We are passing through an “Era of Biology”. Words like “Biotechnology’,'Bioremediation”, “Biochips”, “Biomineralization”, “Bioinformatics” etc. have become familiar even with “common man”. Certainly there is a new unusual never-before tried approach to address and solve many problems associated with modern life and to enhance the quality and standard of living by application of modern tools of Biology; particularly the Genetically Modified Foods (GM Foods) and other GM Products have revolutionized our Life.

All I could manage after reading this was : WTF ?

We are preparing the young generation by brainwashing them into thinking that everything about modern life and new technologies are good and better in life. We are looking at a situation where these students are going to demand GM Foods in their table just because they assume it is going to “revolutionise” their life.

Online Version of the textbook is available here (Page 3)

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”

I have been reading this wonderful book by Jared Diamond, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee”. In this book, Diamond dwells on why just one of the species of the big mammals (humans) came to dominate the other closer species which had a equal chance for the top position. It also dwells on how one group of humans (eurasians) came to dominate the other native groups all over the globe. Diamond’s famous masterpiece “Guns, Germs and Steel“, which was written after this book explains more about the latter topic.

I found the following argument quite interesting and decided to share it along.

” I find it mind-boggling that the astronomers now eager to spend a hundred million dollars on the search for extraterrestrial life have never thought seriously about the most obvious question: what would happen if we found it, or if it found us. The astronomers tacitly assume that we and the little green monsters would welcome each other and settle down to fascinating conversations. Here again, our own experience on Earth offers useful guidance. We have already discovered two species that are very intelligent but technically less advanced than us — the common chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee. Has our response been to sit down and try to communicate with them? Of course not. Instead we shoot them, stuff them, dissect them, cut off their hands for trophies, put them on exhibit in cages, inject them with AIDS virus as a medical experiment, and destroy or take over their habitat. That response was predictable, because human explorers who discovered technically less advanced humans also regularly responded by shooting them, decimating their populations with new diseases, and destroying or taking over their habitat.

Any advanced extraterrestrials who discovered us would surely treat us in the same way. Think again of those astronomers who beamed radio signals into space from Arecibo, describing Earth’s location and its inhabitants. In its suicidal folly that act rivalled the folly of the last Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, who described to his gold-crazy Spanish captors the wealth of his capital and provided them with guides for the journey. If there really are any radio civilizations within listening distance of us, then for heaven’s sake let’s turn off our own transmitters and try to escape detection, or we are doomed.

Fortunately for us, the silence from outer space is deafening. Yes, out there are billions of galaxies with billions of stars. Out there must be some transmitters as well, but not many, and they do not last long. Probably there are no others in our galaxy, and surely none within hundreds of light-years of us. What woodpeckers teach us about flying saucers is that we are unlikely ever to see one. For practical purposes, we are unique and alone in a crowded universe. Thank God! “

It’s time we stopped looking up at the skies, trying to find intelligence and life. It’s high time we saw and realised what is happening here in earth and conserve what is left.

Related articles

• The Evolution of Religions (brainandlearning.blogspot.com)
• The First Population Explosion: Human Numbers Expanded Dramatically Millennia Before Agriculture (spittoon.23andme.com)
• What is Evolution? (neatorama.com)
• On the origin of education (guardian.co.uk)

Check www.teeme2008.ee for more details on it was achieved…

Since then Latvia has copied the event in September 2008 with 40,000 volunteers and there are active groups in five countries planning to something similar in 2009.

The idea is simple. All the active people who care about their country and the shared environment we live in – Let’s put our efforts together, to create a new wave of civic activism. Country by country. It is time to be inspired and inspire others, create a new level of co-operation for the whole society and the world.

Check www.letsdoitworld.org

There is also a Facebook Group and a LinkedIn Group

Hoping to continue blogging…

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Tags: Marriage, Adventure, Voltaire, Arul N S

Mercury is rising all the time here, with days becoming worse than the previous day. Just wishing it rains here. It has been a mixed week at work. Most of them are on vacation and sometimes it’s really very boring to look at the same faces who are stuck up like me without a vacation. It’s so boring that we miss even the “office joker” who mostly is  a pain in the wrong place. We hope he comes back fast because his place might be taken up by another.

I have been spending some real time on “bit Feed“. One of the major updates was designing the logo. It’s a standard Web 2.0 logo designed in Inkscape. Lots of experimentation went on different plugins for WordPress and CSS layout. Also updated the WordPress to the latest 2.6 “Tyner” version. I might be doing the same to this blog too. Also put up some test Google Ads in the sidebar of bit Feed. Please do “support” me by clicking some ads if you think the ads are related to something you were thinking of.

I have been also doing some contribution work at “Freebase“. This is one place where I think, I will be a regular contributor. Even though it’s in Alpha stage, it looks very promising. Please watch out for a more detailed posting in “bit Feed” in few days.

Another great tool that I have been trying this week is “RescueTime“. It’s a time management tool to track where exactly you spend time more and try to calculate efficiency and productivity. Mostly would do a posting on it shortly.

I am on my 3rd week of 50 (25) Book Challenge and my initial speed has slowed down. I am only on my third book. In movies, it has been a dull week, where I watched few good old action flicks. It was “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon 2“. Expecting to watch some new flicks this weekend. In music section, the albums of the week are “The Essenstial Anan Vissi” by Anna Vissi, “Reload” by Metallica and “Vazthukal” by Yuvan Shankar Raja. Out of these, Anna Vissi is recommended for everybody who wants to get a taste of Laïka. Reload is a must for any heavy metal fan and Vazthukal contains just one track(Enthan Vaanamum Neethan…) that is worth spending time.

At the personal front, I have lost 2 kgs with no changes in the waistline. I guess the reason must be all the butterscotch. The room is in the worst shape ever. I will not be able to locate my wallet if I dropped it there. So there ends my Week 29 update.

ps: Looks like Project ZIEL may be postponed.

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Till now this novel idea has been successful with people queuing up to use the urinal. It’s so strange to see that you need to pay the people to cultivate the civic sense and concern for community health.

It seems all that extra urine is collected by the nearby agricultural university to explore the possibility of its usage a crop fertiliser.

Is this another political stunt before elections ?  or a Real change ?

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I happened to come across the “50 Book Challenge” in the blogosphere last month. It’s a kind of resolution where you hope to finish 50 books in a year. That is nearly one book a week. But since I found this in the last week of June, I kind of decided to go for half the challenge. I hope to finish 25 books by the end of 2008. I have been lazy for quite sometime and my literary intake is nearly zero. So I guess it’s time to change all that. So from July 1, I have finished two books. I am managing to read them during my  travel to office, just before hitting the bed. The first one to finish was John Grisham’s “The Appeal” which was not all that appealing to me. The second one which was tough to put down was Jeffrey Archer’s “False Impression“. It was quite a good read. Hoping to write a review sometime soon here.

2 down and 23 more to go…

[Patricia Heaton : Everybody Loves Raymond]

Pleasures in life

• Getting up at 3pm in the afternoon
• The first thing you eat is Butterscotch Ice Cream
• The only thing you eat for next 4 hours is an entire tub of Butterscotch
• Fill up the leftover space in your tummy with Lindt Dark Chocolate
• Watch Star Trek till you fall asleep
• Repeat the above steps for 5 days
• Bunk the office for 5 days doing this

But somehow computers and technology keep calling and I decided to do something in return. I have created a separate blog called “bit Feed” which would be solely about technology, computers and internet. Here I plan to discuss about my experiences with different software, hardware, internet services, tips and tricks, science and technology.  In case any of you who is interested in becoming a contributor or author for this blog, please do contact me.

I am a dog who should be asking sorry… Please forgive me…

As seen above the Feb 2008 was a dull period for my search activities since I was on vacation and away from the computers for most of the time. The period of Apr-May saw a peak because of the aftermath of my Hannover visit. The latter half of previous year was filled with work that I didn’t much time in front of the system and October visit to India was a cause of the drop. I was surprised to find my Friday activity to be quite higher than my expectations since I spent most of the day in the bed. Looks like Tuesday is the day when I am totally jobless. Lately for the past one year I have been trying to hit the bed early which is very much evident, and also evident are my lunch breaks at 2pm and last few hours at office after 5pm and consecutive climb at 8pm back at home and post dinner climb after 10pm and just before hitting the bed at 12 am.

For a one year period ending on 17th May 2008, my average searches per day was 12. Top sites visited were Wikipedia, Answers.com, Google, Experts-exchange, Support@micro$oft, Amazon, IMDB. The top three queries were test, whois and wikipedia. 

Gulf News Published: May 16, 2008, 23:39

It is good to be cautious. And it is caution the UAE is demonstrating as it goes about developing its nascent nuclear energy programme. Nuclear energy is seen as being a significant supplier to the UAE for domestic purposes in the future. So it is only right that the nation is approaching the installation, technology and training of nuclear power with great care. The UAE has already signed agreements with the US and France, two leading suppliers of nuclear energy, to advise it on the installations. Now an agreement has been signed with the UK, also a major supplier of nuclear energy for many years.

With the US, France and the UK supplying technical know-how, the UAE can be sure it is getting some of the best advice available. Furthermore, by disclosing who they are co-operating with, the UAE is showing full transparency of the project, as it said it would.

The above article was the editorial of Gulf News today. If I show this article to somebody without telling that this was the editorial of the day, I bet their first guess would be that this was the Government publication. I fail to see the reasoning of Gulf News about supporting a nuclear program and the worst case is talking about the merits in an editorial. I assume US & UK will be helping in “training of nuclear power” to UAE (whatever it is supposed to be). I am no Oxford pundit but still that term look way off to be used in an editorial.

Source : Gulf News

Finally it’s a time for rejoicing for all the Chennaiites living in Abu Dhabi. A direct flight from Abu Dhabi to Chennai was a dream for thousands people living here who had to contend themselves from taking a transit via Doha, Bahrain, Muscat, Bombay and Colombo (I guess not everybody taking a transit via Colombo were sad).

According to the government gazette (I mean the newspapers), the new Chennai service will operate as flight EY266 on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, departing Abu Dhabi at 8.50am, arriving in Chennai at 2.30pm. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, the service will operate as flight EY268, departing Abu Dhabi at 1.45pm and arrive in Chennai at 7.25pm. Return flight EY267 will depart Chennai on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 3.15pm, arriving in Abu Dhabi at 5.45pm the same day. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, the service will operate as flight EY269, departing Chennai at 8.20pm and arrive in the UAE capital at 10.50pm.

Now if somebody asks whether I will change my preferred transit (thro Colombo), it is something I need to think it over…

Source : Gulf News , Economic Times, PK News Bureau

“Ask Her No Questions And Nobody Dies”.

When I started to watch this movie for the first time I did not have much expectations, it was just another boring Friday evening and all I wanted to do was get back to bed. It’s an intriguing thriller drama about a 13-year old teenager played by Jodie Foster. She is shown living in a quiet seaside town with her dad, who has not been seen much. In reality her father has died and she is living all alone in the house without wanting to give up her independence. The film is all about loneliness and how much different you turn out to be when you raise yourself with your own will and thoughts. The best part of the movie was the importance given to the character portrayals than trying to make it look like a horror movie. The Chopin’s piano concerto in the background and the slow panning of the camera reminded me of the Hitchcock movies. This movie had all the elements of surprise, drama, romance, tragedy and romance to it. In my opinion this movie is a must watch for anybody who likes 70’s classics.