Interesting Science This Week. Week-3

Every time one ventures to watch a movie in India now a days, you are subjected to the gory images of cancerous tissues, patients etc and are warned about the relation between use of tobacco and incidence of cancer. You are probably aware that cancer happens because of changes to the DNA in a cell which then goes berserk, looses all regulation and starts diving abnormally. The cancerous cells in a tissue eventually move out in a process called metastasis and spread to other parts of the body damaging the tissue there. This sequence of events is now pretty common knowledge. But have you heard of super-metastasis where the cancerous cells move out of one body and infect another? This is a rare process that has till now been discovered only in two animals where the cancerous cells are transmitted by bodily contact, either through bite (Tasmanian devil) or through sexual mating (dogs). But in a recently published report in the journal Nature, scientists have shown that the transmission of cancerous cells can happen even through water. This phenomenon was observed in a class of molluscs called Bivalves including mussels, cockles and golden carpet shell clams.

• Metzger et al., Nature, 2016. DOI: 10.1038/nature18599  

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It's monsoon time in India and the puddles of water seen everywhere offer abundant breeding grounds for nature's master disease carriers, the mosquitoes. But what makes mosquitoes so efficient in being able to spread pathogens? The answer is, according to recent research findings, our own immune system. The most common reminder of having spent a good night futilely trying to fend off the mosquitoes are the red welts seen on the body next morning. The research suggests it is the inflammatory reaction resulting in these welts that aids the efficient spread of pathogens injected by the mosquito bite. The inflammatory response is due to a local reaction that serves to warn the body that skin, which is the first defensive barrier against infections, has been breached. This activates the body's immune response and leukocytes (also called white blood cells) are mobilized to the site of inflammation in order to contain the infection. Researchers have found that, the immune cells that reach the spot of mosquito bite themselves get inadvertently infected and contribute to rapid spread of infection to rest of the body. This hijacking of the immune cells by pathogens might be due to help from certain molecules present in the saliva of mosquitoes that get injected at the point of bite. This conclusion is based on the observation that injection of the same pathogen into the body with a needle did not produce an infection of comparable intensity as when injected by a mosquito bite. Researchers also suggest that the ability of mosquito bites to promote infections can be ameliorated by suppressing the initial inflammatory reaction. 

• Pingen et al., Immunity, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2016.06.002 

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 There is a nice write-up published in Quanta Magazine detailing the research about a class of micro organisms called the Lithoautotrophs, or the rock-eaters, that survive by consuming only electrons as their source of energy. As such, these microbes can be described as "electricity-eaters".

• https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160621-electron-eating-microbes-found-in-odd-places/

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Please take a minute to leave your feedback in the comments. 

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India and quality of education

I recently came across a post on Facebook from a group called Hyderabad School Parents' Association (HSPA) in support of a protest organized by JAC SFR (joint action committee school free regulation). That post got me thinking about the attitude of us Indians towards government and regulation. We are so used to the wretched socialist system and government dole-outs that we have forgotten to appreciate that quality does not come cheap or free. As the lady in the video says, she wants the best quality school for her kid but does not want to pay the price required for the school to deliver services at that quality. Quality education is not cheap. You can't expect to own an iPhone at the price of a feature phone, can you. There are government schools that are run with our tax money but no one wants their children to go to government schools because those are poorly run and are no good. Everyone wants to send their kids to private schools for they are obviously better run and provide better services. But we do not want to pay the price for this better quality and demand for government meddling. Despite 70 years worth of experience we do not seem to realize that government involvement will destroy whatever little quality is left in our school education. Instead of forcing our elected representatives to better utilize our tax money and work towards improving the standards of government run schools, we want government to bully private schools. We expect good, talented teachers committed to their profession to work for peanuts. As Prof. CNR Rao once told a gathering of grad students in reference to salaries of university professors, if you throw peanuts you only get monkeys to dance. Just imagine the remuneration of lawyers, doctors, charted accountants or media professionals being fixed by the government. In all these professions, isn't the amount of remuneration determined by the market value of the services provided? Why should it be any different for education? Aren't medical or legal services basic rights of a citizen like education? 

At this point, the protesting parents would do well to rewind their collective memories to 2009 and answer what they did to stop Government of India from passing the right of children to free and compulsory education act, commonly known as RTE act. What protest did they carry out? What 'dharnas', 'gheraos', did they carry out? What pressure did they bring upon their Member of Parliament to prevent the government (with complete cooperation of opposition in parliament) from imposing this blatantly unsecular and unjust piece of legislation? Now, there is no doubt that every child deserves an opportunity to have access to quality education irrespective of the parents' financial status. But whose responsibility is it to create the physical and intellectual infrastructure that will give every kid born in this country access to quality education? Is it that of the government that collects the taxes or that of the private sector? It's been known very well for many decades now that the publicly funded school system is rotten to the core. The government instead of fixing this system so that even the kids attending government schools are provided with good standards, has imposed its responsibility on to the private sector through abuse of its legislative power. The RTE act mandates that 25% of seats in every private school be reserved free-of-charge for kids from 'economically weaker' families. Government is supposed to compensate the schools for the expense. But as is the norm for everything government in India, the schools were either not paid, paid very late or paid at a ridiculously low rates. In such a situation, where will the private schools raise the cost difference? Their only options are to either pass on the burden to remaining 75% of the students or take the losses and ultimately shut down. In both of the options, it is the middle class that is going to be adversely effected; either pay up more or have private school options reduced. 

If you didn't raise your voice to stop the RTE act because of decades of socialistic indoctrination, I don't think you have any moral right to now prevent the private schools from doing what they have to for survival. What will you do if private schools ultimately shutdown because of losses? At this stage another question needs to be asked. How much is the Indian middle class responsible for the decay of government school system? By not sending our kids to the local government school, haven't we virtually boycotted them? Hasn't this contributed to their ultimate neglect from the government? If our kids were attending these schools, wouldn't we have asked questions and demanded answers from our elected representatives about the poor administration of these schools? Finally, there is one thing that we need to remember. Nothing comes for free. Be it the schools, universities, satellite communication, free laptops, electricity, clean drinking water. Nothing is free. We will have to pay for the stuff that we use; in one way or the other; now or later; if not directly then indirectly.