Fidgety Foots

Hilarious description of how the wedding scene is now totally dominated by the needs of the to-be bride.

Considering that this skunk of a judge is suing to the tune of $63 million for it.

Destroy a cyber cafe. Makes sense doesnt it? Well, according to the terrorist outfit called the Shiv Sena, it certainly does. Time and again these people have used violence and intimidation to put their point across and get away with it. How much longer will this party of goons masquerading as a political party be allowed to hold the people of Mumbai hostage?

Update: And this article does a wonderful job of displaying what dumbasses these hooligans really are.

So here I am reading this article discussing how synthetic biology is changing the landscape of microbial engineering and whether we are using our knowledge of the genetic code for benefit or not. My first reaction to the article was utter dismay at some of the references to God while discussing a scientific field. The second reaction is to just laugh at the whole “creating life” aspect of the argument. I can see knee-jerk responses from the two extremes of society both of which are sadly uninformed about what science can and cannot do. On one hand we will have the left-wing hippies in their pot-induced haze proclaiming how this new breed of scientists will pollute the earth with new life forms, destroy the delicate balance, yada, yada, yada. The nincompoop right-wing on the other hand will stiffly announce why we shouldnt be playing creator since we already have one (or as Hindus would claim-3 billion at last count). Of course they will be making this claim while sipping a nice wine or guzzling a beer both of which incidentally are made by mutated microbes. Both of them miss the point that the life being talked about in the article is a bacterial cell. These cells are continuously evolving whether we like it or not and have been used for centuries in some capacity or the other. Anyone know how penicillin is made? Its via a genetically engineered strain that makes kilos of this life-saving antibiotic in a fermentor. The examples of how bacteria are used to circumvent potentially hazardous processes are completely understated. And yet, one of the focus points in this article is the whole controversy about “life” being created.

This field of science doesn’t create life, it uses an existing cell and uses proven techniques to understand how to make it a better cell, a better cell to chart a cheaper route to a malaria drug, a better cell to make biofuels so that we dont have to rely upon scarce and non-renewable resources to sustain our current lifestyles. Of course part of the blame also lies on scientists making remarks like,”We can program cell behaviors as easily as we program computers”. Ya right, and my grandfather was the king of Scotland. Does the possibility exist that synthetic biology may be harmful in the wrong hands? Of course there is, but show me one field that doesnt.
Ok, now that I have my rant out of the way, I need to go. My bacteria are in the lab awaiting instructions on what next to do. Maybe I will engineer them to write this blog, after all, according to what we have just read, that should be easy, right?