Modi @ 365: State of Scientific Affairs

 

Thanks to the aspirational leadership of Prime Minister Modi foreign policy is ahead of curve but lack of visionary leadership in scientific affairs failed to make impressive gains. The enthusiasm and vitality needed to kick start STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture and Medicine) was missing. Modi, who clinched power on the vociferous commitment towards change and development, instilled a ray of hope in the scientific community too. During his first Prime Ministerial address from the ramparts of the Red fort on the eve of Independence Day with the grand announcement of ‘Make in India’ scientists believed that indigenous science and technology would be bolstered and believed that acche din would ensue. To accomplish the task of good governance and transparency too digitisation has to be stepped up. For the ease of doing business to become a reality, advanced the technical know-how has to be augured. Thus these propellers are expected to generate a needed momentum to usher the potential Indian science into a new realm of scientific exuberance.

At ground level the new regime was welcomed by the burden of discrepancies, discontinuities in implementation of various schemes and pending appointment of heads to various elite national institutions of the UPA II.  In a bid to revamp the appointment process and bring in transparency, the new government scrapped the old appointment process. Earlier appointment of heads was made by a search committee of eminent scientists who would talk to probable candidates informally or would walk in without prior notice into their work places and approve candidature.  According to the new system advertisement of the vacant posts, screening and short listing of applications, holding of interview have become mandatory to make an official appointment. This move was welcomed by a group of scientists who believed that it created an equal opportunity for the rapidly growing scientific faculty overriding the rider of familiarity and high-connections. However top-notch scientists rebuked the decision as they have to invest extra valuable man-hours to screen numerous applications before making a crucial appointment.

Consequently Modi government is mired in the quagmire of appointing heads for several elite national research institutions. Of the 38 institutions, currently only 25 have full term heads and others are managed by temporary or acting heads. Since January 2014, CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) the backbone for scientific and technological research institute is without a head. With stalling of several key appointments, the national innovation system will bear the brunt.

Meanwhile the intentions of government were severely doubted and the veracity of their commitment was blissfully lost in the cacophony of dubious arguments about ancient Indian scientific and technological prowess made during the Indian Science Congress. Scientists opined that hankering to the ancient glory is a futile exercise if we fail to attain excellence in the contemporary sciences. While the appointment of the renowned physician Dr. Harshvardhan as the Minister of Science and Technology was highly applauded, his subsequent removal for political reasons was regarded as clumsy step. The much awaited budgetary allocations made on the National Science Day, couldn’t cheer scientific community as no big-ticket initiatives or big-bang reforms were announced. With no perceptible increase in fund allocation to research and development, acche din seem to still elude Indian scientists.  Despite profusely thanking scientists for their relentless pursuits on the astounding success of Mangalyaan mission the allocation to Department of Space pegged at Rs 6000 crores wasn’t increased in the budget. Although India is located in an earthquake region the finances for Department of Earth sciences was reduced by 7%. High level of protein malnutrition is prevalent in India but central nodal agricultural research agency, Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) is tipped to experience a fund shortage of 24 crores.

Modi government flagged off several new scientific initiatives. A fund of Rs 50 Crore was allocated to a collaborative effort between the US and ISRO, for constructing and launching of a high-end satellite NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission (NISAR) by 2012. It aims to observe earth and monitoring climate change. To boost up three-stage nuclear programme, budget allocation for Department of Atomic Energy was increased by 12.6%. Interestingly allocation to Ministry of water resources was slashed by 50%. As a friendly gesture towards the SAARC nations Modi announced earlier that ISRO would develop a geostationary SAARC satellite positioned over the subcontinent. Accordingly Rs 2 crore is allotted to ISRO towards construction of the satellite.

To propel the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives a National Super Computing Facility was launched. It connects the national academic and R&D institutions with a grid over 70 high-performance computing facilities. With regards to supercomputing while China is number 1 with 500 supercomputers India is ranked 74 and has 9 such computers. The high performance computing will give a major fillip to financial services, weather forecasting, earth quake forecasting, space craft, vehicle and ship designing, oil exploration missions.

Elevation and appointment of visionary scientific leaders like Dr. Vijaya Raghavan to Department of Biotechnology and Dr. Ashutosh Sharma to Department of Science and Technology instilled new hope and scientific vigour by cutting down bureaucratic red-tape. In a major move Dr. Sharma mandated that time taken from submission of a project proposal to its analysis and scrutiny and receipt of funds be completed in four months. With trimming of funds allotted to DBT, Dr. Raghavan intends to partner with state governments under the grand “cooperative federalism” and make use of the limited resources at his dispensation.

Extension of the retirement for senior scientists used to be a norm in India. This system prevented the promotion of younger generation into higher echelons. The unceremonious sacking of former Defence and Research Organisation (DRDO) head Avinash Chander who was an extension of contract by the Defence Minister didn’t go well with senior scientists. Similarly four other senior scientists too were denied of extensions after retirement. With denial of extensions after retirement Modi government has reversed the trend of UPA where in 11 senior scientists are on extension from 2012 in premier institutions and thus new blood is infused into system.

To bride the energy deficit, Modi made strong pitch for renewable sources of energy and set an ambitious target of generating 100 gigawatts of of solar power by 2020. Currently India generates 23 gigawatts of power becoming the fourth largest producer of wind power, equalling Spain. To effectuate “gigawatt obsession” giant solar plants are to be constructed in huge stretches of land. But obtaining land from areas with dense population and infrastructure is meted with stiff opposition. Building giant solar parks in remote areas and connecting them to existing electrical grid system is cumbersome. Analysts in renewable energy field worried that specialised focus on solar power units might shadow the past successes of the wind power.

If initiatives of Digital India and Make in India have to truly succeed indigenous manufacturing sector has to be robust, economical and should be infused with advanced technology. Finally the dream of creating more jobs in the defence and manufacturing sector can be achieved by strengthening Indian Science. The grandiose plans of vibrant India are pointless until unless Indian science is fostered.

 

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Attributes of Indian Science

In a piquant message to the researchers and aspiring students Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked them to “Dream, imagine and explore”. During the inauguration of 102th Annual Science Conference Modi refrained from making eloquent promise of enhanced funding but apprised scientists of crucial challenges- water, energy and health care. Almost 80% of India’s imports include energy supplies. Therefore NDA government at the helm of affairs was keen on making India self-reliant in terms of energy. It had set an ambitious goal of developing 100 gigawatts solar energy by 2020. Accordingly, it has been aggressively pushing forward the projects to jump start from the existing capacity of 3.7 gigawatt solar-capacity which is 1.4% of India’s total electricity generation. Some analysts were apprehensive about the feasibility of such ambitious approach.

Systemic Problems of Indian Science

Indian science is abetted by problems like poor-quality education, interference of bureaucracy and inadequate funding. These stifling conditions prompted numerous budding scientists to leave the country for greener pastures. Consequentially India has been conspicuously losing its intellectual treasure trove. Successive governments vouched to increase funding to research and development to 2% of GDP (gross domestic product). Unfortunately even the latest budget allocation too remained at a staggering low of less than 0.9% of GDP. Unceremoniously government officials’ quips back scientists demand saying that India on an average spends around $150,000 per scientist per year which is comparable to other countries. Unable to stem the systemic problems plaguing the system and vie with its peer nations- whose financial allocation hovers around 2% of GDP, India lags behind in BRIC group. Two decades ago the proportion of GDP allocated to research and development (GERD) in India was more than China but now it is half of China. Despite its huge population India has the lowest number of engineers and scientists in the world. In terms of absolute numbers India has four full-time researchers per 10,000 people and China has 18 researchers, in developed countries the number is 80. Another major stumbling block in Indian Universities is over-bureaucratization and entrenched red-tape leading to inordinate delays in obtaining equipment and material for research. The collaboration between universities and industry is abysmally low and consequently the most prosperous business model of Laboratory (research)-industry- Market (innovation) is failing to find its foot hold in India. Further the burden of funding the research has to borne by government as the investment of private companies in R&D is barely significant.

Deteriorating Standards of Education

While some scientists are hopeful of a bright future for Indian science others expressed great resentment over the sub-standard education. Appallingly, India is the only BRICS nation whose Universities failed to make it to the top 200 institutions of the World. There are over 700 Universities in India which include the elite institutions funded by the central government, 300 state universities and 200 private institutions. The National Scientific research Institutes and elite institutions are doing World-class research and publishing in high impact journals providing major fillip to India’s reputation. These institutes account for a major leap in India’s research output. But the State Universities which are cash-starved account for majority of the science undergraduates. Unfortunately these institutes suffer from shortage of quality faculty, libraries and equipped laboratories. While there is a sharp rise in the number of students pursuing higher education, institutions neither have the infrastructure nor financial support to harness the aspirations of the students.

Beacons of Hope

The two major areas of crowning glory for Indian Science are the meticulously designed space missions and the incredibly low-priced vaccines. The silver lining for Indian science in the recent past has been the resounding success of the ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organisation) space programmes. Established in 1969, bracing failures during early days of inception ISRO has transformed into an epitome for exceptional alacrity, precision and deftness. The organisation acclaimed international repute with its exceptionally economical MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) or Mangalyaan. With space scientists mastering the construction of formidable cryogenic engines needed to lift-off satellites of over 4 tonnes, India is poised to emerge as a super power in space research. Rejuvenated by its successful debut of the Mars Mission, with strengthened resolve ISRO scientists are now gearing for launch of ASTROSTAT satellite, Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2017, and Aditya Mission 2018. Chandrayaan-2, a follow-up of Chandrayaan-1 of 2008 has an ambitious agenda of studying of the composition of Moon and intends to send a lander, six wheeled rover and an orbiter to moon. Aditya Mission will study Sun’s corona.

Another precious feather in India’s cap is the booming Biotech industry. The entrepreneurial Indian scientists with their ingenuity achieved ground-breaking success in the field of vaccine production.  Affordable healthcare is an elixir of all ails for a hugely a populated country like India. The quintessential resources for a robust health care system are vaccines. The task of manufacturing indigenous vaccines at nominal prices was accomplished by enterprising young Indian scientists.. Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) reached this milestone by developing Revac B+ hepatitis vaccines for USD 3 a dose (currently available for 30 cents). Subsequently, several Indian biotech companies contributed enormously towards reducing the burden of public health care in India and other third world countries by developing affordable, quality vaccines against infectious diseases. India is now fondly hailed as the “Pharmacy of the developing World,” by global charity doctors without borders. Now India has attained marginal success in producing generic drugs through reverse engineering. In 2014 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued notices to some Indian companies that failed to meet the quality standards and drug efficiency. But now these are being slowly sorted out. Indian science especially the department of biotechnology is upbeat about Indian companies due to significant rise in number of small and medium sized biotech units.  

Though Indian research is not completely bogged down by the institutional deficiencies but the quality of research is not on par with advanced countries. Interestingly, in terms of output indicators like the number of research papers published per the amount of money spent in dollars, India is one of the top performers in the World. Propitiously the proportion of Indian students graduating in US   and returning back has increased considerably offering a great hope for brighter prospects for research in India. Scientific publications have quadrupled from 2000 to 2013. Indian Science with all its inherent deficiencies and exemplary accomplishments is poised to reach new horizons is in dire need of visionary leaders to embark on a new journey.

 

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Complex Archaea: Missing link in evolution of Eukaryotes

From early 18^th century to a larger part of 20^th century biologists accepted Darwin’s theory of natural selection which postulated that life on earth evolved from a single cell or pre-cell. The concept described as concept of tree of life believed that diverse species descended from common ancestors. In 1962 an interesting paper submitted by Roger Stainer and C. B. Van Niel categorised living organisms into prokaryotes and Eukaryotes based on cellular organisation.  Later in 1977 Carl Woese and George E Fox experimentally disproved the universally held hypotheses of tree of life. They reported of a third kingdom Archaea bacteria defined as a new urkingdom (domain) distinct from the bacteria and eukaryotes. He redrew the phylogenetic tree with three domains- Bacteria, Archaea and Eucarya. This new hypothesis drew severe criticism from reputed scientists who refused to accept the speculation about an era of rapid evolution where considerable horizontal transfer of genes has occurred.  Often termed as extremophiles, Archaea are anaerobic and can thrive in extreme weather conditions. Now most biologists believe that they are very ancient and could exist in conditions not conducive for normal life. It is predicted that organisms similiar to Archaea could exist in other planets. Eukaryotes and Archaea were considered sister groups for their similarities in genes and metabolic pathways.

In 1996 Woese with his team of scientists published the full genome or blue print of an organism in the domain Archaea and concluded that they are more closely related to Eukaryotes than bacteria. The signature sequence of ribosomal RNA genes found in all organisms was used as a basis to assess the variations or similarities. These studies helped to confirm that Archaea constitute a separate group as it contained hundreds of genes which had no counterparts in either bacteria or eukarya. But the ribosomal proteins of Archaea were similar to those of Eukarya.

Earliest Eukaryotes came into existence 2 billion years ago. The origin of Eukaryotic cell remained a contentious puzzle for biologists for long. While cytologically bacteria and archaea are relatively simple, eukaryotic cell is complex and highly specialised it is hence hard to reconcile the popular hypothesis of prokaryote to eukaryote transition.  One of the prevalent hypotheses about the origin of complex cell is that earliest eukaryotes arose when an archaeon engulfed a bacterium and continued to exist in a symbiotic relationship with it. The engulfed bacterium eventually developed into mitochondria, the power house of cell.  Mitochondria are present in all eukaryotes and its gene sequences are clearly related to Alphaproteobacteria. During the early genomic era, analysis of eukaryotic genome indicated that it was chimaeric in nature containing both bacterial and archaeal genes besides associated eukaryotic genes. While some of the genes could be traced back to alphaproteobacteria the lineage of eukaryotic host remained obscure.

 A scientific article published in Nature by Thijis Ettema of Uppsala University uncovered the mystery of origin of eukaryotic cell. Dr. Ettema and team collected samples from the sea bed of Svalbard, few kilometres from an underwater volcano, Loki’s Castle for a microbial diversity study. A Phylogenetic analyses of Deep Sea Archaeal Group (DSAG) of the Loki Castle region named as Lokiarchaeota is believed to be the missing link between the single-celled organisms to complex living beings. Lokiarchaeota belong to the deeply-branching clade of the archaeal TACK superphylum, sans mitochondria and contains proteins not found in any other archaea but present in Eukaryotes.

Using deep metagenomics technique, 92% of composite gene sequence of Lokiarcheota is assembled. Around 175 predicted microbial proteins were found to be similar to eukaryotes proteins involved in phagocytosis, cell shape formation and membrane remodelling. Archaeal genome contained five actin homologs that are more similar to eukaryote actins than to archaeal actin-like proteins. Nearly 70 homologs of Ras-family small GTPases accounting for 2% of predicted proteins are found in archaea. Gene sequences for ESCRT proteins and proteins involved in intracellular vesicle trafficking mechanisms are also found.  The sheer size of similarities of proteins between Lokiarchaeota and Eukaryotes suggest that these might have been the primitive ancestors of Eukaryotes. They could have paved way for the development of eukaryotes. With proteins needed for phagocytosis they could have started engulfing single celled organisms (one them could have been the alphaproteobacteria). Harboured with basic machinery of cytoskeleton, it might have moved around like amoeba engulfing prey. These set of exciting revelations indicate that probably Lokiarcheaota might have been the missing link between the prokaryotes and Eukaryotes.

A. Spang et al., “Complex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes,” Nature, doi:10.1038/nature14447, 2015.

Trajectory of Science in Arab Spring Countries

The spark of the Arab spring ignited four years back in the Middle East and North Africa besides creating indefinite chaos and uncertainty buried the penchant for good science. Unleashing of the pent up frustration triggered a wave of uprising resulting in toppling of regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya and Yemen. The new governments in these regions are now volatile and the situation of the scientists have taken a different trajectory altogether. Current Issue of Nature chronicled the profiles of scientists in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria to fathom the damage caused by the demonstrations and revolts held under the banner of Arab Spring.

Of all these nations Tunisia is back on its heels as its bold civil society have fought tooth and nail to restore complete democracy. The nation had long tradition of extending great support to education and research. It was one of the best performers in terms of scientific output than any other Arab nations other than Saudi Arabia before the revolution. Government mandated 1% of GDP towards education and research. But the repressive regimes stifled the academic freedom as all the appointments in the university were controlled by the government. Scientific institutions were not autonomous and their policies and strategies were strictly scrutinised by the government. Hence research related to sensitive issues especially in social sciences suffered a death blow. The bureaucrats used to block the linkages between the universities and industries. But the situation began to change after the democratic government was reinstated. Parliament passed a bill which guaranteed free speech, freedom of expression, religious freedom and equality between sexes. With the new reforms the scientific society is quite optimistic about the future of the country. It will still take some time for the new changes to permeate into the system and yield perceptible results in higher education and scientific innovations. The recent incident of assassinations of foreign tourists in Bardo National Museum in Tunis by radical extremists has raised few doubts about complete restoration of peace and stability in the country. But Scientists are very pragmatic as political influence and nepotism has almost reduced. Tunisia perhaps is the only country which has stabilised itself after four years of the revolution.

Egypt:  With the toppling of authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 Egyptian scientists working abroad saw a ray of hope and returned to their native land. The new government promised to double funding for science in 2012 but due to lack of objective vision nearly 80% of the funds were left unused. Following a coup democratically elected leader Mohammed Morsi was replaced by Abdel Fattah Sisi in 2013. All the gains made in 2012 followed by the uprisings of students and researchers were reversed by the new regime. The government started taking final call on the appointments but thankfully new constitution passed in 2014 allotted 1% of GDP for scientific research. Researchers believe that majority of it would be spend in the form of salaries and other allowances leaving little scope for building new infrastructure. Due to severe restrictions on the movement of the scientific material across the borders the procurement of needed supplies and chemicals for laboratories has become an arduous and time-consuming process. Most scientists complain that this has been major deterrent for carrying out productive research. Above all researchers in Egypt feel that the mindset of people must changes to have greater scientific output.

Syria: While the situation in Tunisia and Egypt has relatively stabilised the hopes of revival of Syria are steadily deteriorating. What has started as a restive movement against lack of freedom of expression turned into a civil war with joining of more factions leaving a little hope of restoration of peace. During the past four years some amount of education and research activities were carried out by a committed bunch of scientists and researchers who refused to budge from their responsibilities and felt obligated towards the future generation of the country. Life in Syria started becoming more difficult. With lack of security, access to water or fuel and skyrocketing of prices scores of the scientists have moved out of Syria. Since the regime has passed a resolution drafting all men to army, people are left with options of either taking up arms or fled Syria (in other words either to kill or get killed). The International Centre for Agriculture Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) struggled to function till 2012 and as international researchers started leaving Syria even the centre moved to Lebanon. Researchers who are working in Syria say that working conditions have become extremely difficult and subsequently the quality of research was affected. In some places students and faculty have to tread through danger zones to attend Universities. With ISIS taking control over eastern Syria, schools and Universities in those regions were closed and people are forced to flee.

The Arab Spring indeed sparked a massive revolution but unfortunately some countries are doused by the very fire of renaissance while some of them are trying to get back to normalcy.

 

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Threatening Proportions of Myopia

“World has become myopic,” is a colloquial trite. But believe it or not, the situation is really alarming. A recently published article in Nature reported that East Asian countries are afflicted by threatening proportions of myopia or short-sightedness, the inability to see objects at longer distances. In China up to 90% of the teenagers are myopic and figures even disturbing for Seoul where it is 96.5%. While immediate course corrections like glasses, contact lenses and surgery can offer relief but a worst case of short sight can increase risk of cataract, retinal detachment, glaucoma and even blindness.

Myopic condition is the fall of out of the slightly elongated eyeball which causes the lens to focus light away from the object leading to formation of image in front of retina instead of direct image formation on the retina. This condition occurs most commonly in school going kids and adolescents. It is reported that nearly one-fifth of the college going kids in East Asia have an extreme form of myopia and half of them are at the risk of developing irreversible vision loss.  The burgeoning threat of myopia has propelled scientists across the world to address this issue.

Myopia was believed to be the domain of book-worms who were considered to be more prone to this defect. Famous German astronomer Johannes Kepler attributed his short-sightedness to book work. For long even ophthalmologists too believed in the same dogma. By 1960 scientists believed that it is genetically transferred as it is common in genetically identical twins than non-identical twins. Genome analysis showed that 100 regions are responsible for myopia. Increasing cases of myopia among school children in East Asian countries has been linked to enhanced educational performance where in students spend long hours before books. Researchers too have drawn an association between academic performance and the number of hours of study. On average while a Chinese teenager spends 15 hours a week on homework against 5 hrs in UK and 6 hrs in USA. Moreover with teenagers becoming addicted to televisions and hooked onto smart phones eternally, the incidence has peaked.

Documented research reports began to throw light on the deleterious effects of sustained close work capable of affecting the growth of eye ball. Scientists at the Ohio State University, College of Optometry Columbus showed that bright light is protective to eye. The research hypothesis showed that bright light stimulates release of dopamine neurotransmitter in the retina blocking the elongation of eye. Diurnal cycle of eye is strongly controlled by bright light wherein retinal dopamine turns on the cone-based vision during the day and rod-based vision at night in response to the dim light. For people working in the dim light or indoors this cycle is messed up resulting in elongation of the retina.

Research conducted by the Australian National University estimated that children need to spend a minimum of three hours of day under the light intensity of 10,000 lux to be guarded against myopia (an over-cast day provides 10,000 lux against 500 lux of class room). Consequently three hours of outdoor activity has become a norm in Australia. Now schools in China and Taiwan are making way for 3 hrs of outdoor time in the school schedule.  Preliminary findings in those schools are promising. Schools which have relatively inflexible routine are contemplating to conduct classes in rooms fitted with glass to compensate for the outdoor time. An unpublished research also indicated that as the amount of time spent increased the incidence began to lessen. Thus, three hours of outdoor time not only improves the physical well being of the children but protects them against myopia.

In the meanwhile researchers are working on special glasses and contact lenses that can alter the eye growth by focusing light from distant objects at different angles rather than just at the centre as the regular glasses do. To curtail myopic progression regular use of eye drops with a neurotransmitter-blocking drug atropine at night is also recommended. A hand book of Ophthalmic Science and practice authored by Henry Edward Juler in 1904 mentioned that myopic is stationary; change of air- or possibly a sea voyage was prescribed. It ‘as been more than hundred years it took a swarm of brilliant brains with years of dedicated research and sophisticated inventory to confirm the intuitive thinking of yesteryears. 

 

 

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Horizontal Gene Transfer in Humans

For the past few decades genetically modified (GM) crops across the World were meted with lot of resistance from green activists. Wide spread campaigns strongly denounced GM crops as monster crops. They enunciated that their cultivation would destroy the traditional agriculture and decimate human race. The pseudo-science and superstition has resulted in curbing of field trials in India. The uproar and activism against these crops pressurised the government to act against the GM crops. While several acres of land is under the cultivation of GM crops in the US but the Europe shied away from its cultivation and enforced a strict ban on all the GM crops products. Research carried out by scientists in Cambridge University shed new light on the gene transfers annihilating fears about the cultivation of GM crops.

Fundamentally genes or the hereditary material DNA is transmitted from parents to the offspring directly through vertical gene transfer. There are reported instances of alternative mechanisms of gene transfer, know as horizontal gene transfer or lateral gene transfer reported in bacteria and unicellular eukaryotes. Existence of such mechanism is not established in higher organisms like vertebrates and least known in humans. Against this back ground, the research article published in Genome Biology by Alistair Crisp and Chiara Boschetti made startling observations indicating that humans have obtained 145 genes from their ancestors. Though it is much less than 1% of 20,000 human genes it is surprising to learn that human have obtained genes from lower organisms like flies, nematodes, fungus, plants and bacteria. The classical example of Drosophila obtaining more than 1Mb of genome from Wolbachia, a bacterium indicates that HGT is very common in lower organisms.

HGT involves transfer of the genetic material between different organisms and this process has played a crucial role in acquiring antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Genes obtained by HGT are mostly associated with metabolism and code for enzymatic activity suggesting that the process contributes to biochemical diversification. Computational analysis of transcriptomes of 40 different species carried out in this paper concluded that HGT occurs at low but in appreciable levels across all animal species. It has occurred over a period of time and still continues to occur and that it originated from bacteria and Prostists. In spite of structural complexities, research shows that overall levels of HGT are not conspicuously different between vertebrates and invertebrates.

While analysing the transcriptomes (data base of the mRNAs) comparison with immediate relatives is avoided. Flies are not compared to arthropods similarly no vertebrates with primates and no nematodes with worms. The results yielded that worms had 173 HGT genes, flies 40 and primates 109. It is interesting to learn that the genes responsible for the ABO antigen system which is the basis for blood groups is bacterial in origin and the genes involved in the synthesis of the hyaluronic acid, is from fungi and the gene associated with obesity has migrated from marine algae suggesting that gene insertions played a vital role during the process of evolution.

The human genome deciphered in 2000 also suggested the presence of plant genes. But it raised severe flak from critics who enunciated alternate theories to account for those genes to gene loss, convergent or divergent evolution. Researchers now comprehend that 1% of human genome might have immigrant from different species. Scientists who are attempting to create GM crops are just invoking the process that happened in nature over a period of time. During the course of evolution, foreign genes integrated into humans which slowly began to cohabit with its genome. Activists are now rallying behind the point that natural gene transfers took place over centuries. But it has to be borne in mind that even during the natural transfers, these genes were as align as the Bt gene insertion into cotton or brinjal. In fact scientists are simply replicating the process of natural gene transfer in a controlled environment in the laboratories to obtain GM crops. To ensure complete integration of foreign gene, scientists grow these crops under strict supervision and protected environment before releasing it for commercial use. Strict regulations and checks are in place to ensure minimal gene contamination and release into the environment.

This robust research now strongly questions the stand point of the green activists who demand complete annulment of GM crops. Besides allaying the fears of common man, the paper mocks at the frivolous scientific guidelines patronised by the antagonists of GM crops.

Dark Matter may have caused the extinction of Dinosaurs

It is estimated that more than 99% of the species that lived on the Earth are extinct today owing to the competition or inability to survive and others might have perished due to periodic cataclysmic events. New York University Biology Professor Micheal Rampino in his recent research article published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggested that astrophysical findings could help us in understanding the biological phenomena occurring on the Earth. Fossil records show that Earth experienced periodic mass extinction cycles of 26-30 Million years over the past 250 Million year cycle. All these cataclysmic events are fall outs of collisions of either asteroids or comets and extended periods of volcanic emissions. The extinction of dinosaurs, 66 million years ago is one such most extensively researched events. Palaeontologists recognise five such humongous events wherein 90% of species were lost. Though there is an ambiguity over the periodicity of the events, the new postulates suggest that Cometary collisions might  have been triggered by the gravitational disruption of the Oort Cloud, where a repository of Comets reside in the outer edge of our solar system.

Every 250 million years the Sun with its entourage of planets makes a peregrination of our Milky Way. While orbiting, Solar System oscillates up and down through the galactic disc where the Galaxy’s dark matter is concentrated. During this process the Earth too passes through the galactic disc once in every 30 million years. Galactic disc is crowded with stars, clouds, dust and elusive sub-atomic particles whose existence can be detected by their gravitational effects. In this paper Prof. Rampino tries to shed light on the impact of the dark matter in the galactic disc on the periodicity of the terrestrial events. Interestingly the periods of gravitational effects of the dark matter on the Earth were found to be in congruent with the galactic dynamics.

Earlier he postulated Shiva Hypothesis named after Lord Shiva the God of destruction to explain how mass extinctions are caused by impact events. The hypothesis suggests that the gravitational disturbances are caused as the solar system crosses the plane of the Milky Way galaxy disturbing the comets in the Oort cloud surrounding the solar system. This results in raining of comets towards the inner solar system causing the impact. These impact events that occurred every 30 million years might have led to the cretaceous- paleogene extinction event.

While the composition of the dark matter is unknown, it is known to interact with visible matter and radiation under the influence of gravity. Modern theories suggest that dark matter is accounts for 23% of all mass in the universe, 73% of Universe is dark energy and the rest 4% includes regular matter such as planets, stars and people. The dark matter tends to interact with the regular matter as Earth passes through the galactic disc and eventually results in the disruption of Oort Cloud. The gravitational attraction between the dark matter and Earth will result in the accumulation of the dark matter at Earth’s core.

Rampino believes that as the dark matter particles build up, the particles will annihilate each other and release large amounts of energy. Approximately as earth passes through the galactic plane every 30 million years, internal heating of the Earth brings about massive changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, leads to cataclysmic events like tectonic shifting, eruption of volcanoes, rise of sea levels and climate.

Another study carried out by Harvard University team of theoretical physicists Rendall and Reece in their paper published in Physical Review Letters opined that dark matter is the source of the periodic Oort Cloud perturbation. Rampino believes that Earth’s cyclical movement through the thin, invisible, disc of dark matter would also lead to perturbations in the orbits of distant comets and results in heating up of Earth’s core. Thus the Cometary collisions and eruption of volcanoes might have led to the periodic mass extinction. The  astrophysical events caused by the oscillation of Earth around the galactic disc , results in consequent accumulation of the dark matter within the Earth’s core causing dramatic changes in the geological and biological phenomena on the Earth.

This model in fact opens up new vistas for understanding the impact of the astrophysical events on other planets in our solar system. It throws up new challenges for astrophysicists to extensively work on the excruciating details of the dark matter, whose composition is not yet clearly known. While the exact details of the sequence of events elucidated in the model are not scientifically worked out, it has eclectically linked the cycles of geological and biological evolution on the Earth to the rhythms of the Galactic dynamics.

 

 

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