Hmmm… It has been found that apart from carrying genetic information, DNA can also serve as a nutrition source for bacteria. Few strains of E. coli can even derive whole of their energy from DNA taken in by surroundings. It has been proposed that this might be a widespread phenomena.

I wonder what makes decide whether to eat DNA or to integrate it into genomes using transformation…

Click here to read it.

Hi All,

This is to announce that Jeev June, 2006 edition has been launched. To read the issue, click to http://www.dce.edu/jeev/issues/june06/index.php.

For those of you who don’t know what Jeev is, it is an online life sciences magazine run by me and my friends at college. The first edition was launched in April, 2006 and the second edition is launched now in June.

The contents of the June edition are:

ARTICLES
———–
* Evolution v/s Intelligent Design by Paras Chopra
* Agricultural Bioterrorism by Anshuman Mirani
* Nanobiotechnology: An Introduction by Paras Chopra
* Environment and Human Evolution: Super-humans or Sub-humans? by Aakanasha Gaur
* Water Magic by Soumya Lipsa Rath

COLUMNS
———–
* Interview of Ms. Sarika Saxena by Paras Chopra
* Company Profile - Monsanto: Invention and Innovation by Anshuman Mirani

EXTRAS
———
* The Biology Quiz by Soumya Lipsa Rath
* My List of Top Bioengineering Graduate Programs by Paras Chopra

Hope you will like this issue.

Regards,
Paras Chopra

A breakthrough research in mutant mice has proved that in addition to DNA, RNA too can carry information from parents to offsprings. This discovery may force the genetic rules to be rewritten and will certainly provide a base to more fascinating discoveries in coming years.

I wonder if we have discovered such a basic thing as late as year 2006, there might be a lot of more things which nature has been so efficiently hiding from us. We might never discover everything nature has to offer to us.

Click Here to read the news on nature.com

Read these two articles:

1. Toward Immortality: The Social Burden of Longer Lives
2. The Ethical Dilemmas of Immortality

I am going to read these two articles as they look quite interesting.

The Synthetic Biology 2.0 conference is being help at UC Berkeley. The researchers there are expected to take radical decisions for the field. They have already taken the decision to “self-regulate” the community by boycotting the gene synthetic company which do not employ high standards of order screening to detect if it concerns to the synthesis of a deadly pathogen. However, some 35 groups have condemned this proposal as not strict enough and not including issues such as effects of synthetic biology on environment.

In my opinion, these opposing groups are correct. Only a handful of researchers gathered at a conference should not be the only ones who decide the policies and future of the “potentially-dangerous” field such as synthetic biology. This issue must be open to international community and then only the policies must be drafted.

Live Reports from the Conference by Rob Carlson
1. Part I
2. Part II
3. Part III
4. Part IV

These reports are interesting to read and very informative.

New Scientist has released a story on Biohacking via Synthetic Biology. It is about the pioneers in the field (read Knight, Endy, etc). This story surely demonstrates that biohacking has finally come to the limelight (which it proudly deserves). The title itself has the term “bio-hackers”, which gives me a sort of satisfaction that I am on the right path. Now my only hope is that this term shouldn’t be misunderstood.

The literal meaning of hacking is context-dependent, however the geeks use it to signify their achievements in tinkering existing systems. That is what the bio-hackers are trying to do. They are trying to hack the natural processes of biology to create exciting stuff. Apart from being exciting, this stuff may also have commercial applications and may even re-define the economy in future (as electronics has done for 20th century).

Click Here to read the article/story featured on New Scientist. Note that the full-text is only available to premium members (who pay subscription). I have the full-text with me. If anyone wants it, just give me a mail.

P.S: The article doesn’t mention anywhere about this blog.
I guess I need to really popularize the blog.

Livescience.com has just posted an article titled “Why Ants Rule the World“. It is surprising and interesting to read.

The facts such as “The combined heft of ants in the Brazilian Amazon is about four times greater than the combined mass of all of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, according to one survey.” and “Nearly all human languages have a word for ant” really surprised me.

There are fighters, carpenters, collectors, queens, workers, etc. in ants. Some even steal babies from other ants’ nests. One peculiar trait is that “female ants do all of the work; males just spread their genes around.”

One particular humorous phrase from the article: “Males are little flying sperm missiles.”

Hi All,

This is to inform all my well wishers that I will be going to IISc on 5th of June for two months for research. I have been chosen as a research fellow for this summer and am quite happy.

Regards,
Paras Chopra

It is an excellent article which discusses that evolution is inherent in the universe (as demonstrated by “hyperreal” universes). It discusses Tierra, Biomorphs, Genetic Programming, SimEarth, Game of Life, etc. Read it if you care about evolution.

Click here to read that article.

A guy named Alejandro Barreto has emailed me asking me few of the grander philosophical questions. They were quite interesting and challenging. I found it very enjoyable to express my views to someone who values it. Below, I am reproducing my reply to him. The parts in italics are excerpts from his email.

Hi Alejandro,

Thanks for so much appreciation. I particularly like the comment “you’re actually the smartest Indian I’ve ever met”.. Thanks for this.

“”And a more general question, what is your whole and complete belief about everything? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in existence first of all? Do you believe in evolution? Just what constitutes your “belief framework”? “”

I certainly don’t believe in God. Religion was just made in order to give people a framework so that they could busy without actually taking much pains. See, human mind by its virtue wanders from one place to another. Because it is conscious of its existence, it seeks “something more” in addition to basic requirements of life such as food, etc. I believe that God was invented by those individuals who had no courage to invent or discover new things but wanted to keep themselves busy.

And yes, I do believe in evolution. Perhaps, I can be classified as the strongest believer of evolution. It particularly gives me a giddy feeling when I think that we arose from a mere molecule called as DNA. From little tinkering, evolution managed to produce entities (us) who have power enough to discover the process of evolution itself. So in a sense, evolution has discovered itself (just as we are beginning to discover the intricacies of human body). In this sense, can evolution be called as living as a human being?

Even though we have understood the loose nature of evolution, but we are yet to understand the exact nature of it and the magnitude at which it operates. Perhaps, we might never understand evolution fully. But, I seriously wish otherwise.

“”1. Let’s begin plain simple. What the hell is man’s purpose on this planet? I’m American, and a Roman Catholic, so I don’t know anything other than crappy Christian beliefs of the Trinity and the “purpose of man to serve” — I think it’s pure nonsense. To me, there is no God and there’s no Him to “protect you from sins and dangers”. What is the general Hinduism belief on this? And what do you believe? What do most of the people in India believe? I’ve heard they’re very intellectual and philosophically brilliant. “”

A: There is absolute no purpose of humans on this planet. We are just another biological entity and the unfortunate ones who have (somehow) became aware of their existence. All the animals are born for the sake of dying. But, in this sense I consider humans as special. And that is because, we today have power to rage the war against evolution and may even destroy the very nature of evolution (even though we fully don’t understand it).

I may not be able to comment on the Hinduism philosophy because I don’t know much about it. But, I certainly don’t really comprehend how can more than one philosophy exist in a rational society. I consider that every person has everything clear in his mind, only if he cares to observe the rational and does not get emotional (too often and at irrelevant things). Emotions are very important as they are unique for human species and can be easily employed for brainwashing (as religions do).

“”2. What generally is your belief towards all that you see around you? Do you take that “spiritual path to enlightenment” thing seriously? To me it’s just bizarre because quite frankly, none of this positive attitude therapy works in real life. In real life, if you don’t have money and something to eat, you’re gonna be dead and that’s the end of the story — it’s irrelevant whether you were the potential Einstein or even Tagore in the making. A negative attitude doesn’t work either because it decreases your mental power. I don’t believe in any attitude. You just have to make things work for you if you want to have fun. You have to work things out. And that’s all that matters. Nobody cares whether you were a priest in your previous life or have become a spiritual guru when you can’t earn money straight.”"

A: It do not believe in spirituality. It is nothing but a fancy name employed to earn quick money. But, I do believe that positive attitude can be cultivated and is actually beneficial as it proves to be a driving force in life. You start developing a positive attitude when you start understanding the futility of life and everything. I particularly enjoy observing so called “busy” people, don’t they realize that (in the long term) whatever they are doing amounts to nothing.

I enjoy reading calvin and hobbes. It has a lot of philosophy hidden in it. And it is meaningful too.

That’s it for now. And yes of course you may send AUQP if you wish.

And one thing more, do not believe everything I say because the ultimate judge of logic and rationality is you yourself.

Regards,
Paras Chopra