to meet is extremely short tempered and shoot down people dressed in red T-shirt and blue jeans! And I think that is why people are more interested in your problem areas and the mistakes that you made not on your qualities.

As the famous fable tells us, it is always the single black spot that catches our attention, not the white background! It is basic biology. Nopoint in blaming the society or media for that. Only sensible think to do is to be extremely cautious not make any mistakes. Nonetheless, to err is human! In that case at least learn from it. As someone told, many a times failures and mistakes are better teachers than victories. They provide us with new perspectives and philosophies on life and make us much better individuals. But the take home message here is that 'mistakes are fatal in this world where information come at the cost of our own privacy'!

Disclaimer: Many theories are my own. My knowledge in neuroscience is limited to few popular articles!

Science of Avatar

2010-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

Its a long time since I wrote anything on blog. Several subjects were there to write on, but could not find time to type in. Now also, its busy time, but thought I would scribble something to keep the habit alive!

Watched 'Avatar' one month back. I enjoyed it very much. I would say second best science fiction I have ever watched, first being 2001: A space Odessey. I liked avatar for several reasons

First the technology. It is my first 3-D movie in iMax (well, I have watched a 4-D movie in Tower of Americas, San Antonio. But that was a short documentary, where the seats would move in accordance to some motions in the film, the true "motion" picture?). The movie is a great audio-visual experience, worth watching in theatre.

Second the fiction: Pandora and the 10 foot tall navi's can be created only by true creative minds. I believe Mr. Cameroon is an avid underwater diver. I heard he has spent more that 3000hrs under ocean. That might have given him several beatiful plants and animals he depicts in the move. Yes it was almost like a world under sea. Also the concept of connection between all living creatures, both plants and animals is also interesting. We know with modern research that plants and animals of earth share common ancestors, but the formation of bond between different organism was an interesting idea. i believe it could be a more or less neuronal connection, that conveys the thought process from one organist to other.

Third the science: there were several interesting ideas shown in the movie. First of all the remote controlling another body using your thoughts. Well, thoughts are nothing but transfer of action potential from one part of the body to the other. Its quiet conceivable that this electric signal can be captured and amplified and transmitted to another individual or contraption. I was reading sometime back about a technology that allows one to move the cursor on computer screen or even type in come words just by thinkind. Which was still in R and D phase, but one can imagine its potential application in communication between a paralyzed individual and external world. The electrical component of thought process if manipulated properly, could have several such applications like, communication between idividuals, downloading and uploading information to and from brain. Transfer of data from one brain to another. Cerebral networking... and what not.

In short , it is movie worth watching. never miss it if you get a chance to watch in imax.

Intuition: A review

2009-09-26T22:30:00.001-07:00

Just finished reading a novel 'Intuition' by Allegra Goodman. Its a long time since I read a fiction. I happened to read an interview with Allegra Goodman somewher sometime back.

In the mind of general public scientists are 'crazy nuts'. A bunch of absentminded fellows who dont do what they think, who work in dark corners in isolation... Popular fiction and movies have contributed a great deal to generate such an image. Starting from Dr.Frankenstein to a variety of similar stereotyped characters in zillions of television dramas.

Such characters had attracted me as a child while reading comics, but not very much now-a-days. I can vouch that majority of us are not like that. We are just normal people trying to find some sense out of this insane world.Unfortunately scientists are not celebrities yet, so people generally dont care whats happening in thier world. For most of poeple discoveries happen as a result of flash of brilliance (just like Dr.House solve the medical mystery). That is not just true. Scientific discoveries are really excruciating experience. Long hours, lost sleep and lots of pain; that is lab life. No discoveris happen by fall of an apple on your head.

Discoveries take time. It is the result of systematic and planned work . You have to maintain your sanity (at least to some degree) to make a coherent story from the scrambled data sets. And (most of) scientists are just normal human beings with feelings, emotions and social interactions.

But you will hardly find realistic stories on science: Scientists are "regular" human beings. I decided to read 'Intuition' because it was such a story. Story with "humanized scientists" as characters. Its the story that happen in a cancer biology lab in fictictional Philpott Institute in Boston "very close" to Harvard university. The story begins with the depiction of Cliff, a frustrated post doc. Whose project for more than two years has not reached anywhere. The lab is running out of money and the PI admonish Cliff and suggest to change the project. However, things turn around when all of a sudden Cliff's project start working. The lab get funded due to the Nature publication out of the project. Everything goes well, until Robin, another postdoc in the lab and Cliffs ex-girl freind find some inconsistencies in the data and report them to authorities. Well, things go out of control of everyone involved. However, from what I understand it turn out to be an un intentional mistake, happened by over looking some data, a natural tendency of mind to favor your hypothesis. In the end all is well and life goes on with some minor changes.

Shallow ideas and funding crisis are the two major problems in science. Some people do science for the fun of doing it. It is a great experience. Any information gives happiness. Doesnt matter whether it fovour your hypothesis or not. But when millions of dollars are involved there have to have some trade offs. The life start to turn around the dark bands those appear on the X-ray films. Science became a means of life rather than fun. As many great scientists says, given a chance all scientists want to try out risky ideas. But when money comes with lots of pre-conditions you just cant do it. Science turn out to be the bread and butter for body rather than for mind.

Coming back to the the novel, overall it is an average novel. But gives more realistic picture about the way science is being done. I would recommend to read it if you have time. No need to find time to read it!!

Picture courtesy:

Cartoon: http://www.beaverandsteve.com/wiki/images/6/69/14_4.png

Lucky fella !!!

2009-08-29T09:15:00.001-07:00

Found an interesting piece of poem written by Mr. Unknown. Its good to remember that luck is not just chance!!

He worked by day
And toiled by night.

He gave up play
And some delight.

Dry books he read,
New things to learn.

And forged ahead,Success to earn.

He plodded on withFaith and pluck;

And when he won,Men called it luck.

--Anonymous

Remembering Moon landing

2009-08-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

2009 is the 40th anniversary of first landing of man on the moon. On July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on moon and human being set foot on an extra terrestrial surface for the first time.

"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

Indeed it was a giant leep. Result of the efforts of hundreds of thousands of poeple for over a decade. Several men sacrificed their lives during the various stages of mission, both in USA and USSR. It might be one of the most celebrated scientific ( technological, to be more precise) achievent in the history so far. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins became celebrities overnight. It was a technological achievement ahead of its time. 40 years later many other countries in the world are struggling to send even proto-moon vehicles to the moons orbit.

Moon had always been a poetic symbol to man. I was wondering who would ever had imagined travelling to moon and coming back safely ? As a child, I already knew that someone had already travelled to moon. But the complexity of the situation had never occured to me. How to overcome the gravity of earth ? How to get into moons orbit so precisely that the vehicle can be landed on a predetermined spot? When Newton formulated the gravitational theory had he imagined man ever landing on the moon? He might have, I am sure. Someone who can create thories as pure and eternal as gravity, or totally new branch of mathematics like Calculus might have easily imagined moon landing too.

Predicting the behavior of motions by mathematics !! Isn't it amazing? How does mathematics work? I always wonder. What is one? A single entity, right. Two, three, four.... I can understand that all. Something we can see and enumerate. But what is zero? Nothingness? Why 2 +3 is always 5? Why pi is alway 3.14....... Why the circuference of a circle is alway 2(pi)r ? Why the electrons moves in a fixed orbits? Why atoms forms bonds at fixed angles? Why the pH changes structer of molecules? How can I predict the concentration of solution? These are all the game of numbers!!

My life depends on the fixed turn and angle of DNA in my cells. A single change in one letter of my genetic code can change a single letter in my proteins. It can change the shape of the proteins, which in turn the behavor of my cells or my mind, myself.... .

We all are large reactors. Life is a chemical reactions that happens in it. Zillions of movements happening simultaneously, zilliions of interactions, zillions of molecules formed and zillions destroyed. Still, I am alive, that one letter change which could kill me didnt happen. The mathematics isso precise.. my cells can count the amount of hydrogen atoms and electrons. Change the angle between the atoms in the gates that guard my cells. Open up my DNA, recognize the specific nucleotide by its size, shape and charge......

Ah, I am alive because everything in me can count.... All the components from electrons to cells to neurons to my fingers, all are blind mathematicians !!! All can count and calculate. Why everything obey these numbers and rules ? What is the basis for this orderness in the apparent disordersness? Who knows?

Who can formulate a mathematical theory for life? Life as numbers? Life in binary form? A code for each living being?

It is true that mathematics is the mother of all science. All other science originate from it, there will be a time when everything can be expressed in terms of numbers and symbols. When my thoughts and mind can leave my body and move around freely from one space to another as electromagnetic waves. Why should I actually see or hear something if I can feel it as if it really exist.

Stop digressing !! Yes, the moon landing. It was just a beginning. Imagining the future of mankind, I would say that was a "small step for the Mankind!!!". We are just a sprouting civilization. Only hundred years since became airborn. Hardly half a century since the chemical nature of life was established. Only 40 years since travelled few thousand miles into space. The first human made radio signal would take at least several hundred years to cross out tiny galaxy 'Milky way' !!!! Can anyone imaging how long to go before we can even think about billions and billions of outer galaxies !!!!

Long way to go Man!! Many things to know."Known is a drop, unknown an ocean". Whoever said it, I do agree. I am here, now thinking about small things happen in a cells. That too totally lost !!! "As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm". By learing small I get a rough idea about the enormity of the large one !!! Some time knowing small things might help to fill at least a small piece of a big puzzle. Yes, I realize that what I am doing is infinityminisculth of the 1 by billionth of the knowledge out there. Sometime never useful !!! Sometime a piece of new information!! Anyway it is a chance worth taking. After all everything is a pursuit for the happiness, right?

Yes, moon landing is an event worth remembering- to be aware of a great achievement and to be equally aware of our humbling limitations !!!!

Pic courtesy:

stray-ideas.blogspot.com.

bp3.blogger.com

tmz.com

June is gone

2009-06-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

I love summer. Kerala or Delhi or Texas wherever it is and how harsh it may be. It could be that many of my memorable childhood joys are associated with summer vacations. The rustic life of our (my brother,me and other local miscreants) summer holidays... the never ending game of cricket in the parched paddy fields, magoes from trees that flower only triennial, leisurly aftenoon bath in the bossom of the Meenachil river- finishing off Chandrika soap before you can say Jack Robinson, to the utter distress of my grand mother!!! reading and re-reading of summer editions of 'poompatta' and 'balarama' or whatever available - I was a voracious reader (of course no TV at home or in the neighborhood for distraction!!!), the ineffable satisfaction obtained by successfully tuning in the Malayalam program broadcasted by the Cyelon radio (the sound will fluctuate according to the wind and sun giving you the on hand experience of wavy nature of radio signals; half of the song would be gone with the wind, but it is the thrill that matters, you know !!) festivals in local temples, exhibition of old movies in mobile screens, gypsy circus troop where the fee for admission can be given in any form- coconut, rice, old fluroscent lambs, eggs or worn out dhothis, you name it. Bygone are those days, may never come back. I can still see my old village and river Meenachil, thanks to google earth!!, to quench my nostalgia (sometimes an appetizer too). But dont know much about those old buddies whom I left behind there.

Many summers have passed since then, during my undergrad we used to arrange trekking to forests in summer, sometimes NCC camps or volantary services to rural areas. But it was all mixed up with studies, the charm was gone (or forgotten ??). I rediscovered the beauty of summer when I was in Punjab. It was scorching heat in Punjab during summer. But to the surprise of some of my Sardar friends I enjoyed the summer there. Walking miles together to my lab, library, farm and back to the hostel in the buring heat of August, occassionally (err, quite frequently) complementing myself with the desi badam milk or kulfi. The university authorities were smart enough to back up library power with generator, because in summer the electricity would be gone most of the day and in order to sit under the fans the students would come in to library. Since we are in the library what else to do other than hold on to a magazine or book, at least to escape from the staring eyes of library staffs. However, I have seen some creative minds who could convert the thick volumes of year books to state of the art pillows. Sometimes I would take my 'Hero ranger' to ride to the far end of the vast campus through mango farm and wheat fields. Summer escapades!!

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it" aptly said Russel Baker. Its the turn of Texan sun now. It is exhilarating and exhausting simultaneously. The evening summer sky in Texas is nothin but an elegant poetry. My wife and me just love them. The canvas of the creator!! The scales in the thermometer has crossed 100 degree many times this year, to remind everyone about melting ice caps and widening ozone hole.

However, the timing of summer is different in different places. In Kerala we used to get summer break during April-May and it would be down pouring in June. But in north India summer span over a longer period but the peak is in June-July, as it is in Texas. So it is not the month that matters but its the weather. A little bit of warmth is always good. Right now June-July are the favourite months for me. To put in another way June-July of US is as lovely as April-May of Kerala.

June of 2009 was busy. Went to the beautiful town of Newport to attend Gordon research conference. Could not enjoy the beauty of the city much due to the busy schedule of conference. Newport has many beach houses, owned by rich people. These houses would remain closed most of the year except in summer when the owners visit Newport to enjoy the mild sun of New England. It was a great oppurtunity to meet with many leaders in the filed of breast cancer research. Such small, speciality conferences are better at getting feed back for the work and personal interaction. The meeting taught me one thing, theories can be made and broken based on your data. As long as fundamentals are correct one can dispute anyone.

Summer of 2009 will also be remembered for the lost of Michael Jackson. I remember buying a cassette of thriller, trying to figure out the wordings of the background monologue in the song 'Thriller'. I rewinded and replayed that part several times that the feminine voice of MJ became more and more coarse in few days, as if it were sung by 'Wall-e'. Although I did not follow his music very much, he was there in my cache memory through various controversies. Recently I listened to his coming back announcement. The title of the video in CNN was ' Jacko whacko backo'. I laughed a lot especially the way he talked in front of the fans. The only sentence that he managed to utter was ' This is it! Looking back now, that sounded like premonition. Whatever controversies surrounded him, MJ was a natural performer. A person with highly complicated life. When postmortem was conducted on him, no sinlgle trace of food was found from his intestine. It was tragic for such a man to die in starvation (although not the cause of death). Whatever possession one have, if he/she can not enjoy it whats the meaning of it. It will only create frustrations and enhance sadness rather than providing satisfaction. His life reminded me of the famous story of greek character Tantalus, who was punished by Zeus for his evildoings. Tantalus was chained below a tree bearing fruits on low branches, inside a pool filled with fresh sweet water until his lips. He was hungry and thirsty. But whenever he was reached out for fruit, the branced would be raised so that it is just out of his reach. Whenever Tantalus bent down to drink water the water level would go down so that it would always remain just below his lips. Sorry to know that the King of Pop was also similarly punished by fate (by no means I want to imply that he did any crimes to deserve such a punishment, I do not know anything about that) . May his soul rest in peace.

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language" - Henry James

Basic instincts

2009-05-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

Punjab, one of the economically well off and educated state in India is on fire. Reason: a religious leader of one of the sikh faction was killed in Vienna. I was listening to one of the discussions on that matter and according to one of the participants in the discussion, what is happening in Jalandhar is nothing but a "usual behavior of people in India". One thing that confused me in the beginning was who were the conflicting parties. If a Sikh priest was being killed by another Sikh, then who is waging war against whom in the streets of Punjab ??

During my two years stay in Punjab I had the opportunity to understand the Sikh religion through books and also through my Sikh friends. Just like any other religion Sikhism is also a religion based on great principles. Majority of Sikhs whom I met were very generous and cordial individuals. It is a very young religion originated in 16th century based on the teachings of Guru Nanak and other Gurus who succeeded him. I could see many components of Hinduism and Sufism in it (I do not have any reference regarding 'sufism' base in Sikhism, that could be just my observation; many people do not consider Sufism as an independent religion). Most of the initial followers of Guru Nanak were peasants and unorganised farmers and Sikhism gave them an identity. Sikhism was also a revolution against casteism that was existed in Hinduism during that period. The point is that in the beginning there were no disparity among the members of Sikhism. All were equal, more or less. However, during the process of social evolution diversity came up and along came disparities. Now there are higher "caste" Sikhs, lower caste Dalit sikhs, there are multitudes of 'Deras', cults and divisions among Sikh religion. Whats going on in Punjab right now is the clash between two such 'Groups'. I do not know the politics behind it, nor am I interested in it. All I want to convey is the picture of a relatively young monotheic religion, which was established as protest against casteism and disparity.

It is an opportunity for an interesting social study. Many movements originate on the foundation of great principles, to achieve a great cause and to suppress social injustice. But in almost all cases things would change eventually. When a cause is achieved the fundamentals would be changed, when the leadership changes goals and principles would be altered. Many a times its only the name that remain unchanged. I have many friends of other religious believes who tells the absence of cast system in their religion as one of the plus points of their respective religion as against Sanathana Dharma (incorrectly identified as Hinduism) which I practice (Casteism also is the negative result of a social evolution that happened over centuries, created by the misinterpretation of scriptures by the educated class). But, honestly, I haven't seen any religious or social movements or organization (which is at least 3 generations old) that do not have some sort of factions or groups which are fighting against each other, than against other belief groups.

In Christianity, there are people who worship Christ, Mary or only Jahoa, there are innumerable groups of Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Pentecost and many more. Many factions have even waged outright wars against other groups. Many a times 'inter groups' marriages are strongly discouraged and some groups even hate to visit the churches of other groups. In Islam, I do not have to tell you the level of 'friendship' that exist between Sunnis and Shias. There are at least three or four school of thoughts of Buddhism.

Well, it is not a phenomenon unique to religions, there are multitude of groups and sub groups in Communism, which came up to emancipate the working class from the clutches of feudalism and imperialism. In the beginning all were equal, eventually some turned out to be more equal than others!! During my 'atheistic life' I was exposed to the cheap politics and backstabbing that was going on among and within some atheist associations in India.

So, such differences are the results of social evolution, which has its roots at the individual level. Most of it has nothing to do with the original organization or principles on which various institutions were established. In most cases such divisions came up due to selfish attitudes of individuals (in most cases the reasons for the cause of conflict would be forgotten during the long course of time, the individuals who caused such factions would be dead and rotten, what generally remain would be the hatred in the minds of peoples).

Selfishness is encoded in genome of all living creature, I believe. We all might be nothing but the vehicles for "selfish genes" (Thanks to Dr. Richard Dawkins). Whatever that belongs to me should be propagated, my genes, my blood, my thoughts, my name , my, I, mine.... yes that is the nature of life. That is the force which drives a male black widow spider to mate even it has to sacrifice its life, that is the force which cover the bacteria as thick spore, that is the force which give strength to pacific salmons to swim hundreds of miles to spawn and arctic terns to fly thousands of miles every year without fail. The unabatable craving to survive and perpetuate ones own genes.

Is that all ?? Are we nothing but a bunch of selfish entities who wants to be propagated indefinitely at any cost? Then what is love, compassion and altruism ? I can not explain all these qualities without adding a spiritual component to life, at least for the time being. It could be the limitation of current science; it is the scope too. Understanding the body, mind and the driving force of all these living entities is the true challenge to scientists.

A world with equality and social justice to all, a world of absolute peace and tranquility, a world were all are happy and satisfied, will come about only in fairy tales. It is a reality that we have to live with. With a better understanding about the functioning of brain, it would be possible to manipulate peoples thoughts and emotions. You may have a fair and perfect world artificially projected in mind. But knowing the basic instincts of living creatures, such a world will never come into existence.

These are not doomed prophecies from a pessimistic mind. But I prefer to be realistic rather than being in a fools paradise. These are certain facts that we may have to live with. But an awareness of human behaviour and animal instincts will help us to be better prepared to face realities and accept unfair events with a fair mind. I have strong faith in humanity. I have witnessed great sacrifices and instance of true altruism by ordinary peoples. These feelings are real, these people are real. The only explanation that I have now is the spiritual dimension. A force that links everything together, call it love, Higgs bosons, God or Brahma, as you may please. As Gita says...

"Mattah parataram nanyat

kincid asti dhananjaya

mayi sarvam idam protam

sutre mani-gana iva"

(..there is nothing superior to Me. Everything that exists are connected by me as pearls are strung on a thread").

The life is a quest to realize that thread, the Me in me. Some are fortunate to realize that, some may get glimpse of the truth, but the majority will never realize even the existence of such a question. Whatever the case will be, may the force be with you !!!!

Picture courtesy:

http://www.yogacitynyc.com/

http://www.wsm.ie/

Useless organs

2009-04-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

Today I became lesser wiser by 3 counts. I had my 3 wisdom tooth removed. Even if little late, I realized that, it is 'wise to be less wise'. It started as a pain few weeks back and doctor diagnosed it as desparate attempt of an horizontally impacted wisdom tooth to come out. According to him wisdom teeth are not used for chewing or any known useful purpose and suggested to extract it before it cause any serious health hazard. I decided to heed to his advice and also to remove the remaining 2 too, just to avoid some trouble in future.

Reading about the issue I realized that more than 4 million teens in America remove their wisdom teeth every year. It is a billion dollar industry in US. However, such prophylactic odontectomy (removal of asymptomatic teeth) faces criticism from some sections of health care professionals also who believe that wisdom tooth need to be removed only if it casuses any syptoms. Apparently wisdom teeth do not perform any useful purpose other than providing financial support to the maxillo facial surgeons around the world. However, it is hard to believe that nature designed the 3rd pair of molars only to make dentists wealthy. Mother nature is famous for her frugality. In a highly evolved species it is hard to find any ezymatic pathway or organ that is useless. Generally, millions of years of evolution is sufficient to get rid of the unwanted proteins or genes to save the ATPs that is required for the synthesis of them, let aside an entire anatomical structure like a teeth. Then the question is if the wisdom teeth serve no useful function why is it still preserved in highly evolved species like human beings ??

A breif review of the literature revealed that humans share the same dental formula as gorillas and orangutans (2/2, 1/1, 2/2, 3/3). This probably would be from a common ancestor of distant past. Early humans used to have lots of fibrous vegatables in the diet which demanded a strong molar teeth. Moreover, the tooth decay also would have been a major problem in ancient societies resulting in the loss of teeth pretty early in life which gave enough room for late coming tooth. (Wisdom tooth got its name since it erupt in the age of 16-30 years, a period when women and men are supposed to be wise; women at 16 and men at 30, I guess !!!) . But, in modern societies, we consume mostly cooked food which a are relatively soft when compared to the hard food of our ancestors. Also, the improvement in dental hygeine effectively reduced the tooth decay problem. All these together made the third molar a vestigeal structure. Another, but similar explanation is that, the change in diet along with increase in the brain size in new generations, resulted in the selection of small jaw to give space for enlarged cranium. However, it is hard to find the selection pressure worked in that process. ie, how a shift to soft diet help in selection of small jaw size ? For Darwinian forces to work, in order to a trait to be selected in a population, it should have differential reproductive advantage (like the potential mate selectively choose the small sized jaw person as partner), as of now there is no record for such a selection in recent history.

Interestingly, Darwin himself have taken up this issue in his famous book "The descent of Man and selection in relation to sex' and used it as a supportive evidence of evolution. So, in evolutionary terms, the third molars were retained, eventhogh they did not serve any useful fucnitons because there were no selection pressure acting against them. So a plausible explanation could be the combination of brain size theory and the practice of better dental care, which made the third molar not required for any useful functions. Now are there any other such useless organs in our body ? The answer is a big Yes !! Discover magazine has published an interesting list of organs which serve no obvious useful function in the body, other than wisdom teeth...
APPENDIX : This narrow, muscular tube attached to the large intestine served as a special area to digest cellulose. Annually, more than 300,000 Americans have an appendectomy.
BODY HAIR: Brows help keep sweat from the eyes, and male facial hair may play a role in sexual selection, but apparently most of the hair left on the human body serves no function.

COCCYX: These fused vertebrae are all that’s left of the tail that most mammals still use for balance and communication. Our hominid ancestors lost the need for a tail before they began walking upright.
MALE NIPPLES: Lactiferous ducts form well before testosterone causes sex differentiation in a fetus. Men have mammary tissue that can be stimulated to produce milk.
NECK RIB: A set of cervical ribs—possibly leftovers from the age of reptiles—still appear in less than 1 percent of the population. They often cause nerve and artery problems.
THIRD EYELID: A common ancestor of birds and mammals may have had a membrane for protecting the eye and sweeping out debris. Humans retain only a tiny fold in the inner corner of the eye.
PALMARIS MUSCLE: This long, narrow muscle runs from the elbow to the wrist and is missing in 11 percent of modern humans. It may once have been important for hanging and climbing. Surgeons harvest it for reconstructive surgery.
ERECTOR PILI: Bundles of smooth muscle fibers allow animals to puff up their fur for insulation or to intimidate others. Humans retain this ability (goose bumps are the indicator) but have obviously lost most of the fur.

PLANTARIS MUSCLE: The muscle was useful to other primates for grasping with their feet. It has disappeared altogether in 9 percent of the population.
THIRTEENTH RIB: Our closest cousins, chimpanzees and gorillas, have an extra set of ribs. Most of us have 12, but 8 percent of adults have the extras.
MALE UTERUS: A remnant of an undeveloped female reproductive organ hangs off the male prostate gland.

FEMALE VAS DEFERENS: What might become sperm ducts in males become the epoophoron in females, a cluster of useless dead-end tubules near the ovaries.

FIFTH TOE: Lesser apes use all their toes for grasping or clinging to branches. Humans need mainly the big toe for balance while walking upright.

These organs do not have any obvious selective reproductive advantage or disadvantage. Which makes them 'evolutionarily neutral'. So they are going to stick around with us for a long time some times unnoticed and sometimes to help the doctors to buy new BMWs....

Image courtesy:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=appendix&sa=N&start=18&ndsp=18
http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/plica_semilunari.jpg
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/siteimages/remedies_for_ge_photo.jpg
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-useless-body-parts.php
www.media.photobucket

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/jun/useless-body-parts/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=

The Kepler mission

2009-03-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

The search for "the Others" has begun officially.The Kepler mission by NASA has been flagged off on March 6, 2009. The major objective of the mission is to find out the 'structure and diversity of planetary systems similar to earth deep in space.

It seems to be technically challenging to make these observations from earth surface due to the bending of light by the atmosphere and the difficlty to observe a celestial object continuously due to hindrance of view by Sun and moon. Both these issues is avoided by placing the telescope in space.

There are billions of stars out there and it is almost impossible to look around everywhere in space for the planets. So Kepler will be focusing on only one small area of Milky way galaxy called Cygnus. This area was chosen because sun will not get in the way of Kepler to block the view of Cygnus and it is a star rich area. There are different methods to identify a planet. Kepler will be using transit method to identify the exoplanet. It is basically looking for the drop in the intensity of light from a star when a planet transit across the star.

It requires very sensitive photometer make this obervation, because according to one NASA scientist it is almost like ' looking for a fly that is crossing the headlight of your car'. This dip in intensity can be due to other reasons too, like normal variation in intensity of light from the star and technical error. So to be confident we should watch for multiple transit. Assuming that a habitable planet like earth would take approximately 1 year to make one rotation around its star, Kepler will have to collect data for a period of approximetly 3 years to make statistically significant obesrvations. During this period it will collect data from approximately 100,000 stars in Cygnus starfield.

Are there other civilizations out there ??A question anyone, who ever got a chance to look up to the night sky would have asked atleast once. The origin of life is a big puzzle for the biologists to solve. I doubt whether I would get an answer before I die. The origin of universe is even bigger question for the astronomists to solve. I am not sure how many generations will pass before we get any clues. The origin of matter? The origin of time ? the origin of everything? Will the human race remain in this form to listen to answers to all these questions? Who knows other than He !!!

We humans are Xenophobic. Most of our science fiction novels depicts aliens as emotionless, ruthless villains who wants to conquer earth and do experiments on live human subjects . No one knows when such an encounter would happen (if ever). The awareness of the vastness of space helps to take off a lots of stress from me. It reminds how insignificant am I. An insignificant dust particle lost in space !!! No one is indispensable here !!! The universe will move on without any of we great humans. Even with out everything in this planet, even without this solar system. That all evolved from nothingness will transform back into nothingness !!

Kepler will be looking only for habitable planets. That is planets which are at an optimum distance from its star. Which are not too close to get burned and not too far to be frozen. The planets which has size and density sufficient enough to provide gravity to keep matters for life in the atmosphere. It is possible that this mission might not find any habitable planents. Does it means there is no life else where ?

No, by all means. Because given the vasteness of space, Cygnus region of Milkyway is nothing. Absnce of any life form in a handful of sand in a seashore does not mean there is no life on earth !! On the contrary presence of any habitable planets also does not means there is life there. It is just a possibility.

It is a good start. Something money worth spending for. Johannes Kepler might be the happiest soul out there now. Hope it would help the young generation to understand the legecy left by one of the founding fathers of planetary science.

Reality Stinks !!

2009-02-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

On Feb 22nd, I lost all my money on 'Slumdog millionair'. I watched this movie with my wife few months back, when it was released in US. In the first half hour of the movie itself I made a proposition to go out and save one hour of life. But my wife was so engrossed in the movie that all my grumblings went unheeded. I had to sit and sleep through the entire movie. However, towards the end of the movie everything balanced out and I came out of the theatre with an indifferent mind set. It was 'just another movie' for me. The usual rags to riches stuff.

However, the same sequence of images which activated the melatonin receptors in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of my brain and induced a soporific response in me (resulting in stimulation of flexor muscles of my neck and relaxation of palpebral muscles of my eye lid, causing me to droop my head ventrally and close my eyes - popularly known as "sleep"), induced a totally different sets of response in the brain of an individual who sat on my next seat (my wife). The light emitted from the screen projected virtual images in her visual cortex which some how excited the lacrimal branch of her optic nerve resulting in the exhibition of 'lacrimal reflex' (aka 'crying). The reflex was manifested in such a way that it even attracted the attention of some sleepy heads in the neighboring seats. At one point I even considered alerting the security personnel regarding a potential flood situation in the theatre and the possibity of distributing life jackets to other folks watching the movie. Anyway, I linked my wifes' reaction to one extra 'X' chromosome she has and made a mental note to study this phenomenon in future. Of course, I have also became emotional while watching some movies (Bicycle thieves, Life is beutiful for Eg.) but not this one.

I did not think much about this movie afterwards, although my wife fell head over heals for it. I argued with her a couple of times to convince her that it was just an average movie, but with no success (as usual). But the Golden glob awards were a matter of concern for me and I was shattered when I heard Oscar announcement. I consider myself as a great critic of the movies (unfortunately, this is a thought that has occured only to me so far !! Readers discretion is strongly advised). And in my evaluation this movie did not deserve all the accolades that it receive now. I have seen many great movies, that has left everlasting impressions in me, in terms of both techical brilliance and substance. I havent seen the cinematographic excellence of 'Lord of the Rings' or musical brilliance of 'Titanic' or beauty of script as in 'A beautiful mind' or Directorial touch of 'Saving Private Ryan' in Slumdog millionaire. It did not leave any images once I left the theatre other than some disturbing realities of child abuse. But that is not the opinion of many film pundits. So there must be some problem with my way of evaluation.

It was a good movie with a novel story line, I do agree. But for some reasons it failed to leave anything new in my mind. The movie only helped to rekindle some old memories in me. The images of impoverished children who used to come to the sleeper compartments on Kerala express, during my many journeys to northen India. Flashing images of many instances of child abuses in different parts of India that I have witnessed. Yes, I was just a witness. I was unable to react or afraid to react in most of those situations. The events and stories that are portrayed in slumdog millionair are true to the core and deeply disturbing. All those hapless kids out there deserve few drops of tears, atleast (Thanks to my wife !!). So, what did skew my judgement??

Aha, I think I got it. 'The inconvenient truth' !! That is the issue here. The film depicts realities that I want to escape from. When you are put in a situation which you despise, and you are unable to do anything about it.... for me it will be an utterly unpleasant scenario. Moreover, I have seen many of similar things with my own eyes and I can relate them very well to men with flesh and blood. I have seen and appreciated movies like 'Life is beautiful' and 'Schindler list' which also picturise the dark side of life. But the difference is that, I have never been to a Concentration camp or to Nazi Germany or even talked to anyone who had been to there. I can not associate all those atrocities to real people. So while watching these movies what I felt was a 'philosophical sadness'. Deep in my mind I conviced myself that part of the movie is a figment of imagination of the writer or director. I reiterated time and again that human beings can never be so cruel. All those people and places in that movie were just characters and plot for me. But Slumdog was raw reality. Something I have seen by myself. You will forget stories and narrations but not faces and incidents in real life.

And in terms of technical excellence too, I was drawing wrong comparisons. I can not compare 'Dances with the wolves' to 'Shawshank redemption'. Both were good movies in their own rights, but at two different time points. Its almost like comparing the achivements of Mark Spitz to Mike Phelps. It will be erroneous to compare two individuals or events from different period of time without a defined reference point. Anyway Oscar is not an award for best movie ever made. For an unbiased judge (Like my wife), Slumdog millionaire could be the greatest movie of 2008. However, in any of the categories that it got awards, I will not consider it as the best in last 25 years not even 5 years. It got all these awards not due to the merits it holds but due to the lack of the same in its competitors (err... philosophically this is true with all awards I guess !!). By the way, I am not skeptical about the talents of the awardees here. For Eg. I love many works of A.R.Rahman and he well deserve this recognition. But I know a lot of great tunes from Rahman when compared to 'Jai ho'.

It will remain as 'just another' movie for me which I may never watch again. Call me a coward or an escapist, but the fact of the matter is that "reality stinks"!!.

Picture of the girl: www.stolenchildhood.net

Remembering Darwin: The past and the future

2009-02-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today (Feb 12, 2009) is Charles Darwin's 200th birth aniversary. This year also marks the 150th year of publication of his seminal work "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (Popular as "On the Origin of Species"). His journey in the HMS Beagle and the observations he made during that journey about the nature and everything in nature, paved the foundation for the great "theory of evolution.". The deductions he made based on the observations are the paradigm for scientific thinking and creativity. In my opinion, for a biologist theory of evolution is tantamount to the gravitational theory for a physicist, in terms of its influence on the later development of the respective fields of study.

Evolution is real. It has been proven unequivocally through both paleontologic and genetic evidences. However, it will be good to keep in mind that the theory of evolution does not explain (or make any effort to explain) the origin of life on earth. In simple terms, the theory proposes that any individual with an advantage for survival will outnumber its competitors in long run. All the living beings that we can find around us has some smart features built in them that help in their survival in the environment they belongs to. We all survive here just because of the fact that the environment is congenial for our survival. Any minute change in this complex system can make us unfit here. A few inches rise in sea water level, a single nucleotide change in a virus, a wandering meteor or even the flapping wing of a butterfly, we could be wiped out !!!

It has been going on through billions of years. Billions of years !!! I know how BIG 70 years is !!! Its my life time. I hardly remember anything that happened thirty years ago, because its looong time back for me !!! 5000 years back is almost prehistoric time for me. These millions and billions beats me altogether.

Only one thing I know, it has been quite a long time since it all began. That spark, let me call it life, might have started in a flash of a second. Since then it has been here, taking various forms in various era of time. Painstakingly, but successfully, overcoming many challenges that were posed upon it by mother nature. There are atleast five well established instances of mass extinctions of species, due to various speculative reasons. Varying environments, multiples selections pressures.... sometimes it was survival in CO2 that acted as the measure stick of success, some time cold climate, some other time hydrogen sulfide, heat and most recently oxygne. Yes, now it is our time (at least on the surface of earth) "the era of aerobes" who can use oxygen for making energy.

The Winners ... for how long ? So far there have been many winners, and probably equal number of losers too. Most of the victories were transient. I can well imagine the life of a once 'invincible' T.rex, they are all deep burried as fossils now.

Everything is uncertain my friend..

How long will this drama go on ? Who will be the winners during the next mass extinction (certainly there will be one atleast. Can't you hear the ticking sound from Sun ??). If it does not happen for a next couple of centuries humans have a fair chance, I persume. We need time to develop technologies to face the oncoming challenge.

What is the future of human evolution? I have heard many people saying that Homo sapiens is the pinnacle of evolution. But I dont think so. We humans are very complex biological entities, but so is a dog or mouse or amoeba !!!. If someone says that evolution ends in humans, that would be a denial of the theory of evolution. Of course evolution can be challenged, but with ample scientific evidence only. An inability to observe a phenomenon is not an argument for its absence (BTW, there are evidence of ongoing evolution in human genome, Ref article by Dr. Peter Ward, Scientific American, January, 2009).

The success of human race depends on one special organ in our body. The most enigmatic machine in our body. The one which make us what we are. The organ which helped Darwin to make notes on the variation of beaks of finches, helped him to associate the proofs from nature and come up with "tree of life". The brain !!

I have a strong feeling that the future evolution is going to be mostly cerebral. We know the past. We also know that history repeats itself. So the only logical thing we can do to propagate the human gene pool is to prepare for the next mass extinction. Make brain as the positive trait for selection. Expand our horizon. Move out of earth.... Move out of solar system.... Defeat the light and time ..... Explore the space, distant stars and galaxies......

I envision a cerebral and technological evolution and that is going to be the future of Darwinian evolution, our only hope for survival.

Thank you Charlie for laying the foundation, hope we can build a bright future for every living beings on your legacy.

Images of meteor: www.rense.com/general42/ukteen.htm

Time scale: www.wikepedia.com

Biochemistry of a cake

2009-02-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

Today my wife and me decided to prepare "Banana Walnut Cake". It was mainly to salvage two over ripened bananas. We were very much disturbed to read that 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger related causes (read it as one person in every three and a half seconds, ref. http://www.poverty.com/). As our humble contribution to curtail the poverty we have decided to save as much food as possible, hoping that a negative feed back loop may eventually set in and decrease the overall food consumption/wastage in long run.

Coming to the Banana Walnut Cake; we got the taste of it from Sudha and Binoj and recipe from "my pleasure my treasure" ( a wonderful cooking blog frequently visited by my wife). I did the cooking under the supervision of my wife. The details can be found the above mentioned blog. Here I am going to discuss the biochemical principle underlying cake making.

Someone has said that biochemistry is nothing but glorified cooking !! (Or vice versa depending on your inclination). I consider myself as a student of biochemistry (trying get a taste of molecular biology). One basic requirement for a biochemist is the inquisitiveness to understand the role of various components in a chemical reaction. Otherwise the interpretation or troubleshooting of the experiment may not be possible.

Alright. The major components of the reaction mix are, all purpose flour, Egg, baking powder/baking soda, butter, and butter milk. The function of these components are,

1. All purpose flour: It is a blend of high and low gluten wheat (or wheat flour with medium gluten level). Gluten is a mixture of water insoluble proteins gliadin and glutenin.

- Gliadin: is a glycoprotein. Different isoforms are found in nature including alpha/beta, gamma and omega. There are a number of allergic conditions associated with it, Eg: Coeliac disease (Gluten sensitive enteropathy (GSE) or gluten allery), baker's asthma etc.

-Glutenin: Composed of 20% high molecular weight subunits (low in sulfur) and 80% low molecular weight subunit (high in sulfur). During the kneading process it can form inter and intramolecular disufide bonds resulting in a three dimensional network. This reaction is responsible for the firmness of the dough. The carbon dioxide formed in one of following described reactions will be trapped in this network resulting in the "rising of dough".

2.Egg: I hope egg does not need any special introduction. Its an elliptical round object........

I believe everyone is aware of the nutritive value and draw backs of egg. So I will skip that part.

Egg serves more than 20 different functions in baking process. Some biochemically interesting ones are,
-Coloring agent: The golden yellow color in the banana walnut cake comes from the carotenoids present in the egg yolk. ( It might have got its name from Carrots, which are rich source of them). More that just coloring, vitamin -A can be synthesized from beta-carotenes. It also act as an anti-oxidant.

- Coagulating agent: is the solidification of a dissolved solid. (Most famous is blood coagulation). When you boil egg, it is coagulation that is happening, resulting in solidification of egg albumin. Egg help in coagulation of various ingredients in baking mix, and bind them together.

- Emulsifying agent: An emulsion is a stable blend of materials that are generally very difficult to mix and for a uniform suspension. Eg: Oil and water do not mix. One of the major emulsifying agent present in egg is lecithin. -->
Egg yolk is a rich source of lecithin,
which is a phospholipid with both water loving (hydrophilic) and water fearing (Hydrophobic subunits). So it can form spherical structures called micelles which help in dispersal of fat in more hydrated environment. It coats the liquid and lipds (butter) in the cake mix to give a smooth uniform texture to the cake. (Lecithin structure from http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/fattyacids2.html).

3. Baking soda/baking powder: This is most biochemically active ingredient in our cake mix.

Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). The solution of Soda bicarb is mildly alkaline, thus it can also interact with acids resulting in the formation of a salt and carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is highly unstable (most of you favourite sodas are nothing but carbonic acids) and dissociates to carbon dioxide and water.

For Eg: Your stomach has concentrated Hydrochloric acid. If you happen to take in a spoon of baking soda the following reaction can occur in your stomach.

NaHCO3 + HCl → NaCl + H2CO3

H2CO3 → H2O + CO2.

You can well imagine the discomfort associated with accumulated carbon dioxide, which is nothing but gas, in the stomach. Since the cake that we are going to eat has plenty of fats (butter, yolk ...) it can form a layer over the aquous content of stomach resulting in froathing and thus preventing the escape of this gas through your mouth (Brrrr....). You may need some antifroathing agents (Eg: active ingredients of most of the antacids that you may rely on such occasion) to get rid of this gas (Sorry if I am scaring you, but dont worry this happens only if you add excess amount of baking soda, that is beyond the nuetralizing capacity of the acid in our recipe.

The acid component in our recipe is nothing but buttermilk !! Yes. Butter milk is nothing but the fermented milk. Fermentation happens as result of the action of lactobacillus (mostly) in the culture. One of the byproduct is lactic acid which is the driving force behind our delicious cake !! \
So what happens inside the cake mix,
Lactic acid + Soda.bicarb ---> Sodium lactate + Carbonic acid ----->CO2.

This CO2 get trapped in the fine gluten net from all purpose flour. As the reaction proceeds the pressure builds up resulting in the rising of dough !!

Another alternative to baking soda is baking powder.

What is the difference between baking soda and baking powder ?
Baking soda is pure Soda bicarbonate. So you will have to acidify your recipe with an acid component for the reaction to occur. On the other hand baking powder is a mixture of Soda bicarb and an acidifying agent (Eg: Sodium aluminium sulfate or mono calcium phosphate).

So why the alkali-acid reaction does not happen inside the bottle ? Answer: the reaction do not take place until you provide water/moisture. Because ionization of the components do not happen in solid phase, it requires a "dissociating agent" like water. Take home message (THM) : Keep your baking poweder bottle dry !!

To give you more options: there are two types of baking powder available.
i) Single acting baking powder: Here the reaction will start upon exposure to moisture. So rising of dough can happen even at room temperature ( THM: Cook immediately upon adding a single acting baking powder !!).
ii) Double acting baking powder: Reaction happen in two stages. The reaction begins at a minimum level in room temperature as in single acting powders, but for maximum activity the temperature has to be increased , which happens inside the oven.

Now, we used baking powder alone. But still added butter milk. Why? I do not know some time certain thing become rituals. I was not sure about the principle while I was making the cake. Anyway it did not hurt !!.

And finally butter: Butter is an emulsion of tryglyceride and water. It give richness, softness to the cake in addition to adding to the flavor.

And finally here is the net result of all the chemical reactions that I have described here ...!!

Birth of a blogger

2009-02-07T23:50:00.000-08:00

A blogger is born today!!
Was is a cosmic necessity ? Something if did not have occured would have changed the destiny of the universe ? Could be, who knows ?

One thing I know, it all began with the erroneous judgement of my wife on my writing skills. For some unknown reasons, which do not have any scientific, historic or factual basis, she believes that I have a great future in literary arena. She created this blog for me and ordered me to pen down (Key down for those computer buffs ) my thoughts right now !!.

So here I am, in the wee hours, with a mug of chocolate milk and a blank mind!

This is my first attempt of its kind. As with any ventures I want to set certain goals and work plans. First of I wanted to know what this "blogging" is all about? Wikipedia tells me that it is a contracted form of Web log. Cool !!And I belive my blog will fall in the category of personal blog. To be accurate a W(h)IP blog (Wife Initiated Personal blog) !!!

Alright. My first goal: Just as any other husband in the world, I want prove my wife wrong !!

Second goal: Just as any other husbad in the world, to surreptitiously check whether my wife is correct and tell her "Thanks, but I knew it..!!"

Lets see where it goes.

Be the force with you !!