Of Bees and Flowers

After all, bees and flies aren’t as dumb  as we thought, nor  flowers  naive.  Did you know that the flower petal is like a touch screen?  Only,  we don’t know how to decode the responses.  But bees and flies are much smarter and they know  how to  carry out   small talk with  flowers.   In brief  such  electrical interactions facilitate communication between   flowers and their  pollinators.

As early as 1900’s Jagadish Chandra Bose had detected the electrical activity in plants.   Compilation of  his findings could be found in his  book RESPONSE IN THE LIVING  AND NON-LIVING written in 1902 ( currently available on line , thanks to gutenberg projectt ). Plant electrophysiology  has since then developed into a very interesting and active area of research.  April 8^th issue of Science  carries a paper by Clarke  et al   which   describes how bumble bees can detect,  read and respond to  floral electric fields.  In combination with color,  texture, scent and  nectar,   the electrical impulses are powerful  signals which  greatly influence the bee behavior.

Normally bees carry a slight positive charge and the flower petals complement with a mild negative charge.  With very sensitive and specialized  instruments Clarke and his team  measured the  charge  carried by the bees. Of the 51 bees   94% of bees were positively charged as expected but  6% proved to be rebels, they carried a  negative charge.( I am certain, experiments are on way to understand more about this rebel group).  An equally delicate set up  was used to  monitor the electrical signature of the flowers. For field trials  the  conformists were let out into a  field of petunias. Averaged over  about 50 bee touch downs,   the team  registered a maximum  value of 25mV  which lasted for roughly 100 seconds in a flower.  In addition the team was amazed at the quickness of the petal   response which occurred within seconds. Perhaps  an instant  signal  to  other visitors that they are not welcome?.

The researchers tried to tempt and confuse  the bees with artificial flowers, which had  steel stems and plastic petals.  Two sets were considered.  One set carried the minimal biologically relevant  electric field  and also sucrose solution as substitute for nectar.   The other set was dummy, no electrical signal and the  sugar solution was replaced with bitter quinine solution.  Naturally bees flocked to the  charged  plastic  flowers. But when both sets were grounded  bereft of a " come, hither" signal the bees strayed away .

Well that is not the end of the story. While reading this paper I was reminded of  another one  which had appeared a month ago on how clever and crafty  the  dainty flowers could be. Wright leading a team  comprising of members from both sides of Atlantic  was intrigued by the presence of  minute amounts of caffeine  in the nectar of  citrus  and  coffee  flowers.  Copious secretion of such bitter alkaloids  is an evolutionary trick perfected by plants to ward of herbivores. But  why traces of it  in the nectar? Within the citrus family Wright and team focused on   grapefruit, pomelo,  and orange blossoms and  among the coffee family  Arabica, liberica and canephora.   They began with the assumption that by providing nectar laced with caffeine, the flowers might be enticing  the bees to return to them, in  other words ensuring  their fidelity. Seems like stretching  a bit too much, isn’t it ?  Well not at all.  Their  carefully controlled experiments  proved  precisely  the same  assumption. I suggest you read the whole paper to fully appreciate  the very logical and time consuming experiments.  

Tailpiece

Did you know  fruit flies  immunize their off springs  at larval stage against possible parasites?.  When mother flies suspect  such a  possibility, they lay their eggs in an alcohol enriched medium. Prof  Prof Schlenke is a pioneer in this field 

1. Detection and Learning of Floral Electric Fields by Bumblebees  D. Clarke   et al Science 5 April 2013: Vol. 340 no. 6128 pp. 66-69 

2.Caffeine in Floral Nectar Enhances a Pollinator's Memory of Reward:                                        G. A. Wright et al Science 8 March 2013: Vol. 339 no. 6124 pp. 1202-1204

3. Fruit flies medicate offspring after seeing parasites                                                                  

Kacsoh etal Science  22 February 2013 Vol.339,  6122, pp 947-950

 

 

 

 

 

Origins of the Loftiest and the Lowliest

 Well,  not so loftiest and not so lowliest  after all, but in comparison still acceptable. The loftiest is  about our Moon. According to the generally accepted Giant Impact Hypothesis  Moon was born roughly 4-5 billion years ago when    some heavenly body collided with Mother Earth , while both were rather  jellylike on the exterior.  For ease of referencing and  interpretation the  unknown heavenly body  was named Theia, in scientific circles ; all for good reason. In Greek mythology,  Theia the titan, is the mother of the lovely Selene, our Moon   So in lighter vein  we are investigating a Hit and Run case between Theia and Gaia ( Gaia is the Greek name for Mother Earth) which formed Selene

But unfortunately we are approximately 5 billion years late.   Crime scene is no longer the same. But so what? Positive way of thinking  is that we have 5 billion years’ of accumulated evidence and  the  investigating team has very powerful tools and techniques . True,  there is,  as of now,  no trace of Theia, but Gaia and Selene might still  be capable of providing  useful  information?   Can they answer 3 critical  questions: How big was Theia,  what was she made up of  and how fast she was spinning?  

So we now put together the pieces of evidence.  Selene is 1/4^th the size and 1/100^th the mass of Gaia.   If we leave aside the inner core of Gaia,  both have roughly the same chemical makeup., except that the  Selene has a lower density. This leads to several possibilities:    either Theia too had an almost similar composition or Theia was too small  to have  caused any  variation in the compositional variation. Canup (Planetary Science Directorate, Southwest Research Institute Boulder Colorado) would like to believe the former possibility and present computational  data in support. On the other hand   Cuk and Stewart (Planetary Sciences Dept. of Harvard University)   argue in favor of the second possibility.  Both agree that the angular momentum  issue  could be easily settled by taking into consideration the synchronization within the Solar system.  So in any case the  question is still far from settled and we can expect more on this.  

Now let us look at something more mundane,   the  humble  Chicken.  It was Charles Darwin’s hypothesis  that the  origins of  the current domesticated chicken could be traced to  the red jungle fowl who wandered along a rather wide stretch of land from the the foot hills of Himalayas to the  Sumatran islands. It is indeed a great pity that the  Gallus gallus,  the majestic, colorful  red jungle rooster   lost  its regal get up along the path of domestication to yield the current nondescript chickens. The  shiny and thick  glistening orange mane,  burnt red feathers covering most of its body  with streaks of  iridiscent blue or green,     the carelessly  bunched up tail of shiny black feathers.  All gone  and    Gallus gallus of the wild type is an endangered species now.  

The majestic wild rooster Courtsey: wikipedia

   

But the question remains: exactly  where, when and how was the  Gallus gallus of the wild type domesticated.?  Geneticists, ecologists and surprisingly enough archaeologists have come together to  solve this puzzle.

Tailpiece:

Would you like to enter your pet dog for an aptitude test  for just $ 59.95 ?

Do visit  https://www.dognition.com/brian-hare

References

11.   Origin of the Moon A.N Halliday, Science Vo. 338, 23 November, p 1040-1041

  2. Making the Moon from the fast Spinning Earth : Cuk & Stewart Science Vol. 338, 23 November, p 1047-1051

  3.  Forming Moon with earth-like composition via giant impact : Canup, Science Vo. 338, 23 November, p 1052-1055

   4.    In search of the wild chicken A. Lawler Science Vol. 338, 23 November, p 1020-1024

And Here Comes Genetically Engineered IT

Hold your breath, we might be in for a paradigm shift in the domain of Information Technology.     If you give it a bit ( pun intended) of thought, Genetically Engineered Information Technology,     is not new at all, and in fact is  as old as  life itself. Sixty years ago,  Watson and Crick unraveled the mystery of the  DNA double helix,  its enormous capacity  for information coding as well as storage and replication.   So technically speaking you and I are Dynamic  Information Storage,  Retrieval,  Application  Systems. Yes, Dynamic indeed; information is constantly being upgraded; reprocessed, put into use...............  without  even having  to press any UPDATE/ delete  button.  . Of course there is a hitch:     convenient and  selective  loss of memory. 

DNA Double Helix 

Quite a lot happened during  the last 60 years. We were initially quite taken aback to note that a mere 4 letter code says all that is to be said in the Universe.  Strange indeed,  but haven’t we ourselves admitted long back that Truth is stranger than Fiction ? Speaking, reading and writing  a language requires increasing levels of  capability and sure  enough we  mastered the DNA  language, learned to decode  the mysterious messages   and and write  some of our own.  Genetically modified  brinjal being an example.  And now we are all set to  exploit this new method in the IT world.  We  have  learned that DNA is practically indestructible  and even after millions of  years the stored  information can be retrieved.  Logically , then  why can't we do away with the current data storage devices  and switch to DNA ?   

With this idea in mind,  Nick Goldman  with his team at the European Bioinformatics Institute at the  European Molecular Biology Laboratory,  Hinxton U.K  collaborated  with  those at the Agilent Technologies Genomics Lab at Santa Clara, California.   They  have come up with a practical guide to exploiting the universality  and robustness of   DNA as an information storage system. To prove beyond doubt the versatility and efficacy of their method the team chose 5 different forms of data:  ASCII text  of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, MP3 format of the  26 minute’s speech of Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech,   and .pdf format of Watson & Cricks famous 1953 Nature paper on DNA double helix  and a .jpg photo file of the EMBL  building summing upto little less than 800 kilobytes.  Nick Goldman  told BBC  that one gram of DNA can store up to 2 petabytes of information the equivalent of 3 million CDs.   Their research  paper is published in Nature Magazine online on 23 January 2013.  As Dr Ewan Birney  another team member opined to the BBC “ One of the great properties of DNA is that you don’t  need any electricity to store it. If you keep it cold dark and dry, DNA lasts for a very long time” –  Didn’t Jurrassic Park tell us precisely that?  So unlike  the conventional  storage devices  DNA  storage system will not demand constant attention.

Can this synthetic IT DNA t in anyway interfere with Nature’s life code? The team sets at rest, our   apprehensions. Goldman told the BBC that  though it uses the  4 letters ATGC,  “ The IT DNA  uses a completely different  code to what the cells of living bodies use”    
References : 
Nature Magazine published online 23rd January 2013. 

Ageing Gracefully

Ageing Gracefully

“Lived happily ever after “ is stuff of  fairy tales, no doubt.  However,  advances in biomedical sciences have done exceedingly well to improve longevity.   Well,  as of now “ever” is timed and the maximum is capped at 122 years. Human  curiosity  to understand and  thereby suppress the onset of   senescence  has been   historical and  science  has always helped in clearing the path forward.  Imagine Cinderella to be  at the  over super ripe  age of  120.  She  would have excellent eyesight, thanks to the  jelly like  intraoccular  lens inserted after the  cataract surgery,   would most probably be agile enough with   brand new knee / hip joints,, a few transplanted  organs….etc….   Sure she will  still recognize her Prince charming, would remember the glass slippers that shaped her life,  but  would be unable  to remember why just then she summoned  her maid.  ( Well all these  are applicable to Prince too.)

Amour (Love)    a film  by director Michale Haneke could very well be the story of Cinderella and her Prince. The film, which won Palme d’ Or  at the 2012 Cannes Festival,  was screened during the  recent  international  film festival at  Bangalore.  It is the story of an elderly couple, Anne and Georges. Pathos of  unstoppable old age and  the accompanying  trauma which can’t be wished away .  

 6^th December issue of Nature   has a special section  , sponsored by Nestle,  on Ageing.   A cluster of nine articles spread over 25 pages  explore   multiple aspects of ageing.   Quite interesting is the COBRA ( short for , Cognition, Brain and Ageing ) project, which  aims to monitor the ageing process of senior citizens for at least a decade. .  Volunteers for the study are in the 60+ age group. The study is prompted by the undeniable demographic data.  50 years ago age versus   population   plot looked like an upside down ice cream  cone, but now it is more like an upside down  Chinese soup bowl.  Average age of the global population is increasing  and more specifically population density in the 60+ segment is increasing even faster.  Naturally, both science and society need to be conscious about this  fact and take measures to confront. Professor  Lars Backman who leads the COBRA program at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm   is confident, even if the path forward is arduous, the effort will be fruitful. His focus is “ Healthy Cognitive Ageing”  One of the key factors he is focusing on is  dopamine, a very important  neurotransmitter equally important in  physical   agility and learning. Dopamine level dip with age. He is asking the most important question:  Are there ways and means to push it up?  

Is old age inevitable ? Professor Caleb Finch Director of the Gerontology Research Institute at the University of Southern California  and his team are  enamored  with turtles and tortoises which  can live close to 200 years. Perhaps they might yield a clue?

The Centre for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology at the University of Missouri is focusing on user friendly gadgets  to assist  and enable  people to age gracefully, without having to compromise too much on the quality of life. Professor Eva Kahana  Director of the Elderly Care Research Center at the Case Western Reserve University would like to describe it rather as Ageing Proactively.

All said and done, perhaps  there is an age old recipe for longevity, and that is   starving ( or fasting, if you prefer it that way) .  Professor Luigi Fontana  is convinced that reducing  calorific  intake is the best way to interfere with ageing. This has been proved in laboratory animals.  Are we humans ready to retry this way  out  ?

Goodbye, Mr Chimps

Historical Mansion of Lin An Tai, Taipei ( Taiwan)

I am at the lab usually by 8.00 AM. There are several others who work in shifts to observe and to be observed  because we conduct high end experiments and   hence the need for a 24/7 vigil. Parking lot is visible through the window and Chimps can see me  getting out of my car. He knows that   I get in early so that  I can get a spot  close to this building.  If it were in his power, he would  have ensured that this spot is reserved for me permanently. He is my best friend for the past several years, he has been here longer than me and knows  more than me about the lab and the people.  He grunts when I make mistakes, grins when my experiments are successful.  Usually as soon a  he hears my footsteps in the corridor, he gets up and, swings hanging onto the iron door frame. What a grip, it never slips, at least so far. I admonish him for such acrobatics “ You are getting old, be careful” , but he gives me a huge grin  and reaches for  the breakfast packet.  We split the breakfast – I always carry enough for two-  but not the banana, that is  for him only.

But today he seems  different,  gloomy   and withdrawn. Idiosyncrasies of old age?  Of late he doesn't like me spending too much time with others, did I stop in the corridor too long to exchange a few words with  M.?  You know he notices every single detail. I ask my colleague who was in the night shift and now busy packing up to leave, "What happened? He isn’t  feeling well, looks like .  Or you chided him for something  silly ?" 

“Oh you don’t know?  The authorities are planning to retire him”

“Retire? What  would he do ? At this age? And he has nowhere to go either” I am aghast. "But how did he come to know about it ,I mean did someone tell him specifically ?"

“Oh Come on, He has been here for the past 30 years and he is intelligent enough to understand the goings on. Did we not panic last year, when the talks on downsizing  where in the air ,without being told point blank?”

“Well, but he is a bit different, isn't he? But what would he do ? How will he survive? We can just turn him out “

“He is entitled to  receive full retirement benefits , including medical, I believe.  Better than what most  us can expect.  You know his entire family has  dedicated their lives from day one,  for scientific research.  Elder siblings Rita and Theresa were adopted by the NASA, a few others  were with the  health programs on infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, cognitive and behavioral sciences …….....  Only the AIDS research didn’t lead anywhere, because they didn’t respond at all.    All of them- they are all much  older than Chimps - have now been retired and  you know what and are being rehabilitated in a resort. “

“You are kidding,  a resort? “

“No! this is not a joke. Chimps  too will be taken there. I hear it is a fantastic place with all modern  fittings, almost like a spa.  Chimps can finally be reunited with his family there. But alas, they may not recognize one  other."

"What do you mean, they won’t recognize?”

“Ha! You are really ignorant.  Chimps,  was  separated from  his biological mother the moment he was born,  just like Rita and Theresa and dozens of  others before them. They were all  bred for  very specific causes by different adoption  agencies.  So  there has been no family bonding whatsoever”.

 “Oh ,then  indeed poor darling will be miserable at the resort.”

“ You know, but that will be best for him, to be with his kith and kin at least   during  the sunset years, they are all very  intelligent, they  will get used to one another . That is the best  we can do for them, after all they dedicated their body and soul for scientific research. I don't mind a bit that we need to foot their retirement and medical benefits bill  ”

“Perhaps you are right, but  we must  visit him every week, how about every Saturday?  By the way what is name of this resort ? “

“ Chimp Haven, the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary, just 22 miles off Shreveport, in Louisiana. Not very far from here. It will be a nice picnic for the whole  family". 

Deeply moved by  a  report that  the National Institute of Health (USA)  is attempting  to rehabilitate  about a 100 chimpanzees, who are no longer of research value , since invasive research on Chimpanzees has become irrelevant. 

 “ NIH faces Chimp housing quandary “:Nature 491, 2012, page 18. 

Treading the middle path

Controversies are part of public life.  Allegations and assertions fly in from multiple sides. Media   committed to   Breaking News every second,  is no help either. Common man is left too astounded at the revelations and too confused  to choose between true and false.   One knows truth is somewhere in between or everywhere, but  nebulous and evasive.

One would have thought  things are very different in the scientific world. After all, science is the pursuit of truth and scientists are driven by hard data alone, not mere speculations. So there should  be just black and white with sharp boundary and  no intervening grey area. If only this were true! State of things are no different in the scientific world either. Only difference is it rarely spills out  into daily newspapers or news channels.  For example the controversy about the genetically modified crops.(1-4) While one group is ready to wager  everything to advocate that  GM crops are man’s best answer to the impending global food crisis, their opponents would leave no stone unturned to prove the opposite. The huge chasm between this divide is filled by  the “maybe/may not be” population  who would keep on  demanding more proof to decide one way or the other.

Another debate which rages on endlessly is the climate change. Well, everybody agrees that  global climate is  changing, but not on the causes,  consequences nor on the urgency to confront the issue.  Of course there is a tendency to link  the occurrence of every natural disaster to climate change has resulted in the trivialization of the issue.   Kerry Emmanuel of MIT has done a detailed study  on the occurrence of hurricanes in the US  and remarks  that  “anthropogenic climate change may have a substantial influence on tropical cyclone activity around the world ” (5).  No conclusive reports have appeared as yet on the genesis of Hurricane Sandy that lashed the US east coast last week.  

These are only minor aberrations. Scientists have always taken decisions, one way or the other. Or else man wouldn't have stepped on the moon, nor  polio vaccine  made.

Tailpiece:  
L’Aquilla (Italy) is  an earthquake prone city, the residents are  aware of that. During March-April 2009, seismologists detected spikes in the activity of Earth’s underbelly, but top scientists of the   NCFPMR (National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, Italy) reassured the public not to worry,  nothing out of ordinary would happen.  But alas on 6^th April 2009,   at about 3.00 AM the town experienced one of the worst earthquakes ever in the last 30 years.  Seven members of the Commission now stand convicted of manslaughter though not willful.  Their crime, not that they misread the signals , but that they mislead the residents into a false sense of “ all is well”, one of them  even suggesting that they relax with a glass of wine.

.

Sunset  from the shores of  Tungabhadra

References:

1.    Rat study sparks GM furore: Butler, Nature 27^th September,2012 489,page484

2.    Hyped GM maize study faces scrutiny: Butler  Nature 11^th October,2012, 490, 158

3.    Genetically modified plants and human health, Royal Society of Medicine 2008 vol. 101(6) .  290-298, Key et al

4.    Global Warming Effects on US Hurricane Damage: Kerry Emmanuel ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/wcas_2011.pdf

TWAS 2012@ Tianjin

Science took me to Tianjin, a city, southeast of Beijing  in Mainland China during the  second half of September.

The  occasion was the 23rd General Meeting of the TWAS.  The acronym, TWAS, originally stood for the  Third World Academy of Sciences, with headquarters in Trieste Italy.  Formed in 1983, this started of as an excellent platform  for the   practising scientists and science & technology policy makers of the developing world to meet annually. Perhaps, members felt, the qualifier Third World had an archaic ring to it, so   in 2004, the name was changed to  Academy of Sciences of the Developing World,  though the acronym didn’t match.  But now in   a move to expand the boundaries  ( or rather remove it altogether) TWAS takes on a new avatar,   The World Academy of Sciences, and well  the acronym suits and hence  stays.). Anyway there are several   associate fellows   from the developed world. 

This year’s theme was  science, technology and innovation for economic growth. Chinese President Hu Jintao gave the keynote address. He mentioned that  China drew a  15 year roadmap in 2004, identifying activities and projects that would propel China to the frontiers in that time frame. He  promised 1.5 million US$ to the Academy  to boost  scientific cooperation and collaboration among the member countries. The Ministerial session that followed  had either the S&T minister himself or a top representative from S & T Ministry of   several of  the developing countries  addressing the audience. Mr Vylar Ravi, Minister for Science and Technology, India  also spoke. Particularly heartening was to listen to  efforts of Rwanda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe to alleviate poverty and improve quality of life  through innovations in S&T.  

Scientific sessions were  quite exciting and informative.  TB or not TB by Prof Richard N. Zare of  the Dept. of Chemistry, Stanford University covered his attempts to diagnose one of  most infectious diseases as early as possible.  Interested in the Life and Times of Dinosaurs? Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan of the Department of Zoology, University of Cape Town South Africa, analyses the microstructure of fossil bones to unravel the mysterious world of dinosaurs.

Tailpiece

What did a Bengali and a Keralite do when  they got some  free time in Tianjin?

While the rest went for shopping/site seeing, they visited the Zhou Enlai Memorial Museum. Here are some rare photographs from the museum 

Zhou Enlai & wife Den

May 4th Movement : A painting

Zhou Enlai's Appointment letter signed by Mao

A Copy of Red China

Zhou's letter to Chiang Kaishek