Cordless? Strings Attached !!

Please use left ear while using cell (mobile), because if you use the right one it will affect brain directly. This is a true fact from Apollo medical team. Please forward to all your well wishers

My roomie, Hari, had forwarded this article with the following mail. The mail read,

Dear Kaushik and Suhani,

I did not understand the physiology as I forgot everything....All I know is you both might remember a bit....Kaushik, I would appreciate if you can explain the logic behind this and Suhani, because of you only T-mobile is still running ....Plesae do not use cell phone this much....and Kaushik, this is a good excuse for us not to buy a cell phone. After all, we took 5 credits of physiology....we shall explain to people, the physiological reasons that stop us from buying one...Take care. Happy studies!!!

Love Hari.


Apparently, blood was out of syllabus... so we didnt have to really feel bad if we didnt know the answer! :)

But then, this got me into writing the following 'explanation' :

I still have my doubts about what is being said in the article. Because, if the damage is really being done (which is acceptable), then it should be done equally when placed on both the ears.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is the specialized system of capillary endothelial cells that protects the brain from harmful substances in the blood stream, while supplying the brain with the required nutrients for proper function. Unlike peripheral capillaries that allow relatively free exchange of substance across / between cells, the BBB strictly limits transport into the brain through both physical (tight junctions) and metabolic (enzymes) barriers.
And this fellow, can be damaged by :

Hypertension (high blood pressure): high blood pressure opens the BBB
Development: the BBB is not fully formed at birth.
Hyperosmolitity: a high concentration of a substance in the blood can open the BBB.
Microwaves: exposure to microwaves can open the BBB.
Radiation: exposure to radiation can open the BBB.
Infection: exposure to infectious agents can open the BBB.
Trauma, Ischemia, Inflammation, Pressure: injury to the brain can open the BBB

So, this article's focus is on how microwave damages the BBB. This, instead of clearing up the question, gave raise to two more questions.

One, so how come the left ear talk is relatively safer?

From what I know, supply of blood to the brain takes place from both ends.

Second, why only mobile phones?

Considering the fact that mobile phones operate at a frequency of 880-915 MHz, and that cordless phones work at 900-2 GHz range, the damage that both make must be the same.

I mean the time that a person spends on a mobile phone, if he/she is going to spend the same time on cordless, the damage should be the same right?

Doctors, engineers, anyone with any possible explanations, please write back. Will be really happy to get these inputs.

In the mean time. get back to those corded days if you want to last till someone can come up with a research backed explanation! :)

I Herd that!

Another of the crazy thought that was roaming around in the vast vacuums of space between the 2 ears of my head! An outcome of listening too keenly to a mathematical modeling class!

Dr.Walton (a famous professor in TAMU known for his skills with tensor analysis, continuum mechanics and biological pattern formations) was explaining about pattern formations and how to model them mathematically in his class. As an example, he also mentioned that populations of species can be modeled and patterns of a population spread in a region can be estimated and quantified. To prove this, he modeled the behaviour of E.Coli bacteria and ran a simulation to show how they spread about in a particular region for a given set of conditions. He further showed, that experimentally, when the same situation was replicated, the bacteria behaved exactly the same way as was predicted in the simulations. Now since it is a bacteria, and has no mind of its own, we could "control" their behaviour and migration patterns by controlling the conditions that influence their decision.

Would the same theory hold good for humans too? Can we predict human migration patterns the same way we did for a bacteria? Not withstanding the lunacity of the thought, I shot off a mail to Dr.Walton. Surprisingly, he did bother to take time off and respond to my mail. Heres a reproduction of the mails that were exchanged.


My mail to him:

Dr.Walton,

From the past few classes, where you have been teaching pattern
formations, I gain an impression that we can actually formulate
mathematical equations that can predict the migration of populations of
species across a geographical space. So, this also means, we can
"predict" human migration patterns? Why then, do the big cities get
choked up, saturated with this rush of people from the smaller
settlements?

My point is, if there are models that can be built which identify and
show a likely route that population of humans are going to take over the
future, can't the planners, use this, and try and negate the effect? Or
are the city planners already using these systems to build the cities of
future?

Kaushik

For which he said:

Kaushik,


Your impressions are quite correct. These and many other
mathematical models are being applied to modeling human migration
patterns, in general, and to the design and evolution of urban
population distribution patterns in particular.


J. Walton


:) So humans are indeed treated as herds! Imagine this. A capitalist decides to use this model to his advantage. He buys land for cheap in a god forsaken place, and then plugs in values into the model that can shoot up human migration towards this area. What would happen? Unimaginable profit margins? In short, the population is being herded around?

Now for another dimension. Imagine the government uses this model to predict and plan the population rise in a particular region. And it sees that a particular area which is not so developed now, is going to be a commercial hub in the years to come. That is if the social patterns are left to themselves. Now, if it decides to publish these results and let people know, what would happen? Wouldnt there be an exponential rise, what with everyone trying to move to the "to be" happening place? For instance, if the model predicts a linear dependance of the population rise and real estate value on a particular factor, suddenly with this announcement, wouldnt there be a quadratic or exponential dependance stepping in? In short, the very equations that were used to model a particular trend are getting altered because of the equations itself?!!!

In a quest to quantify everything known and unknown, in an attempt to take control of everything that governs our lives arent we entering into chaos? Just another scary thought. As these new revelations are made in every field of science, and with every new parameter entering into "humanly controllable" regions, isnt it possible that we are after all a part of larger schema of things already being controlled by something collosally big that is uncomprehendable by the intellectual capabilities of the human brain? And is collosal governing factor god? Or is something else? Only "time" will tell.

Nuclear deal? Whats the big deal huh?

Heres the big deal...... i was feeling so nice with the way things were going on between India n USA... what with the nuclear deal..... n the legitimity associated with india being a nuclear state n all that....
what was "actually" happening , was that i was drinking away happily what the indian media was feeding me :).... old habits die hard u see.. i still read only ndtv n rediff!

i did sometime think about how the world looks at india n tried reading some other country news sites... n whats more interesting that to read pakistani newspapers n how they portray india :) but thats a different story.....

coming to what happened today..... i chanced to read this article today... i visited this site for a totally different reason..... u see, my roomie ( n i mentioned this elsewhere, but he's almost like a role model to me now.....) soma, is now actively into dramatics.. hes the part of a play thats running successfully here in TAMU, and naturally any article about the play, about their performance, i was watching closely.....so we have this college newspaper called the BATALLION, where theres an article once in two days about how truly this play is a miss not n all that....

now its only today that observed this, but theres also a world section in the paper... n clicked it to see if the paper was covering the nuclear deal.... n naturally it did..... now comes the horror...... can u imagine this is what the article said!

amidst everything... this is what the article said:

"President Bush ushered India into the world's exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with this energy-starved nation"

if u want the complete article, here it is:
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH?SITE
=TXCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-03-02-23-05-33

!!!!! now i know i m not supposed to take a word out of the article n blow it up like this... but what the heck?!!!! this is how the US sees india? ENERGY STARVED NATION?!

n to think of it, the indian media puts it like, "US now understands that India is a formidable power to reckon with, and it cant help ignore us anymore.... yank... yank... yank....."

while it certainly might be true the way American politicians and policy makers see it that way....... the people of america are still happily fed the image of a third world india that needs all the help that america can offer.....

typical over enthu that i m , i was about to shoot off a mail to the editor complaining the article paints India in a bad light... blah... blah... blah...... n that person who wrote the article must be careful of the tone of language and all that, when i went back to see who wrote it.... n guess what? its a terence hunt with none other than, AP!!!! n this person is a White House Correspondent.......


so disappointing!

Amrika!

now... we all know americans screw up spellings... n we know desis try hard to copy americans... what with all the fake accents.... westernization n all that....

in telugu theres a saying " puli ni choosi nakka vaatha pettukundi ta"... meaning.... seeing a tiger with stripes.. a fox tried to do the same.... using some hot iron... :) i guess u know... its difficult to translate such things.... but hope u get the meaning! my friend vichika got this classic piece from a desi store here..... cudnt believe it..... :)

mobile phone virus

This is one of the craziest ideas that has hit me in a loong time. Actually, this is the outcome of too much of 'mechanical regulations of cell transport systems' class assignments and a crazy conversation that I had with Ankur sometime back.
So what happened was, ankur was talking about taking over the entire world by inventing a mobile phone virus that will make humans (or whoever is using a mobile phone :) ) his slaves. He wanted to build a mobile phone application that will penetrate the human brain . So, being a mobile networks expert, he said he could device applications that will download itself into any phone that is on the network. He said, it was upto me to take over from there to penetrate the brain. :)

So, I was thinking. And this thought suddenly struck me when I was having my coffee with guru n vichika... (in case I didnt mention this before, I will very soon go bankrupt paying for this cuppa coffee at this 'potti' kade (baddi kottu) called java jitters near my lab! :)
Ok... coming back to the idea , technically speaking, there exists a transduction principle called mechanotransduction, where signals(information) are passed onto a cell system using mechanical forces. Now, in this class, I have also learnt that gene expressions are controlled with these mechanical forces. That is, if the system believes that certain proteins need to change form or shape due to some change in the body, a force is applied to the cell, which alters the gene expression. This change in the gene expression in turn will affect the protein synthesis.
Now, suppose, we can come up with a mechanical force that will affect a gene expression such that it takes the same effect as some deadly virus. Suppose we can build a mobile phone application that will produce these mechanical waves. Now, when the human actually places the phone near his ear, these forces could penetrate through the human ear cells (hair cells, gated spring model actually shows that this is possible) and the changed gene could now start multiplying as the cell starts replicating. Now, to ensure that the entire body is affected, we could take in a gene that sends signals to the brain through some other protein or signalling systems. Mission accomplished!!!
What a destructive thought! :)
When I was narrating this to vichika... another thought came up :)..... for the genome project to completely decode the human gene seqeunce, it might take another 10-15 years... by which the mobile phone technology itself might get redundant.... she said... maybe there could be 'telepathy' instead of mobile phone.... so I came up with another rubbish idea that could actually make telepathy possible ! :D next blog dedicated to that nonsense ! :)

Hill Station? Nah... College Station

This was made when I first came into TAMU, and my opinions have since changed, 'facts' have been corrected and in general the picture I will be cutting now is entirely different.. Neverthless, I reproduce it here without editing any text, just to show how does a fresher look at things....Things that I have changed views on, are now in colour :)) ... n the rest black n white ;). The narrative is like, the 'fresher' Kaushik talks and the 'senior' Kaushik records his comments in colour for a fair picture to the audience ! ;)

The morning of 31^st July 2005, was my first in the small village of College Station. And, I don’t know how many more mornings do I have to see here. But believe me, the experience is not too rosey as it seemed from back home.

The village of College Station (which the Texans call a “CITY”) is built around the Texas A&M University. With around 6,000 acres campus(the third biggest in the US after Stanford ,I forgot the second!) you can imagine how big the town will seem to be. TAMU(that’s how everyone calls Texas A&M University) takes about 47,000 students at per semester. And most of them are not housed in the college. So, majorly, the town consists of leased accommodations. Small, two floored apartments. The tallest structure here seems to be the town water tower!

We get 4 channels with an antenna. And believe me, seeing them is a huge pain. There is no proper reception anywhere. We have to keep adjusting our TV antenna per channel!(can u imagine that?! In India itself, it was only in my mom’s home town, I had to do it last when I was in my 6^th standard!!).Apart from Fox and KAMU(TAMU's own station) no other channel has a proper reception. Of course there is cable television, but that costs 30$ per month. Hey, I forgot to mention this, we got our TV for free. And guess from where? TRASH BIN! Here desis get most of their things from the trash bin.(Should have been unfunded fresher desis actually :D) Mostly, Amrus trash their stuff which work perfectly fine but are too old for them at the trash, and we can pick it up from there. So, we got our sofa set and TV from the trash bin. Another roomie got his mattress (typically it costs around 40 $) from there too. Radio however is a different story. There are more than half dozen FM channels blaring the same loud English music all through! And for a guy with taste of Indian music???? Man, the plight is worst. Here, they still live prehistorically. People still watch home videos in cassettes!!! VCD players are still expensive. Most audio players don’t play MP3s.(Err.. I have since seen that it is only OUR player that dosent :D) And guess what? I brought my entire collection in MP3 cds!!! So, I guess its going to take quite sometime for me before I can start listening to my music!( The situation is still the same... only I now play my music in my computer at the office)
Texans are hugely patriotic. Wherever you go, you will find Texas and US flags hanging around, and slogans such as “Don’t Mess with Texas” !! Guess what, Texas is one of the few states where pedestrians are the kings.(Again, since I knew only about Texas then, its like Texas is US for me..... I now realize that Texas IS NOT US... its a whole diferent world out there)Come what may, pedestrians are treated with utmost respect. Even if the signal turns green, and someone is walking on the zebra corssing, all the cars wait for us to get to the foot path!

About the town?! Well, we do have Wal Mart, HEB, Target… n other giant supermarkets…(all pale in comparison with the big towns :) )And one more thing. In case I didn’t mention this before, College Station is a twin city with another town called Bryan. So, its more like Hyderabad, Secundrabad style. I mean its like postal address says it’s a different town, but for all practial purposes they are the same. So, like the malls are 2 each. Wal mart for instance has 2 stores for College Station and Bryan!!!

Believe me man, this store called Wal Mart is huge!!!! (hehehehhe..... this guy is crazy!)If this is what he could build for this village, I was wondering how big it must have been in proper cities like Houston, Chicago and all of them. Desis, have a car pool system. Public transport here sucks big time. In fact, here at College Station, I would say its next to zero. For instance, I cannot get to Houston (which is 90 miles from here) without begging for a lift. Of course there is a bus that runs once a day! So, getting to Wal Mart which is on the other end of the town is also ruled out. The first thing that funded PhD students buy is a car! And immediately, they become friends for everyone!!! People from 4-5 apartments squeeze into the single car and buy stuff sufficient for a month….

About the campus. Man its so spread about. Unlike IIT which has lots of trees between its buildings, here, the space between the two buildings is made into a garden! So, this adds to the heat. I mean, we don’t have a nice shelter where you can rest.We have a golf course, an airport and a nuclear reactor within the campus! The reactor though is used only for experiments! George Bush Sr. has a huge Presidential Library here. It is said that 36% of the Texas Tax Payer’s money is brought into this University alone. An interesting fact is that TAMU’s first citizen is a bitch. No, seriously, it is a female dog! Legend has it that when the TAMU football team was getting back from Arlington after losing its 10^th match consecutively, and their truck broke down, they found this dog and it seems it protected them or something like that. Since then, it had become the TAMU team’s lucky mascot. They have never lost a match after that, and now millions is spent on that dog. It travels only in airplanes! Guess what? It is free to roam around the campus, and if it enters a class and barks, then that class is left for the day!!!! Crazy people isn’t it?!

'Pot'ty Lucked

On the afternoon of 30^th August 2005, i got locked up in my home's bathroom for as long as 3 hours.... might sound a not too long time...but folks....try it out... n u will know how long a time it is...

first, an introduction of my bathroom! it is small.... fcourse it has a tub n a shower...but certainly small... its got yellow walls!(stop thinking!)... n ya.... like every american house bathroom it has carpets... n like conventional desis we like to keep our bathrooms wet....so in the process the carpets r screwed up! n they stink.. we tried dryin it once outside....but it started stinking differently again once it came back inside.. there is a ac duct into the bathroom....but the old home that mine is....it is faced upwards.... n unlike desi bathrooms... there aint no ventilation windows.....

next, the situation... it was a typical hot afternoon, with everyone runnin between home n classes.... we (me, hari and anand) got back to have our lunch.... i made the lunch... so after eating the food... everybody had to visit the loo.....anand was done first and said he was leavin to the comp lab to send some mails... n said he will be gettin somewhere else from there..... hari was to meet a prof in the dept.... i had to get to the dept too...so i asked him to wait....but he said he is runnin out of time n ran off... this meant i was alone in the home at 2 in the afternoon..... so like any typical loo visit i pick a book n get inside..... guess what is the book? DISCOVER YOUR DESTINY.... :)

not realizing what happened with anand before... happily lost in thoughts i locked the door tight.....so what happened with anand? the inside knob of the bathroom got jammed... so it meant only ppl from outside cud open the door!!!!! once i closed the door i realized it...but the situation demanded i needed to attend some more urgent matters first......! finishing up... i tried all possible techniques....nothing worked.... n worse? the stink from the carpet starting taking over..... using up half the roll of toilet paper i cleaned half the bathroom dry n slept for sometime... i had to get up when it starting gettin suffocating... n i decided this is it.. i m gonna do something... i picked up the bathroom scissors, nail cutter n starting opening the knob... when it opened up, i used the scissors to push the lever to open the door....

situational details: unlike everytime, i decided to leave my pants outside in the room and went in only with my undies! so at the time of pushing open the door.... i was jes in my tshirt n undies...

position? i was kneeling down n trying to open the lock such that i cud see where the lever is.....

what happened? suddenly the big mass of the white door disappear and a giant in blue n brown was standing instead!

anand came to pick up his pack of ciggerrates (god bless his smoking habit!) realized that someone got stuck in the bathroom n decided to help by opening up.....

what did he see? me in my undies.... with a pair of scissors in one hand and nail cutter in the other kneeling down in front of him!!!!!

man... the others had a laugh of their life.... looked like the DCH situation... ppl were rolling down laughing... while i was jes sittin out....enjoyin the new found fresh air!\

WORRRRRRRRRRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!