Open Source Genetics!

Am currently reading this book - 'DNA - the secret of life' by James D Watson, in which he chronicles various events that started after the discovery of the double helix by himself and Francis Crick in the 1950s. Its a nice read if you want to know new things on DNA. At least i did not know most of the stuff written in that book.

One fact that struck me most and makes me very uncomfortable is that, often science is closely associated with commerce. This is very true nowadays in case of genetics and in the era where the scientists work to find something before anybody does and patents it; i.e. you have to be the first one to find it otherwise all the effort is gone waste. If you cant patent something then its of now use.

Take for example that there is some research going on to find the gene associated with some disease X and team A and team B are working on it spending lots of money and time. Suppose team A cracks it first and patents it. Then team B cannot work anymore on that gene. In other words no other person or company can use the information discovered by team A to discover drug or to do anything on that gene. Its the sole property of team A now! and only they can work on it.

How does this sound to you ? Its sounds absurd to me. It practically stops everybody who want to work on that disease and hence reducing the probability of the drug being found for that gene.

I do understand that those scientists must have put a lot of money to come till that point. But closing further access to others or giving permission only on large sums of money simply beats me. May be they should work out a model where in they get back all the money that they had put in and some profit. But money really complicates things. When you know that you can milk money out of something, I guess you will.

Why cant this work like open source software ? Here companies develop things and distribute it for free. But they eventually benefit from the users of the software and all the associated training, enhancements and everything related to the product. If anybody uses open source software, it has to be open source as well.

If we translate this idea to genetics, it will be like this: If team A decides to put its discovery in open source, then any further discoveries resulting out of this have to be open source. Sounds simple. But its not as easy as software. We are dealing with humans here and we tend to exploit whatever we can out of the discovery. Its a matter of life and death.

At the end of the day it looks like money matters to most of the scientists today. I always thought that, it was only pure curiosity and the desire to find things, that drives them. Unfortunately thats not the truth.

At least pure physics is free from all this patent stuff i guess. I don't think anybody would benefit from a discovery which predicts the size of the universe!! It is pure knowledge. But who knows.. may be one day! thats why we patent stuff.

Its a debatable topic: Should Genetics be made open source ?

Chini Kum ( less sugar )

I would say that this is a must-watch movie both for its new message, which advocates marriage between individuals whose age differs a lot, like in this case by more than 30 years and for its light n nice humor.

Big B and Tabu (to be precise, whoever wrote the script) have done a great job by adding a great sense of humor which is hardly to be found in Bollywood movies nowadays. Big B runs an Indian restaurant in London and happens to meet Tabu somehow and the story starts there. I would not tell the whole thing here as to what happens in the end. I would advise you to watch the movie. With light comedy in the kitchen backdrop, the movie is worth the money and much more.

I don’t think the old generation would like the concept in the movie. Just imagine a situation where in your daughter is some 34 years old and some 64 year guy wants to marry her! Would you allow it?? May be after watching the movie you will say ‘I may! ‘ or considering the fact that she hasn't been able to catch any guy till now, you would probably say 'its fine!' . But I think it will be very difficult to practice, at least in the Indian sub-continent.

I would not say that it is wrong. Everybody has a right to marry whoever he/she likes. But if everybody starts doing this, human race will definitely come to an end over a period of time!! You are defying natural selection by choosing to marry somebody who is very much elder to you and who is most unlikely to help you in carrying your genes further down the stream. Am I sounding too scientific? may be! Darwin would have definitely not liked this, if he had seen this movie.

Anyways, these cases do not happen much too often in practice and we can be assured that the human race will continue to prosper.

At least I will definitely try to help! I need Zyada Chini (more sugar) :)

DNA computing

I was browsing through Orkut and saw a community called DNA computing. I was curious to know what it is, as i had never heard of anything like that. I googled on this topic and found that since 1994 lot of stuff has been happening in that arena i.e. using DNA to do things that we require. It seems one scientist mixed some DNA and enzymes and amino acids in a test tube and solved a mathematical problem!! Till now we are quite successful at using DNA for doing small calculations and games.

I also found an article in the New York Times dated today Nov 21 2003 which talks about DNA which can self-assemble an electronic circuit. Now that sounds like a sci-fi !!

This article talks about storing data in DNA. Its a known fact that we can insert plasmids, which are similar to DNA strands, into a cell and they will replicate them without fail during multiplication! so, in theory, if we code some data into a plasmid and inject it into a bacteria it will remain there for generations if we keep them alive!

Amazing stuff!!

God is squaring me out!

An addition to the squares! I noticed that my office extension is 9682 = 25 = 5 squared.
I am really being squared !!

The number 23

It’s a new movie that we saw today. It is about this man who gets obsessed about the number 23 and he starts seeing it everywhere after he starts reading a book about that. Like in a word, by adding up letters, by giving them a number based on their position in the alphabets. Jim Carry has done a good job. Nice thriller and it keeps you on your toes till the end.

Trust me, the movie will also leave you looking for 23 around.

My birth day is on 23^rd of Jan!

Take E=Mc^2, the famous energy equation. E is 5, M is 13, c for 3 and 2 … all make up to 23. I guess Einstein did not notice this stuff!

So, start looking for 23!!

I am a bit of a number manic. I usually try to find something interesting in the numbers I see. Like the apartment that we are staying in. It is 4, 121, Kusweg, Beach Road, Strand. If you look at the numbers they are 2 squared and 11 squared!

My birth day is 23/01/1981 = 25 = 5 squared.

My current mobile number – 7668 668 89 = 64 = 8 squared.

My number in Bombay – 9820333759 = 49 = 7 squared

My car registration number – KA 02 MA 64 – You can see a 64 here as well.

SA – country code – 27 = 9 = 3 squared.

Today – 20/5/2007 = 16 = 4 squared

Interesting numbers!!

Living in Strand

South Africa is a beautiful country. Living by the sea only makes it even better! I never knew why property rates are so high along the sea until I myself started living by the beach in Strand. It is flat no 4, 121, Kusweg, Beach road, Strand. It has an amazing sea-view and it is a treat to live here.

I don’t know why, but I never get tired of simply sitting and watching the sea. Everyday the sea changes its colors depending on the clouds and the clouds change the colors too. Strand is situated in a kind of bay area where on the other side of the bay is Cape Town. The sea is lined by mountains on the other side and that’s where the sun goes down.

It’s a treat to watch the sun go down in the mountains by the sea, painting the sky with spectacular colors which I would have never thought of! Trust me, God is a great artist. The sea also changes colors depending on the sky, clouds and I have not understood till date as to what the formula is for the color of the sea. It can be blue-green, dark blue, gray, red (because of the red planktons that float) sometimes and when it rains as it is today it is light gray-green. So many colors!!

It is lovely to watch the clouds as well. The sun gives them different colors during different times of the day. Morning and evening are the best and the clouds come in different shapes too. Sometimes it is as if a huge army is coming to attack you from the other side – big monstrous dark cloud which covers the mountains as well. Some times small clouds are scattered all around in a very regular manner and shape.

On the other side of our apartment I can see huge mountains lined up as though they are guarding us from the invaders. On some days you can see huge clouds which come and rest on these mountains as though they are tired by the journey. Or as though the mountains decided to get a white blanket for the night and have a good sleep. And in the places where there is a gap between the mountains you can see the cloud flowing down similar to a water fall but in a much slower fashion as if time had slowed down. Sometimes when the clouds are sitting on the mountains and the sun shines on them, I can only think of heaven!

Some day I will buy a beach house!!

weekend fracture!

You might have started guessing if i had a fracture over the weekend. No!! I watched this new movie, 'Fracture' featuring Anthony Hopkins and Van Gosling. Nice movie. Its a treat to watch Hopkins. He is amazing. He just steals the show. The movie is a suspense, semi-thriller stuff. Nicely done. I wont tell the story here. I recommend you to go and watch the movie for yourself. It will be worth the money.