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Monday, October 21, 2013

Rumblings

It becomes uneasy sometimes being a PhD student (in India). All one does in his term is clone a gene or two and express some enzyme, which in most cases have no chance of having any use to society.
It all finally seems to be a drama. A country shows how much it is spending on research and development. A lots of funds are literally wasted over expensive chemicals which eventually come from foreign countries ( why not do some research and produce ones own chemicals first?). At the end someone develops a technology outside which we buy/rent or a weaker version of it outsourced to the third world. Anything, from clothes, shoes, to chemicals in lab. More money flows out which totally is unnecessary.
Why shouldn't we just use technologies that are already established or invest in developing technologies that we might be able to do successfully (oh, all of them know it!). But yes, people get employment. Some get even rich. Few even become great scientists! Most waste half of their lives and  go back to find some jobs in schools and colleges inspiring next generation to follow their route.



Thursday, October 17, 2013

Feeling sorry about greenpeace.

I don't yet fully understand how NGOs work. Yet, I expect some things from them. I had been and online e-mail subscriber of Greenpeace for a few years now. I get mail about signing petitions. Most of them I agree with but other times I don't (GMOs, for example). 

Today I got a mail about helping to free the volunteers arrested by Russians. I did send the readily written mail to Russian ambassador, but wait there was more to it. I needed to select one twitter millionare so that "I" could approach them via some e-communication to tweet for the same cause. Why the hell would I need to do that. One message from Greenpeace must suffice. Or is there something fishy (read corporate interests) involved. It was really saddening.


I would like to ask the people who work for such organizations:

  • Do you use cars?
  • Do you sit in A.C.offices?
  • Do you meetings involve playing of music on good kind of speakers? See  its wattage please.
  • Are you really minimizing the environment damage yourself?
Oh, don't talk about your "need" for such luxuries. All, the people in world deserve what you think you deserve. And as it is obvious, we can't achieve this without affecting the environment. We have two clear choices, serving humanity or the environment. "Sustainable development" seems pretty word but then you have to give away your "needs".

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Freedom of dressing.

The issue of women safety has recently been vigorously debated in India. One such argument supported by many men and  opposed by most urban women is about the way girls should dress.
I was discussing this topic with friends at lunch. One of them was saying that revealing clothes shouldn't be warn.  According to him it was responsible for agitating male's feelings which in some cases led to eve teasing or harassment. According to him, the frequency of rapes was related to the amount of stimulation such clothing gave. Neither he nor I  knew the statistics of rape all over India but it can be safely said that rapes even occur in Indian villages where women  rarely come out without their faces covered (by pallu or burkha).

Anyways, he and other person who joined him said that revealing clothes did distract them and most men which in general is  “mentally harming” them. I told them that a few years back wearing of jeans and t-shirt was uncommon and at that time, even  'that' harmed 'mentally'. So, why was that gradually accepted? This is because, the society evolves to new changes. After  a few years, this revealing thing would also become normal in society. However, they did not agree. I also argued that if  people like me who come from small cities (most people in Delhi come from such places) where even jeans & t-shirt are  uncommon get agitated by it, so, according to their notion, even jeans & t-shirt should be banned. Is it possible today? NO.  Then, why not accept the new trend and move forward.

Social changes have always been opposed in India, who at large is so proud of its culture. Be it Sati (probably eradicated  now), castes, untouchability, or child marriages; everything is part of culture. What are we proud of?

On the other side, girls going vocal say (The famous sentence probably imported from western countries) "Don't teach us  how to dress. Teach your boys not to rape." This is absolutely correct. Girls are not doing any damage to anyone by  wearing dresses, but the rapers are. I support every human action coming out of his/her freedom that does not harm any  other individual and oppose every action that does otherwise. However, what is this about raping with eyes (from BBC documentary on Indian women's safety)? Girls must have absolute freedom to wear anything they like. However, people will  see what you are showing. If girls are "mentally harmed" by this, then it is their problem now.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Genetically Modified (GM) crops


There is rising debate and awareness over allowing genetically modified crops, especially, food crops, to be grown on commercial scale. I recently received a mail (most probably automated) from greenpeace (to which I have subscribed) asking to oppose the food bill endorsed by government of India. I doubt we could change anything even if all Indian citizens signed the online petition. (I would like request readers to explain how this works! I surely would be signing such petitions in future if they make an impact.)


History of Bacillus thuringiensis  (Bt):

It was first isolated from silkworms in 1901. It caused sudden collapse disease in silkworms and was considered harmful to the industry. It was later isolated from 'flour moth caterpillars' killled by 'Schlaffsucht' disease. It was now found in a pest and its role in pesticide application became apparent. Experiments were done to use Bt against 'European corn borer' (Ostrinia nubilali. In 1938, first commercial formulation of Bt called 'Sporein' was released in France. This formulation was useful only against one class of insect pest called 'Lepidoptera'. Later other strains were discovered that were useful against diptera  and coleoptera class of insect.

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My point here is that Bt is used to control pests  in the form of sporulated bacteria since a long time. in the modern GM Bt crops, the plants are engineered such that they produce 'CRY proteins' (components that actually kill the pest) themselves, rather than having to be sprayed from the Bt formulations.
Each CRY proteins are said to be specific to certain class of pests. However, there are reports that show adverse effects (such as increased mortality, reduced reproductive capacity, skewing of sex ration) of CRY proteins on other class of insects. Adverse effect against insects and NOT humans.

Adverse effects on humans is still not studied properly. Studies on rats (90 day trial) show no adverse effects but additional long term studies are absolutely necessary.

According to me, if one wants to oppose GM (Bt) crops, then he should also be opposing the bacterial formulations. Perhaps not many people are aware of this. Besides, what most of the world now grows are hybrid crops. They may not be called GM in strict terms but are outcome of transfer of genes from one kind of organism to other. The high yield of crop we get today was practically impossible without this genetic exchange.

Another example of widely used product of genetic modification is insulin. It is produced in a bacteria and then isolated from it. No, one utters a thing about that! Oh, people will die without that. And people would die of hunger if we don't have high yield crops OR people don't reduce their family size.
One of my friends displayed a pic of various varieties of brinjals that were naturally resistant to pests. Such varieties often have very low yields and transferring pest resistance of such varieties to high yielding varieties would really help get rid of GM crops.

What I find ironic is that most of the world use pesticides which  are more harmful than CRY proteins. Oh, the trend of organic farming is rising but its sustainability on global level is questionable. Besides, organically grown crops are (at least now) affordable only to rich people.

There are two reasons that I strongly oppose GM crops, especially, Bt cops.
First, they are hazardous to wide variety of insects. They will cause a lot of damage in long term (This can be argued as they certainly won't kill all species on earth but will cause damage to some of the existing species. New species and resistant individuals from older species would certainly rise again to fill the gap and Monsanto and other similar companies would have to discover more such proteins to kill them.). I don't suppose most of the people (including me) in world act in any way to protect the environment.

Second, (this is related to my country, India). If we allow a foreign company to produce seeds that we would sow, Indian money would be going outside. This also can be false as exporting the crop's produce may bring the money back in but certainly we would depend on a foreign company for our seeds like we depend on them for our vehicles, clothes, computers, internet and so many things besides this. One more thing! Would it matter? I don't know.


P.S.: I do not have a detailed knowledge of political/economic issues regarding this so, comments that would be productive towards this discussion are most welcome. Comments against or favoring political parties or NGOs would be considered spam and subsequently deleted with a note.






Saturday, March 2, 2013

First time in snow.

Himalaya had always been an attraction to me. Now, that I have come to Delhi, it is fairly near than from my home, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Last Friday we heard that there had been snowfall in Manali. This again raised our spirits to go for a trip to Manali. Our spirits had been raising frequently all winter but many things kept us away from going. Having got a PhD position abroad, my friend said that if we won't go now, we won't be able to go anytime. Therefore we decided to go out for the trip on the same weekend. He got some information about the bus services and one day before departue we changed our destination from Manali to Chopta which was relatively less visited by tourists.
Thursday night we called 'Dada', our third friend who is doing his doctorate in IIT Roorkee and told him to come to Roorkee bus stop on Friday night. He told he had to go to lab on the weekends.  said that I knew he wasn't going to go to lab. He laughed and found the time to come. Of course he had to take permissions from his guide by telling him that he was going to Delhi to meet his cousin.

Friday evening after the lab hours we packed our sweaters and spare clothes and went towards Srinagar (Uttarakhnad). Dada joined us in Roorkee. We reached Srinagar in the morning and enquired about the bus stand to Chopta. People told that the way to Chopta is blocked by snow and that we could reach there by another way via Rudraprayad. At Rudraprayad we got a jeep up to Ukhimath. There we came to know that the way was blocked even from here. The jeep driver told us that he could take us to a place called Bend from where the snow starts and where we could even find small rest house.
The path was scary as there had been a lot of landslides. We even talked of walking the way back down. As we were reaching Bend the rain started. Going up higher and higher the rain drops falling on the jeep window were becoming gel-like. Soon the gel-like drops turned to feather-like snow flakes. We were in the snow fall.
Stopping at Bend we quickly ran for shelter in the small hotel (It was like a small shop that served food) because we had cotton sweater. The hotel owner gave us raincoats made of polythene) It was safe to walk in the snowfall now.


We kept our luggage in the small room which they provided and walked up the road. Its hard to explain further. The photos can tell a much better story.











Sunday, February 17, 2013

Three quarters of a marathon.

Since the day I registered for the Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon, I knew that I wasn't able to complete the 42.2K distance in 4 hrs. There was an option of half marathon but then I thought I would be able to run more than that.
At the bib distribution, we got confused as where to pay the fees. We stood in a queue,  which  people said, was the place to deposit entry fees. I came out to be true. Met a boy there who had won 5th prize in 2011 edition of the marathon. He had come from Allahabad standing the whole night in general bogie. He needed rest, like many of those like him when the rain started slowly. He told he us that he was going to fall ill and can't even take any medicine in case there was doping test the next day.

Today morning me and one of my friends, Deepak, took an auto to India gate. Dropped our bags and stood at the starting line. Saw many of the people who have online presence in some form or the other. Rahul Vergese, Anil Kumar (his physique is awesome), and two dailymilers I know through their profile pics. I missed seeing Abhijeet who was running half marathon (I don't know how he looks like and neither does he).

The run started and I was exhausted in the first km :P. I stopped for water on the first aid station and drank a lot. Then started to run. Weather was beautiful for me but the boy we met yesterday had told that they didn't wanted it to be cold. So, I was worried for him. The last time I saw him at about 5K, he was leading. :) 

Many boys asked other people who were returning from switchbacks if there was any chip-detector at the end. When it wasn't there they cut through it, thus saving more than 200 meters or so. Around 40 minutes in, I heard a boy shouting for water. I was walking that time, with my electral bottle in one hand and clear water bottle they offered in other. I extended my hands and he grabbed it right. He drank a sip and threw it away. It was half full man! There laid it, among thousands of others, half full with clear drinking water..


Running and walking I completed my first round (~10 K) in 1:10. Deepak had already gone ahead when I had stopped for water for the first time. Later in the second round, saw a boy with one crooked leg limping swiftly on one leg. Well, he overtook me. I finished the second round in 2:25 (half marathon). I decide to complete one more round and then stop. Slowed down my speed and took more walking breaks. Left leg, ligament at the knee had some problem. I was a bit painful to step on it. Walking still was all right. More than that, I was feeling hungry ( Habbit of eating little every 3-4 hrs). Called a friend who was going to come as spectator to tell him to bring one paratha. It would have been great. (The rain stopped him.) Met Deepak who was returning from a switchback.

Half way of the third round a girl called me. "Bhaiyya, chaliye saath me". She was fast and was in her last lap. I ran with her for 5 minutes. Had my fastest km that time and still had not lost breath told her to go ahead thinking of my leg. It started raining after some time. I started feeling cold but was happy and enjoyed the rain. Hunger had increased. I wasn't feeling weak but just very hungry. On Rajpath again I saw Arun Bharadwaj. He wizzed past. Thought for a second, to run with him when he went past the signal and I had to stop until the vehicles went across. Never saw him again. At the India gate, near the end of third round, I knew I would complete the round in 4 hrs when I saw a woman selling corn. Obviously completed the round enjoying the corn.

Deepak ran the 4th round for half hour and came back. He had completed the half marathon in 2 hrs and later got slower.

We walked to Andhra bhawan for lunch after the prize distribution. The boy we met yesterday did not make it to the podium. A marathi girl won race in women's category. We were happy! :)




Friday, January 25, 2013

Friday lab meet

We are four people in our lab including our project guide. Me, Ahmed and Vaishali. We are trying to make photosynthetic organisms to produce large quantities of alkanes or fatty acids so that they could be used as biofuel.
To get to know what each one of us is working on, we all meet together once a week on Friday and tell in brief what we have done this week. This is generally a practice in most labs. In addition to this one person has to give a presentation on some research work he/she has read. There's a week in one month where we can discuss any topic about science. Today was this day.

I chose to discuss shortly about the prisoner's dilemma. In this, two prisoners isolated from each other are asked to confess the crime which they did together. They can confess or remain silent. They are told that if they both confess then they will get 5 years' imprisonment and if one of them confesses, then the person who remained silent will be sent to jail for 10 years and the confessor will be set free.
I both remain silent then both of them would get 1 year imprisonment.

None of them know what the other person would say. "What if he confessed? I would rust in jail for 10 years."; is the natural thought of the prisoners. Being prisoners they most probably would act selfish and confess, so that they would be set free. However, the mos beneficial strategy for both of them is to stay silent. They would both get 1 year's term which is the least amount of sum of the term (2 years) anyone would get by their response to their query.

The whole point of discussing this in the meet was to emphasize upon the lab members that we all lab members should always cooperate among ourselves.

I really don't know if they got the point but even if someone defects, in real life, the loser always have a chance to play again. I don't know who came upon the strategy of "Tit for Tat".