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Showing posts from February, 2024

Park Calling Park

 Summer of '94, In the peak heat of April, I managed to get tickets of Jurassic Park for the family, after standing in queue for few hours and to get better seats in the holiday rush at theatres and the rave reviews this movie had received, firing imaginations of the viewers globally and India. The 2.5 hrs we spent in the Park, was captivating and this transcended us into a different world and that stayed for few days, the following days our dining table conversations  centred around the discussions of Mammoths, Dinosaurs and huge parks to visit, the evolution and devolution of these Mammoths. I remember asking my self and family, whether we will get to see these in our lifetime. Cut to 2024, with Dalas based Colossal,  the biotech company actively working to reincarnate the ancient beast. Has received $60 million of funding and they are confident of de-exitinction of the woolly Mammoth and putting them back in Siberia and other places by 2027, this news article blew me and took me

Gated communities or Mini Nations

Few month's back, the city of Bangalore was shocked by the news of of a 10 year old loosing her life to electrocution while playing near the apartment swimming pool, because of loose wiring which was not attended by the facilities management team and the anger of  500 plus residents was on the volunteer Management Committee members, this led to an FIR being registered against the MC, facilities management team. Especially the anger centred on the President of the Management Committee, whom the residents blamed for delay in the repair of the loose wiring in-spite of repeated complaints. After a month of investigation, the police arrested the volunteer MC President, the property manager, the electrician and the plumbing staff. There has been similar incident of electrocution in an upscale Hyderabad apartment complex last year where a less than 10 year old boy, lost his life while playing and touch the pole which has loose wiring. The speed of urbanization and migration of people to c

Gene Drive, An Outside In view

I must admit, that In my entire life time, I have never deliberated about mosquitoes, their identity, importance, impact, and role in the world we live in. For me, they have been associated with vaccine, flu, malaria, dengue, COVID, Coil, repellent and Krantiveer* in this order While doing a team activity on Responsible Strategy on Gene drive in mosquitoes, to prevent and eradicate malaria, which still claims 59% lives effected by it, even after medicine being successful to control COVID which came much later. Gene drive is method by which the mosquitoes which spread malaria, are modified and released in concentrated areas by which when they mate the population of mosquitoes which cause malaria reduces/ eradicated. The point of deliberation, was is this ethical, should government take this up and drive it like COVID vaccination, what are economic impacts, what are ecological impacts, how will the society react to this, playing god role by science and technology. Altering the nature'

Gene Editing, the new We

Participated in a great session on this by Shambhavi Naik of Takshashila Institute, she made it interesting by adding list of movies to watch on this subject. My imagination has been running wild, trying to visualise the use cases and the the way it will change the social constitution of the world impacting conversations, behaviours, consumption and economics of living. Though, at nascent stage, work on human beings is happening , it's been used to treat few diseases, alter the natural course in few aspects in medical sciences. The possible use cases shared and debated during the presentation are. 1. Superhumans, to lead the warfare by league of extraordinary women and men,  this is making Superheros and Wonder women a reality I heard, some work is happening, happened and we are yet to know this in detail. For now the DC and Marvel are filling in the gap and feeding the imagination 2. The super food thanks to the gene edited, modified seeds which are being served on the platter and

Deep fakes vs Fakes

Few days back one message made rounds on all social media platforms and news channel The news was of death of well known model on account Cervical cancer, this was a news piece out of the blue and the news of sudden death because of cervical cancer, caught the attention of the entire nation, few shocked by sudden death and few speaking about the perils of Cervical cancer. For those, who read about the death, the entire algorithms, across platforms for the public at large optimised to feed details, reasons, vaccination and medication. This lead to a lot of awareness and conversations, few agile pharma companies immediately pumped ads on prevention of Cervical cancer, riding the wave of this news. Industry, fellow models and actors posted their condolences, few expressed grief and there were few talks on this across news channels. The next day, appeared a Instagram message by the model in question, she shared the message that she was very well alive, healthy and message which created thi