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Subject: Science and Technology

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  • Social Media: Prospect and Challenges

    The term social media is being used quite often by everyone and has become a popular topic of conversation, debates and controversies.

    “The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide, and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment”.

    This reflects the emergence of social media in India in upcoming time…so here is presenting a brief article on social media: prospects and challenges.

    • Introduction
    • What is social media?
    • Types of social media
    • Implications and uses
    • Challenges before social media
    • Prospects of social media in India
    • Concerns about privacy
    • Way ahead

    Introduction:

    • Social Media is the latest form of media available to the audience of varied groups. It is a form of electronic communication through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, videos and pictures and other content through it instantly.
    • The major reason behind its popularity is that the users are given a free service to create a virtual social world where they exchange photographs, play games, become friendly, fall in love, split, fight, argue and quarrel at many times without having met physically.
    • But, on the other side it is an encroachment to someone’s privacy which can lead to different type of illegal activities by using the information such as name, location, and email addresses.
    • Social media provides us a platform to express ourselves without any restrictions which is becoming a major challenge as it may infringe the fundamental rights of privacy of a human being.

    Various forms of social media

    • Social Networks– Services that allow you to connect with other people of similar interests and background.  Usually they consist of a profile, various ways to interact with other users, ability to set up groups, etc. The most popular are Facebook and Linkedin
    • Bookmarking Sites – Services that allow you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and resources around the internet.  Most allow you to “tag” your links to make them easy to search and share.  The most popular are Delicious and StumbleUpon.
    • Social News– Services that allow people to post various news items or links to outside articles and then allows it’s users to “vote” on the items.  The voting is the core social aspect as the items that get the most votes are displayed the most prominently.  The community decides which news items get seen by more people.  The most popular are Digg and Reddit.
    • Media Sharing– Services that allow you to upload and share various media such as pictures and video.  Most services have additional social features such as profiles, commenting, etc.  The most popular are YouTube and Flickr.
    • Microblogging– Services that focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates.  The most popular is Twitter.
    • Blog Comments and Forums – Online forums allow members to hold conversations by posting messages.  Blog comments are similar except they are attached to blogs and usually the discussion centers around the topic of the blog post.  There are many popular blogs and forums like RSS Feeds.

    Implications and uses of social media:

    • Social media serve as a superior medium to stay connected with friends and family, to meet new people, and make new friends.
    • It seems to be the most effective form of communication as feedback is instant.
    • It is like a boon to introverts as they find a safer zone to initiate conversations.
    • It is an upcoming media to integrate people and follow the principle of many voices one world.

    Effect on Function & Performance of government 

    • Accountability and transparency in Government
    • Various deals, decision by representative are Instantly getting shared on Social media
    • It is helping people decide that what things are actually done by Government
    • It is also causing swift actions by government
    • Making representative more closer through Digital interface
    • Democratising effect

    Effect on Governance and Institutions

    • It is providing voice to the people
    • Office delays, and Bureaucratic red tapism, absenteeism has been affected.
    • Recent protest on free speech has also caused judicial activism thus prudent judiciary in even of infringement of rights
    • It also helps political leader during election campaign for propagating manifesto
    • Cost of dissemination of information, expenditure of government has been reduced Vis a Vis to other forms of Information.

    Challenges before Social Media:

    • The misuse of one’s personal information, hacking of accounts, morphing of personal photographs, addiction of social networking sites, spam and viruses are most high-flying problems faced due to social media.
    • Some other prospective challenges are illiteracy, reach and accessibility of internet, lack of censorship on social media, need of regulatory body to govern the social media.
    • The most worrying aspect to the social media is the fact that it cannot be controlled and therefore it goes without saying that its consequences can also be dangerous and uncontrollable for all those who use it recklessly and in an irresponsible manner.
    • Frequent networking on sites like Facebook could also generate negative feelings like inadequacy, envy, jealousy or even aggressive behavior.

    Concerns about privacy:

    • Most networking sites do not really protect an individual’s privacy. A simple example is that of photos being posted on such sites without taking permission from all the people concerned.
    • There is no authenticity of the data posted nor can everything be taken on its face value.

    Prospects of social media in India:

    • There has been a remarkable increase in the internet connectivity in India. There has been successful penetration of personal computers even in the small cities and towns in the country. We all witness the intense mobile penetration in all nooks in India.
    • Seeing the high number of youth in the country who are tech friendly, it can be said that there is a bright prospect of social media in India.

    Way ahead:

    • Social media in India has to meet other challenges apart from illiteracy, reach and accessibility that are revenue generation.
    • There has been a rapid increase in social networking sites, microblogging, media sharing and bookmarking sites. India is lucrative market and social media is certainly gaining opportunities to deepen its roots resulting into a strong foothold in India.
    • There is need to regularize the social media. Some agency must be deputed to monitor the anti-social activities taking place on virtual world of social media. Laws relating to cyber crime should be made more stringent. There should be a separate policing department for cyber crimes.
    • There is a need of extensive research study for finding ways to regularize crime against social media.

    Social Media, with all its benefits and the potential for more, is definitely a boon, however misuse or irresponsible usage can have negative effects on individuals and society, especially the young impressionable minds. We need to guard against the negative impact of the social media, which ought to be used in the correct manner for creative or productive purposes so that it is progressive to mankind and society at large, rather than regressive.

    References:

  • Communicable and Non-communicable diseases – HIV, Malaria, Cancer, Mental Health, etc.

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  • Nobel and other Prizes

    Cells’ Toolbox for DNA repair honoured with Nobel Prize in Chemistry

    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 is awarded to Tomas Lindahl (UK), Paul Modrich (USA) and Aziz Sancar (USA) for having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information.

    Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments.

    What’s the DNA repair toolbox ?

    Each day our DNA is damaged by UV radiation, free radicals and other carcinogenic substances, but even without such external attacks, a DNA molecule is inherently unstable.

    Thousands of spontaneous changes to a cell’s genome occur on a daily basis. Furthermore, defects can also arise when DNA is copied during cell division, a process that occurs several million times every day in the human body.

    The reason our genetic material does not disintegrate into complete chemical chaos is that a host of molecular systems continuously monitor and repair DNA.

    The Nobel laureate scientists, who have mapped how several of repair systems function at a detailed molecular level.

     

    Tomas Lindahl – Puts together the pieces of base excision repair

    In the early 1970s, scientists believed that DNA was an extremely stable molecule, but Tomas Lindahl demonstrated that DNA decays at a rate that ought to have made the development of life on Earth impossible. This insight led him to discover a molecular machinery, base excision repair, which constantly counteracts the collapse of our DNA.

    This was the start of 35 years of successful work, during which Tomas Lindahl has found and examined many of the proteins in the cell’s toolbox for DNA repair.

    Bit by bit, Lindahl pieced together a molecular image of how base excision repair functions, a process in which glycosylases, enzymes similar to the one he had found in 1974, are the first step in the DNA repair process.

    Base excision repair also occurs in human beings and, in 1996, Tomas Lindahl managed to recreate the human repair process in vitro.

    The decisive factor for Tomas Lindahl was the realisation that DNA inevitably undergoes change, even when the molecule is located in the cell’s protective environment. However, it had long been known that DNA can be damaged by environmental assaults such as UV radiation.

    The mechanism used by the majority of cells to repair UV damage, nucleotide excision repair, was mapped by Aziz Sancar, born in Savur, Turkey, and professionally active in the USA.

    Base Excision repair

    Aziz Sancar’s Nucleotide excision repair

    Aziz Sancar has mapped nucleotide excision repair, the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA. People born with defects in this repair system will develop skin cancer if they are exposed to sunlight. The cell also utilises nucleotide excision repair to correct defects caused by mutagenic substances, among other things.

    Aziz Sancar’s ability to generate knowledge about the molecular details of the process changed the entire research field. He published his findings in 1983.

    He mapped the next stages of nucleotide excision repair. In parallel with other researchers, including Tomas Lindahl, Sancar investigated nucleotide excision repair in humans.

    The molecular machinery that excises UV damage from human DNA is more complex than its bacterial counterpart but, in chemical terms, nucleotide excision repair functions similarly in all organisms.

    nucleotide_excision_repair

     

    Paul Modrich – illustrating DNA mismatch repair

    Once his father, a biology teacher, said: “You should learn about this DNA stuff.” This was in 1963, the year after James Watson and Francis Crick had been awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA.

    A few years later, that “DNA stuff” really became central to Paul Modrich’s life.

    Paul Modrich has demonstrated how the cell corrects errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division. This mechanism, mismatch repair, reduces the error frequency during DNA replication by about a thousandfold. Congenital defects in mismatch repair are known, for example, to cause a hereditary variant of colon cancer.

    In conclusion, the basic research carried out by the 2015 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry has not only deepened our knowledge of how we function, but could also lead to the development of lifesaving treatments.

    In the words of Paul Modrich: “That is why curiosity-based research is so important. You never know where it is going to lead… A little luck helps, too.”

     

    Irish-born William Campbell and Japan’s Satoshi Omura won half of the prize for discovering avermectin, a derivative of which has been used to treat hundreds of millions of people with river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis.

    China’s Tu Youyou was awarded the other half of the prize for discovering artemisinin, a drug that has slashed malaria deaths and has become the mainstay of fighting the mosquito-borne disease. She is China’s first Nobel laureate in medicine.

    Lets’s talk about Satoshi Omura’s invention

    Satoshi Ōmura

    So, how did the journey start for Satoshi Omura?

    Satoshi Omura, a Japanese microbiologist and expert in isolating natural products, focused on a group of bacteria, Streptomyces, which lives in the soil and was known to produce a plethora of agents with antibacterial activities (including Streptomycin discovered by Selman Waksman, Nobel Prize 1952).

    Equipped with extraordinary skills in developing unique methods for large-scale culturing and characterization of these bacteria, Omura isolated new strains of Streptomyces from soil samples and successfully cultured them in the laboratory.

    From many thousand different cultures, he selected about 50 of the most promising, one of these cultures later turned out to be Streptomyces avermitilis, the source of Avermectin, a medicine that has nearly eradicated river blindness and radically reduced the incidence of filariasis, which can cause the disfiguring swelling of the lymph system in the legs and lower body known as elephantiasis.

     

    Bacteria.

    Puzzle about River Blindness?

    Also known as onchocerciasis or Robles’ Disease, is caused by transmission of the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus by black flies of the genus Simulium. Vector lives near rivers, thus the name.Inside the host, the worms create larvae that travel to the skin, and infect other flies that bite the victim.

    Symptoms include severe itching, eruptions under the skin, and blindness. About 17-25 million are infected; some 0.8 million have some degree of vision loss. Most infections in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Then, what about Lymphatic Filariasis or Commonly known as elephantiasis ?

    It is tropical disease caused by transmission of parasites classified as nematodes (roundworms) of the family Filariodideato, to humans by mosquitoes.

    Adult worms lodge in lymphatic system and disrupt immune system. Causes abnormal enlargement of body parts, pain, severe disability and social stigma.

    Over 120 million people are infected, about 40 million disfigured or incapacitated. About 1.23 billion in 58 countries are threatened, 80% of whom live in 10 countries, including India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

    Our next Pioneer William C. Campbell

    William C. Campbell

    An expert in parasite biology working in the USA, acquired Omura’s Streptomyces cultures and explored their efficacy.

    Campbell showed that a component from one of the cultures was remarkably efficient against parasites in domestic and farm animals.

    The bioactive agent was purified and named Avermectin, which was subsequently chemically modified to a more effective compound called Ivermectin. 

    Ivermectin was later tested in humans with parasitic infections and effectively killed parasite larvae (microfilaria) .

    Collectively, Omura and Campbell’s contributions led to the discovery of a new class of drugs with extraordinary efficacy against parasitic diseases.

     

    Scheme.

     

    What a breakthrough, China’s first Nobel laureate in medicine, Let’s talk about it?

     

    Youyou Tu

    Ms. Youyou Tu, won Nobel in Medicine for a therapy against malaria.

    Malaria was traditionally treated by chloroquine or quinine, but with declining success. By the late 1960s, efforts to eradicate Malaria had failed and the disease was on the rise.

    At that time, Youyou Tu in China turned to traditional herbal medicine to tackle the challenge of developing novel Malaria therapies.

    Tu revisited the ancient literature and discovered clues that guided her in her quest to successfully extract the active component from Artemisia annua. 

    Tu was the first to show that this component, later called Artemisinin, was highly effective against the Malaria parasite, both in infected animals and in humans.

    Artemisinin represents a new class of antimalarial agents that rapidly kill the Malaria parasites at an early stage of their development, which explains its unprecedented potency in the treatment of severe Malaria.

     

    Herbal medicine

     

    How do you think these inventions will change the world?

    The discoveries of Avermectin and Artemisinin have fundamentally changed the treatment of parasitic diseases.

    Ivermectin is highly effective against a range of parasites, has limited side effects and is freely available across the globe.

    The importance of Ivermectin for improving the health and wellbeing of millions of individuals with River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, primarily in the poorest regions of the world, is immeasurable.

    Treatment is so successful that these diseases are on the verge of eradication, which would be a major feat in the medical history of humankind. Malaria infects close to 200 million individuals yearly.

    Artemisinin is used in all Malaria-ridden parts of the world. When used in combination therapy, it is estimated to reduce mortality from Malaria by more than 20% overall and by more than 30% in children. For Africa alone, this means that more than 100 000 lives are saved each year.

    The discoveries of Avermectin and Artemisinin have revolutionized therapy for patients suffering from devastating parasitic diseases.

    Campbell, Ōmura and Tu have transformed the treatment of parasitic diseases. The global impact of their discoveries and the resulting benefit to mankind are immeasurable.

    Published with inputs from Arun

  • Gravitational Wave Observations

    Eureka moment: Gravitational waves found

     

    Recently, Gravitational waves, the cosmic ripples that distort space-time itself, have been directly detected for the first time. Let’s know about this unprecedented discovery!

    What is so special about this eureka moment?

    • For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe
    • This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos
    • Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole
    • This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed

    Let’s first know about Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity?

    • In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. This was the theory of special relativity
    • It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time
    • Einstein then spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in the theory and published his theory of general relativity in 1915
    • In it, he determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity

    [ Einstein’s mathematics showed that massive accelerating objects (such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other) would disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source ]

    What are Gravitational waves?

    Cataclysmic events, such as this artist's rendition of a binary-star merger, are believed to create gravitational waves that cause ripples in space-time
    Cataclysmic events, such as this artist’s rendition of a binary-star merger, are believed to create gravitational waves that cause ripples in space-time. Credits: NASA
    • Gravitational waves are distortions or ‘ripples’ in the fabric of space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe
    • These ripples would travel at the speed of light through the Universe, carrying with them information about their cataclysmic origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself

    What are the Sources of Gravitational Waves?

    • Any object with mass that accelerates (which in science means changes position at a variable rate, and includes spinning and orbiting objects) produces gravitational waves, including humans and cars and airplanes etc.
    • But the gravitational waves made by us here on Earth are much too small to detect
    • The strongest gravitational waves are produced by catastrophic events such as colliding black holes, the collapse of stellar cores (supernovae), coalescing neutron stars or white dwarf stars, the slightly wobbly rotation of neutron stars that are not perfect spheres, and the remnants of gravitational radiation created by the birth of the Universe itself

    InfographLigo-gravitational-waves

    Not one but four types of Gravitational Waves!

    • In order to understand the types of gravitational waves, Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) scientists have defined 4 categories of gravitational waves
    • These categories are: Continuous Gravitational Waves, Compact Binary Inspiral Gravitational Waves, Stochastic Gravitational Waves, and Burst Gravitational Waves

    But, Why Detect Them?

    • This will open up a new window of study on the Universe, giving us a deeper understanding of these cataclysmic events, and usher in brand new cutting-edge studies in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics
    • More importantly, since gravitational waves don’t interact with matter (unlike electromagnetic radiation), they travel through the Universe completely unimpeded giving us a crystal clear view of the gravitational wave
    • This will provide astronomers and other scientists, first glimpses of previously unseen and unseeable wonders, and greatly adding to our understanding of the nature of space and time itself

    So, How does LIGO come into the Picture?

    • LIGO( Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) is the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory and a cutting edge physics experiment
    • LIGO exploits the physical properties of light and of space itself to detect and understand the origins of gravitational waves
    • LIGO has 2 widely separated identical detector sites working in unison as a single “observatory”: one in Hanford, southeastern Washington State and the other in rural Livingston, Louisiana
    • LIGO has a very close collaboration with the VIRGO collaboration that analyzes data from VIRGO, a 3 km gravitational wave interferometer located near Pisa, Italy
    • Data from LIGO and Virgo are combined and analyzed together by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations
    • Thus significantly increasing the capability of combined data for detecting and using gravitational waves to learn about nature

    Is there any Way ahead for India?

    Image - Locations of existing gravitational-wave detectors, and how far out a LIGO in India would be Source: LIGO
    Image – Locations of existing gravitational-wave detectors, and how far out a LIGO in India would be. Source: LIGO
    • Yes, because Union cabinet has approved a proposal to establish a state-of-the-art gravitational wave observatory in India in collaboration with LIGO in the US
    • The project will bring unprecedented opportunities for scientists and engineers to dig deeper into the realm of gravitational wave and take global leadership in this new astronomical frontier
    • This will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting-edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of the 8-km long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a leveled terrain
    • With its establishment, India will join the global network of gravitational wave detectors
    • The establishment of an observatory in India assumes importance because the further the distance between the observatories, the greater will be the accuracy in locating gravity waves
    • Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are among the states shortlisted for the experiment

    Can we expect some answers from you guys?

    #Q. Recently, Union cabinet has approved a proposal to establish a gravitational wave observatory, one of the mega science projects in India. Discuss, how will this project help India if it becomes a reality.

     

    Published with inputs from Arun | Image: space.com

  • AYUSH – Indian Medicine System