Hype and hoopla - Much ado about nothing... !!

A glimpse at the Indian media last week would have definitely made everyone hear the victory bugles that were playing from every quarter. The reason being the supposed apology from the editor of Lancet - the medical journal where the article on NDM-1 super bug (New Delhi metallo lactamase) was first published. This super bug has become a celebrity of sorts as it is forever in the media limelight for all the wrong reasons! First, there was the super bug controversy subsequent to the publication of the article in Lancet and then there is another hullabaloo now about the "apology" from the editor.

For the uninitiated, the reputed British journal LANCET had published a collaborative work, involving several groups from India, Pakistan the UK, which claimed that a bacterial gene that confers resistance to practically all the β-lactam antibiotics was widespread across the Indian subcontinent. Furthermore, riding on carriers and patients, this “superbug” was traveling to other continents. Since most antibiotics, including the frontline carbapenems were ineffective against the bacteria that harbored this gene, it seemed to be an unstoppable medical crisis. This resistance conferring gene is mainly carried on plasmids and was called the New Delhi β-lactamase (NDM-1). It was named after New Delhi simply because it was first identified in european patients who had just returned from India (as medical tourists) and extensive molecular analysis suggested that the bug did originate on the Indian subcontinent. This was done probably without any great thought by simply following normal scientific convention for nomenclature of new discoveries especially the beta lactamases.

This article however created a frenzy in the Indian media. A normal thinking person would probably say that the frenzy is justified because after all you've discovered a bug which is resistant to all available antibiotics and India is a densely populated country with significant health care issues, so it is time that the government did something to control the spread. But, here is the TWIST !!!

Surprise Surprise, the media hype was not for the problem of the bug or the medical issues at the forefront but it was about the nomenclature !!!!

"Why was the bug called 'NDM-1'?" The entire country went on a hyper-emotive overdrive as it criticized the researchers, the journal, etc etc. The media and the government were quick to denounce the findings of the report. It was labeled unscientific and unacceptable in addition to being the handiwork of a pharmaceutical lobby! It was declared to be treacherous plot by the west to destroy our burgeoning “medical tourism industry”! This report was thus portrayed as an attempt by the West to paint a dirty and disease-spreading image of India, the rising economic power. Hence, it was implied, that it is the duty of every patriotic Indian to protest to this “national insult” towards restoring the “India shining” image.

I have already clarified the underlying dynamics of this issue in a previous post of mine but basically, it is imperative to remember that naming a new organism or enzyme after its source, site-of-first-identification or discoverer is part of scientific convention, specifically, with regard to this particular group of enzymes! Think Lyme disease, as in Lyme, Connecticut, or Norwalk virus, as in Norwalk, Ohio. Think of Clostridium botulinum strain Alaska and Anaplasma centrale strain Israel. And several other organisms have been named so - the banyan tree is named as Ficus benghalenesis ; one of the most virulent of pathogens, the causative agent for TB, is called Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing ; a new frog species found in Sahyadari (Western Ghats) has been named Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis. In 1961, a dinosaur was named as Barapasaurus tagorei as its discovery coincided with the birth centenary of Tagore. All these were also named after India or other cities in the world. No one raised a hue and a cry then. Thus, there doesn't seem to be much of a case against the naming of the bug !!!

But clearly, the bug was a health hazard and there were other more important issues to consider than just focusing on the nomenclature. But thats what happened eventually, as everyone ignored the potential pandemics that could spread through this bug or the urgent need for the discovery of new antibiotics or even the need to cut down on unnecessary prescription and consumption of antibiotics (which has led to the development of such a strain in the first place... ). All that remained was this feeling of hurt and insult because a disease causing pathogen was named after New Delhi !!!

And then with time, as is true for most media frenzies, this controversy died a slow death and everyone forgot about it, till of course the editor of lancet decided to come to India to launch an India chapter of the journal. And then as journalists usually do for a scoop or two, they probed him on the past controversy and the editor - placed in the tough spot that he was, issued rather diplomatic (and meaningless in my opinion) apology. He said that he stood by the findings of the report but is sorry about how the organism was named after India. First of all, this was a diplomatic defense because the editor of a Journal really doesn't have any jurisdiction/opinion on the nomenclature issued by the writers. We all generate several plasmids during the course of our research and no editor can/does ever object to these names!! Secondly, there was no need to apologize because the nomenclature was as per normal scientific convention and there is no need for an entire country to get sentimental about something like this because it honestly doesn't mean anything. And more importantly, despite the apology, he does stand by the findings of the paper !! And thus, this apology is merely a gesture of politeness than of any merit. I guess, the editor, amidst all the media glare just chickened out of telling his host country that they should get over it and should focus on other pressing things.

And here I am, miles away from my country and all i can think is "Why?"...
Why do we as a country focus on appearances and verbal assurances than on the underlying truth and the facts ? It is far more important that we work of eradicating the threat of this super bug than on how and why it was named. Why are we as a country so insecure about ourselves and the worlds perception of us ??? We are a growing nation which is on the threshold of stepping on to the world stage and instead of solving our pressing problems like population, inflation, terrorism, naxalism, corruption, education, health and infrastructure, we are focusing on the name of a bug, on questions of national pride and respect. Ridiculous !!! If we as a people are proud of our nation, it truly shouldn't matter what the west thinks of us. We should have a sense of confidence in our worth which is independent of another view. And we should learn to be mature and self critical not for an award or a title but for our own self. Why doesn't anyone understand that in an increasingly competitive world market, sentiments hardly dictate anything. What matters is efficiency and cost effectiveness... and if we achieve this, the rest of the world will be playing in our backyard like they are in China's now... !!!

As for the editor while I do see his dilemma, i do wish that he was more forthright and had used his diplomatic tact elsewhere. Instead of chickening out he should have been honest and raised the very valid issues behind the naming of the organism and of the other concerns which are more important than the name. But I guess, its easy for me to comment when I am far away from the glares of a nation, seething with hurt and anger.

Through all this, all I see is the need for an effective media which can present news accurately and provide the right perspectives. A media which will responsibly use rationality and evidence to gain an audience than manipulating the sentiments of the masses to gain their petty ends.

Evolutionary drive towards greater complexity - fact or fable ??

"Life began in the primordial soup and the evolutionary drive has resulted in the origin of organisms of greater and greater complexity."
"Organisms get better as they evolve. They get more advanced, more modern and less primitive."
"From the first cell that coalesced in the primordial soup to the magnificent intricacies of the Homo sapiens, the evolution of life has been one long drive forward towards greater complexity."

True or False ?

Well, as far as I see, a lot of people would tend to agree to these statements...

But then once in a while you come across these books and authors who question such statements and our implicit acceptance of their veracity and they end up shattering many of the myths which we often accept unquestioningly ...

I haven't come across too many such people but one person who makes me think, question, argue and answer, as I read his thoughts is Stephen Jay Gould. SJ Gould is a famous naturalist and evolutionary biologist who has written several wonderful essays (more than 300 in fact, as a continuous monthly series over a period of several years) and quite a few books. While his essays are eye opening with their exquisite ability to interlink diverse events and delving into the depths of any subject to identify patterns and similarities, his books have this uncanny ability of exposing questions to which people have often assumed answers without rigorous questioning.

A good example would be the question of an increasing drive for complexity. Most people, even most biologists, would agree with the statements listed at the start of the post which suggest an inherent drive for complexity. In his book, "The Full House", Gould exposes this fallacy and attempts at convincing us of an alternate possibility.

"The Full house" is a beautifully written book and in true Gould style, it leads to a healthy argument in the minds of the reader as they battle against the statements made by him only to finally accept his logic and rationale. At many times, I have found Gould to be a Stickler for semantics while i have often prioritized and aimed at distilling the meaning implied without stressing on the actual words used. But I guess, in science, a field that deals with rational thought and empirical observations, it is important that one does use the right words to convey the right insight.

In this book, Gould leads us through the labyrinthine maze of statistics and their role in our understanding of this "evolutionary drive for greater complexity". He leads us through a step by step argument that finally leads one to accept that evolution in all likelihood does not have any inherent drive towards complexity. He uses two elegant examples to demonstrate the existence of a left and/or a right wall in various everyday phenomena i.e. a natural upper or lower limit that is inherent to the system under study. The human body, for example, has certain inherent physical limitations which ultimately determine the performance and improvement of athletes (this is an example of a right wall, which means that our physical performance can keep increasing with rigorous training, technology, dietary intake, lifestyle, drugs etc but only till we hit the right wall...which is determined by the limits of the human body). He demonstrates very convincingly that the existence of such left and right walls can actually bias the statistics and thereby our understanding of particular phenomena, leaving plenty of room for wrong interpretations.

The book begins with a succinct explanation of the three major statistical measures - the mean, the median and the mode, Gould first convinces us that the mean is the farthest from the truth (as even a single erroneous value can truly skew our perspective of a population), while the Mode is the closest to the truth as it depicts the most common value in a population.

1,2,3,2,4,100,2,4,5,2,1,1000

The mean for this series would be 98.3 while the median and the mode are 3 and 2 respectively. This clearly highlights the fact that the mode is the best representation of a population and therefore the most likely candidate to be used to study variations in a population.

Extending this point further, he makes the case that in the history of evolution, the bacterial mode of life remains the single most dominant life form that has populated the earth. Bacteria have been the oldest and most successful occupants of this planet as they are found in almost every habitat known to man - ranging from the bacteria that exist as parasites and symbionts to the autotrophic bacteria that are inhabitants of hot thermal springs and volcanic rocks. Thus, considering the long history of evolution and the predominance of bacteria, these tiny, microscopic organisms seem to form the "statistical mode" of life on earth. This line of thought leads us to explore the possibility that life is not an really exhibiting a drive for greater complexity through evolutionary history.

Also, importantly, he draws our attention to one fundamental question which needs to be addressed in the context of evolutionary progress and this is the question of the very definition of progress. What is considered to be more advanced and what is more primitive ? On what basis would one say that a particular lineage is more complex or more advanced ? Does a bacteria become more advanced and complex because it is better adapted to a diverse set of environmental conditions or do humans become more advanced and complex due to their conscious nature ? Or does a virus become more complex, because it has managed to evolve a basic minimal set of functions essential for its propagation and survival ? What defines evolutionary progress or complexity ?

An immediate thought would be to say that the evolutionary success of an organism is the true indicator of its progress and thereby of its complexity; and this is where the impact of bacterial abundance truly hits. Based on criteria such as numbers, abundance, evolutionary ancestry, biomass and adaptation, the bacteria truly seem to be "superior" to all other species including man.

Gould's argument is that this increase in "complexity", as we perceive in terms of multicellularity, physiology, life span, consciousness, etc, is not the result of an inherent drive but is rather a consequence of the existence of a left wall in the history of evolution of life. In the evolution of life, the simplest organisms arose first and things couldn't get any simpler from there. The existence of such a wall on the left of the evolutionary scale meant that things can only move in one direction - to the right. Thus, the origin of multicellular organisms and of sentient life is the result of random events which could only drive the evolution of life in only one direction. He cites the example of a drunk man walking whose left end is determined by the existence of a wall and the right by a ditch. Under the circumstances, there is a good chance that the man would end up in the ditch even though he is walking without an inherent drive because that's the only way open to him. Thus, he says that the evolution of human beings from the single celled organisms is not the result of an inherent drive in evolution towards greater complexity but rather, is the result of random events which cannot be expected to yield the same consequence upon another repetition. Gould also uses the example of parasites and simpler organisms like viruses to introduce the idea that organisms on the evolutionary scale could also tend towards simplicity rather than complexity.

Gould's primary idea of course is to convince the reader that the complexity in life as it exists today is not the result of a pre-ordained or inherent evolutionary drive towards greater complexity but rather the result of random events which have resulted in sentient beings like us, ruling the planet today! While the question of evolutionary complexity does make one think about the possible criteria that can be considered, the ultimate aim of this book is to convince us that evolution, in itself, lacks any inherent drive towards complexity; thereby stripping off any modicum of special ordainment that may be conferred on the reasons for human existence at this point in evolutionary history.

From my perspective, the definition of complexity seems like a question of semantics because i chose to interpret complexity as a reflection of the extent of specialization and adaptation. This is a criteria that Gould has not explored. I think that there has been an undeniable increase in the complexity of organisms since the origin of the first protocells. In the history of evolution, life has moved from the single celled bacteria to mutlicelled humans and the organisms have grown more and more specialized along the way. I do not suggest the existence of an inherent drive towards complexity but I do think, there is a trend towards greater complexity. This increased complexity, as interpreted as increased specialization and adaptation, could also address the existence of parasites and viruses whose existence was difficult to explain by the other definitions of complexity.

The underlying cause for this increased complexity could certainly be the existence of the left wall, as rightly suggested by Gould, but I am definitely, not completely convinced, by his arguments against an increase in complexity. I am also quite taken by his argument for the modal bacterial life and i think that it is a very good point to make. In fact, one rarely realizes the ubiquity and antiquity of bacterial life forms and going by these parameters, the entire history of the evolution of life would seem like the age of bacteria unlike the other ages which have named based on the predominant life forms seen in the period.

Thus, while I understand the case made my Gould in the book against the commonplace understanding of an inherent drive for increased complexity in the origin and evolution of life and I do espouse his view of our existence on this planet being a result of purely random events, which need not (and most likely will not) end the same way, if the history of life is replayed; I am however not prepared to say that over the entire evolutionary history known to us, there is no increase in the complexity of organisms.

On a parting note, I would like to present here a beautiful thought which was used as the opening for the book's second chapter:

"I have often had occasion to quote Freud's incisive, almost rueful, observation that all major revolutions in the history of science have as their common theme, amidst such diversity, the successive dethronement of human arrogance from one pillar after another of our previous cosmic assurance. Freud mentions three such incidents: We once thought that we lived on the central body of a limited universe until Copernicus, Galileo and Newton identified the earth as a tiny satellite to a marginal star. We then comforted ourselves by imagining that God had nevertheless chosen this peripheral location for creating a unique organism in his image - until Darwin came along and "relegated us to descent from an animal world". We then sought solace in our rational minds until, as Freud notes in one of the least modest statements of intellectual history, psychology discovered the unconscious."

A childhood lesson...

A brief glimpse walk down the memory lane made me recall this one sentence which was a constant companion through my school days. Hours were spent in the evenings, trying to write this sentence multiple times in cursive hand -

"A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".

I was always amazed by the fact that this simple sentence contains all the alphabets in the english language which made it a pangram !

I used to still wonder how many of these are around...

And then a simple google search on a lazy morning yielded a huge list of pangrams none of which seem as elegant as this one simple sentence...

Here is a partial list that i came across.... Wonder if you have any ?

• Nymphs blitz quick vex dwarf jog. (27 letters)
• Big fjords vex quick waltz nymph. (27 letters)
• Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymph. (27 letters)
• Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymphs. (28 letters)
• Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex! (28 letters)
• Fox nymphs grab quick-jived waltz. (28 letters)
• Glib jocks quiz nymph to vex dwarf. (28 letters)
• Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack. (29 letters)
• Vexed nymphs go for quick waltz job. (29 letters)
• Jack fox bids ivy-strewn phlegm quiz (30 letters)
• How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (30 letters)
• Two driven jocks help fax my big quiz. (30 letters)
• "Now fax quiz Jack!" my brave ghost pled. (30 letters)
• Vamp fox held quartz duck just by wing. (31 letters)
• Five quacking zephyrs jolt my wax bed. (31 letters
• The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters)
• Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters)
  
• Kvetching, flummoxed by job, W.zaps Iraq. (32 letters)
  
• My ex pub quiz crwd gave joyful thanks. (32 letters)
• Few quips galvanized the mock jury box. (32 letters)
• The jay, pig, fox, zebra, and my wolves quack! (33 letters)
• Quizzical twins proved my hijack-bug fix. (34 letters)
• The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. (35 letters) (Used to test typewriters and computer keyboards, and as sample text; famous for its coherency, dating back to 1888)
• Wolf zombies spot the jinxed grave. (36 letters)
• Heavy boxes perform quick waltzes and jigs. (36 letters)
• A quick chop jolted my big sexy frozen wives. (36 letters)
• A wizard’s job is to vex chumps quickly in fog. (36 letters)
• Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives. (36 letters)
  
• Pack my red box with five dozen quality jugs. (36 letters)
• Fake bugs put in wax jonquils drive him crazy. (37 letters)
• Woven silk pyjamas exchanged for blue quartz. (38 letters)
  
• Brawny gods just flocked up to quiz and vex him. (38 letters)
• My faxed joke won a pager in the cable TV quiz show. (39 letters)
• The quick onyx goblin jumps over the lazy dwarf. (39 letters)

Happily forgetful and forgetfully happy !!!

Memory - our ability to remember.
Who would not want more of it ? We all yearn to remember a little more - that one extra book, one more dialogue, another new name or that old wicked answer !! Intelligence is often understood to be linked with a sharp memory. Almost all of us would like to have a fabulous memory - to be able to recall every tiny detail, as we try and pack our brains with as many facts, figures and details as we possibly can. In our attempts to remember everything, we lose track of the fact that forgetting is no less important.

In fact, as someone rightly said - "What makes us human is not our ability to remember. It is our ability to forget."

Imagine remembering every tiny detail about every single day for years on end. An excess of memory and we would find our mind cluttered with the minutiae of everyday existence - the shape of the cup, the crack on the side, the level of the tea, the temperature outside, the day, date and time, the brand of tea, the texture of the scones, the colors, the smells, the feelings and the emotions - All this with one cup of tea. Imagine this on a daily basis. for every activity of the day and you can imagine the nightmare that it will be. It would become impossible to glean relevant information in a timely manner from these heaps of facts. It would be like fishing for a needle in haystack all the time.

Now, imagine surviving the horrors of the world with such tireless memory. Our adverse experiences haunting us forever with the same intensity as that of the initial experience. One's entire life would just become a ceaseless trauma. The past would haunt us forever simply because we remember it far too well, to let go.

And this is why forgetting is more important than remembering. The ability of our brain to weed out unnecessary information as it builds connections in the brain is what makes us human. It is indeed this so called "handicap" of ours, this inability to remember that becomes our true strength.
And thus, every time I feel like kicking myself for not recalling that book, that line or that story, and when i catch myself wishing for more hard disk in my head, i show myself the possible consequences of having a great memory.... :)

And then I am back to my happier forgetful self again... :)

The inheritance of time...

Of the many things that we inherit, I am most amazed by our ability to view the past and the future while still trudging through the present.

We get a glimpse of our future in the life of our parents.
It is amazing how, as we grow, we tend to become more and more like them. While the nature vs nurture debate is still on going, the fact of the matter is, that we inherit both of these from them in more ways than one. Appearances, mannerisms, attitudes, aptitudes, priorities are all inherited from them in some measure, modified by the ways of the world and then passed on further. And thus, as part of our true inheritance we can potentially visualize our future in the lives of our parents. Few rarely realize or appreciate this gift of foresight. Foresight, about the consequences of our actions and their impact on us and the world. If only we would learn the right lessons and remember them long enough, we could carve out a very different future for ourselves. The tragedy of life however is that in avoiding some mistakes, we end up making others but then at least one knows that "they tried" to make a difference.

We also get a chance to re-live our childhoods with a greater awareness of it through our children. It gives us the ability to peep into a past, to sit down and revisit our childhood for its simple pleasures, amidst the flurry of daily activity. Our children are an essence of us that we leave behind in the world. They give us an opportunity to make the changes that we desired. They give us an opportunity to revisit some experiences with greater clarity and experience. They provide us with an opportunity to rectify the errors of the past and to lay a better foundation for the future.

Thus, our true inheritance lies in our being able to view a glimpse of our future in our present and to revisit our past. I wish I am able to learn the right lessons and remember them too....

A tiny list that keeps me going... :)

Sitting by the window ledge sipping chocolate all snuggled in a blanket...Walking on the beach with the waves lapping at my feet... traveling the world to capture its glory through my lenses....translating the visions of my mind on to a blank paper.... Sitting by a brook listening to its heart beat.... walking on a long country road, smelling the grass... listening to the rain drops... walking on the dew drops... gazing at the night sky... sitting on an open lawn as the sun sleeps and the moon stays on guard with you by my side... hearing the silences that dwell in the heart of the mountain peaks... listening to the sounds of the jungle... making wood sing... reading by the lamp light in a place of my own... feeling the wetness on the nose of my favorite canine waking me up on a lazy morning... snuggling up in my blanket without a care in the world... playing with colors... walking like the roads never end... flying with the wind in my hair... gliding like a bird... swimming like the fish exploring the depths unseen...

A tiny list that keeps me going... :)