...koadi keertanayum,
Would the countless great compositions,
kavi koartha vaarthaigalum,
or even the beautiful words chosen by a poet
thuLi kaNNeer poal arththam tharumo...?'
..be as meaningful as a single drop of tear?
-Vairamuthu for Vellai Pookal (Kannathil Muththamithal)
And T.S. Eliot agrees by asking, 'Am I, then, made of words?'
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Ayn Rand to Nayn Rand
Aye Rand is a one-time must-read, pretty much for readers of all tastes. Both 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'Fountainhead'. After a long debate with a few friends, some years back, we managed to agree that it wasn't an obvious re-read though. So, Byn Rand, I guess!
Monday, February 27, 2012
What the Elements Taught Me
Earth taught me
to embrace all, to outlive all,
to know stasis is death and
to evolve from season to season,
to be on the move within and without
Fire taught me
to be aflame with desire,
to dance, dance, dance,
until all desires turn to ash,
to sanctify the world with grief,
to illumine through contemplation
the ocean’s womb and the granite’s heart
Water taught me
to ooze unannounced
from eyes and clouds,
to seep deep into earth, into bodies,
adorning both with tender leaves and flowers,
to strip myself of name and location
and merge with the magnificent blue
of memory’s final horizon
Air taught me
to sing disembodied through bamboo-clumps,
to prophesy through leaves,
to lend wings to seeds,
to be, at once, a gentle caressing breeze
and a speeding , howling, storm
Ether taught me
to be full with the full moon,
to be null with the new moon,
to be the red, red flush of dawn and dusk,
to be everywhere and to be nowhere
The five elements taught me
to be one with all,
to be detached from all,
to be changing forms forever,
until the day of my deliverance
from the world of forms.
-K.Satchidanandan
(Translated from Malayalam by the poet)
to embrace all, to outlive all,
to know stasis is death and
to evolve from season to season,
to be on the move within and without
Fire taught me
to be aflame with desire,
to dance, dance, dance,
until all desires turn to ash,
to sanctify the world with grief,
to illumine through contemplation
the ocean’s womb and the granite’s heart
Water taught me
to ooze unannounced
from eyes and clouds,
to seep deep into earth, into bodies,
adorning both with tender leaves and flowers,
to strip myself of name and location
and merge with the magnificent blue
of memory’s final horizon
Air taught me
to sing disembodied through bamboo-clumps,
to prophesy through leaves,
to lend wings to seeds,
to be, at once, a gentle caressing breeze
and a speeding , howling, storm
Ether taught me
to be full with the full moon,
to be null with the new moon,
to be the red, red flush of dawn and dusk,
to be everywhere and to be nowhere
The five elements taught me
to be one with all,
to be detached from all,
to be changing forms forever,
until the day of my deliverance
from the world of forms.
-K.Satchidanandan
(Translated from Malayalam by the poet)
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Emission Omissions
Jigyasa Jyotika/International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Can biodiesel help cut emissions in the
Indian transport sector?
Diesel is a major fuel source in India, with 71 percent of
the oil consumed in 2005 being diesel and 29 percent
gasoline. Given that India’s fuel consumption of 12
million tonnes per annum in the transport sector alone is
expected to double by 2030, India and other developing
countries are urgently seeking cheap and environmentally friendly
alternatives to meet future energy demand.
A recent study by IIASA’s Forestry Program, published
in the journal Applied Energy, demonstrates that biodiesel,
which produces significantly fewer emissions than regular
diesel, can be produced cost-effectively in India from the plant
Jatropha Curcas, a drought- and pest-resistant perennial that
grows in tropical wastelands and produces seeds for up to
50 years. Jatropha could potentially produce 150,000 tonnes
of cheap and renewable diesel for Indian vehicles per year.
Importantly, Jatropha does not compete with food crops for land;
instead, it potentially offers opportunities to poorer Indian
farmers to use wasteland to increase their income. By-products
of biodiesel production, for example, oil cakes and glycerol,
can also be used in the fertilizer and cosmetic industries, respectively.
Jatropha seeds have a 37 percent oil content that needs
minimal refining before use. As Jatropha biodiesel is very similar
to diesel itself, little modification to current engines is required.
Vehicles can run on pure biodiesel or any bio/mineral diesel mix.
Compared to mineral diesel, pure biodiesel cuts emissions of
black carbon or “soot” by 60 percent, carbon monoxide and
hydrocarbons by 50 percent, and greenhouse gases by 80 percent.
Sulfur dioxide emissions are nil, given the vegetable origin of
Jatropha; however, the combustion characteristics of the engine
used could increase or decrease nitrous oxide emissions by up to
10 percent.
With Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, IIASA
modeled 40 million hectares of Indian wasteland across 24 states
to determine the number and locations of potential biodiesel
production plants that would be optimal for fuel production.
The analysis revealed that biomass cost was the most important
factor affecting overall biodiesel production cost, followed by
investment and transportation. One result of the emissions analysis
was that poor Jatropha plant yield at any location could result in
raw materials needing to be transported to the production plant,
increasing financial costs and emission levels. While overall findings
show that, based on the costs of production and the emissions
released, an appropriate number and specific locations of biodiesel
plants can be determined, further research is required on the
economies of scale involved.
The use of Jatropha for biodiesel production, while significant,
is limited to tropical countries. Previous FOR research has shown
that methanol derived from poplar trees can be a viable biofuel
alternative to gasoline in Austria, while ongoing research is
looking at the potential for using a variety of other plant types
(such as maize or canola) as biofuel production sources in other
non-tropical regions.
Can biodiesel help cut emissions in the
Indian transport sector?
Diesel is a major fuel source in India, with 71 percent of
the oil consumed in 2005 being diesel and 29 percent
gasoline. Given that India’s fuel consumption of 12
million tonnes per annum in the transport sector alone is
expected to double by 2030, India and other developing
countries are urgently seeking cheap and environmentally friendly
alternatives to meet future energy demand.
A recent study by IIASA’s Forestry Program, published
in the journal Applied Energy, demonstrates that biodiesel,
which produces significantly fewer emissions than regular
diesel, can be produced cost-effectively in India from the plant
Jatropha Curcas, a drought- and pest-resistant perennial that
grows in tropical wastelands and produces seeds for up to
50 years. Jatropha could potentially produce 150,000 tonnes
of cheap and renewable diesel for Indian vehicles per year.
Importantly, Jatropha does not compete with food crops for land;
instead, it potentially offers opportunities to poorer Indian
farmers to use wasteland to increase their income. By-products
of biodiesel production, for example, oil cakes and glycerol,
can also be used in the fertilizer and cosmetic industries, respectively.
Jatropha seeds have a 37 percent oil content that needs
minimal refining before use. As Jatropha biodiesel is very similar
to diesel itself, little modification to current engines is required.
Vehicles can run on pure biodiesel or any bio/mineral diesel mix.
Compared to mineral diesel, pure biodiesel cuts emissions of
black carbon or “soot” by 60 percent, carbon monoxide and
hydrocarbons by 50 percent, and greenhouse gases by 80 percent.
Sulfur dioxide emissions are nil, given the vegetable origin of
Jatropha; however, the combustion characteristics of the engine
used could increase or decrease nitrous oxide emissions by up to
10 percent.
With Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, IIASA
modeled 40 million hectares of Indian wasteland across 24 states
to determine the number and locations of potential biodiesel
production plants that would be optimal for fuel production.
The analysis revealed that biomass cost was the most important
factor affecting overall biodiesel production cost, followed by
investment and transportation. One result of the emissions analysis
was that poor Jatropha plant yield at any location could result in
raw materials needing to be transported to the production plant,
increasing financial costs and emission levels. While overall findings
show that, based on the costs of production and the emissions
released, an appropriate number and specific locations of biodiesel
plants can be determined, further research is required on the
economies of scale involved.
The use of Jatropha for biodiesel production, while significant,
is limited to tropical countries. Previous FOR research has shown
that methanol derived from poplar trees can be a viable biofuel
alternative to gasoline in Austria, while ongoing research is
looking at the potential for using a variety of other plant types
(such as maize or canola) as biofuel production sources in other
non-tropical regions.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Monogamy in a bottle...at least for voles
Jigyasa Jyotika/ The Daily Cardinal
Introducing a love potion designed to instantly stop and even prevent your spouse from cheating on you!
If changing a callous Casanova to a faithful lover sounds like something only Shakespeare's Puck can do, it may be time to think again. Or maybe Shakespeare was just 400-odd years ahead of his time when he wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream.""
The ""Puck"" is actually a pack of Pucks led by Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University. The Casanova undergoing ""quick fix moral upgradation"" is a small and furry relative of the mouse - the vole. Or rather, the promiscuous variety of the vole.
Voles belong to one of two closely related species: the promiscuous, philandering type or the monogamous, marrying type. The two species also differ in how social they are and how parental they become after having children.
While members of the monogamous variety are highly social and huddle together, members of the promiscuous variety are isolated and aggressive to the point of earning themselves a reputation. Paternal care also seems to correspond with monogamy - male voles of the monogamous kind devote as much time to the babies as the female. Babies of promiscuous voles, however, are reared only by the female partner.
Recently, the Puck pack at Emory reported they had brought the promiscuous variety around, making them monogamous by manipulating a single gene. Literature in the field of neuroendocrinology (the study of how hormones act on the brain to influence behaviors), indicated that sex hormones influenced these behaviors.
Specifically, two hormones - vasopressin (in males) and oxytocin (in females) - were known to be responsible for forming bonds and attachment within couples and between mothers and infants in some mammalian species.
Research into the molecular basis of pair-bonding in voles started when the same hormones were tested for their involvement in pair-bond formation in voles. When male voles were injected with the vasopressin hormone, they formed stable pair-bonds with females even without mating with them. Blocking the action of vasopressin in male voles that hadn't mated, on the other hand, prevented them from forming a pair-bond after mating, confirming that vasopressin plays a key role in pair-bond formation. Regulating oxytocin in females that hadn't yet mated produced the same results. Previous literature also indicated that vasopressin is responsible for social recognition of individuals in voles.
All this is fine, except that promiscuous male voles also have vasopressin in their systems. Investigating this paradox led researchers to discover differences in brain regions and in vasopressin receptor levels between monogamous and promiscuous voles.
Monogamous voles have their vasopressin receptors located in the ""pleasure centers"" of their brains - the same pleasure center the good feeling after eating chocolate or having sex comes from. So it was postulated, for this species, that mating with an individual recognized vole and feeling good about the sex happens in a coordinated fashion, forming an association between that particular partner and the mating-related good feeling.
In all subsequent matings, perhaps the social memory of the partner and the memory of the good feeling makes, the vole perceives the partner as the cause of the pleasure and this association is what makes these voles stick to the same partner.
What the Emory Puck pack did in a recent study, published in Nature, was take the gene for the vasopressin receptor from the monogamous vole and inject it into the brains of promiscuous voles, such that the gene now produces the same levels of the receptor as found in the monogamous vole.
The result? The erstwhile promiscuous male voles underwent a radical transformation into males that exhibited nothing short of complete monogamy. With this, the former philanderers suddenly started spending significantly higher amounts of time huddling with their partners. Furthermore, when the researchers inactivated the vasopressin receptor gene injected into the promiscuous species, the voles resorted to their old habits and all trace of faithfulness instantly vanished.
But what does any of this have to do with humans? Studies in humans involving fMRI (fluorescent Magnetic Resonance Imaging) have shown that when people see pictures of their lovers, blood flow to the pleasure and addiction centers increase. Many of these regions have lots of vasopressin, oxytocin and their receptors. A similar fMRI pattern emerges when mothers are shown pictures of their own children.
Neuroscientist Thomas Insel, also at Emory University, is investigating pair bonding in voles and the biochemistry behind their love in an effort to search for a link between studies on these behaviors in voles and social disorders in humans like autism and schizophrenia, both of which are characterized by isolation and lack of attachment.
So, lessons learned from a small furry rodent indicate researchers may have found a single key gene responsible for fidelity and community, and in fact created evolution and history in the laboratory.
If chemistry really is behind it all, the science of love may simply be the hottest chemical reaction around.
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