Rewriting the code of life

 One of my many, many, many drawbacks is this: I waste my time even on stuff that I don't understand.  Topics for which I am way underprepared.  Yet, I continue with this habit.

There is a reason for this madness.

Actually two.

First, I am genuinely interested in a bunch of things.  Of course, I know where my strengths and weaknesses are and I could simply focus on my strong areas alone.  But, that ain't me.  How could I not know about stuff about which I don't know anything?  No, do not jump to conclude that it is some kind of a FOMO.  Nope.  FOMO doesn't belong in this context.  FOMO is about fleeting, momentary excitement.  I am referring to something more than the now.

Second, even though I am a college professor, I don't consider myself a "teacher."  I am a life-long student who teaches.  If the university fires me from my job next year, I will continue to be a student even though I will no longer be a professor.  Being a student is absolutely a part of who I am.

So, I waste time reading about stuff that can often be way above my head.

CRISPR is one of those.

My earliest post--yes, there is more than one--on this was in March 2015.  In that post, I expressed my concerns about CRISPR.  I ended that post with this quote:

Rewriting human heredity has always been a theoretical possibility. Suddenly it’s a real one. But wasn’t the point always to understand and control our own biology—to become masters over the processes that created us? 

Doudna says she is also thinking about these issues. “It cuts to the core of who we are as people, and it makes you ask if humans should be exercising that kind of power. There are moral and ethical issues, but one of the profound questions is just the appreciation that if germ line editing is conducted in humans, that is changing human evolution,” Doudna told me. One reason she feels the research should stop is to give scientists a chance to spend more time explaining what their next steps could be. “Most of the public,” she says, “does not appreciate what is coming.”

See the name Doudna in that quote?

In October 2015, I blogged about CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier.  It was about how they were not awarded the Nobel, despite being considered the top bet.

They didn't get the October morning phone call until 2020!

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their 2012 work on Crispr-Cas9, a method to edit DNA. The announcement marks the first time the award has gone to two women.

“This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life,” Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said as he announced the names of the laureates.

Not merely understanding life, but rewriting the code of life.

As Jennifer Doudna said, most of the public does not appreciate what is coming.

For now, I am delighted that two women were the recipients of the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

But, I remain worried about the longer-term implications. 

If only I didn't waste time reading stuff that I don't truly understand!

This constant life

Way back in school, when we learnt about atoms and molecules, I had a tough time imagining that there were atoms inside me.

Atoms? Electrons?  Inside us?  For my punny mind, it gave me new meanings to be shocked ;)

When in biology we learnt about cells, it was difficult to imagine the red blood corpuscles with iron atoms.  Education and learning are perhaps also about stretching one's imaginations.  It is easy to walk around with a limited view of the world, but is a challenge to expand that view.

One of the many baffling ideas that we were presented was the Avogadro Constant.  Here's a refresher:

The number 6.02 x 10²³ is also called Avogadro’s number. Amedeo Avogadro was an Italian physicist. In 1811, he proposed that equal volumes of any gas at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of atoms (or molecules). The number is named after him to honor his work.

One of the fundamental constants.  What would the universe be if any of these constants were even slightly different in magnitude?

I lack the imagination to think of such an alternate universe. 

Interestingly, a similar one was in the qualifying exam for doctoral students in engineering; at least, that is what I was told back when I was a graduate student.  They were asked to explain at least one effect if the mass of an electron were a value other than what it is.  All I could think was, hey, everything will change.  I lacked the imagination to explain.

Why this scientific autoethnography?

Thanks to Avogadro, "On Oct. 23, between 6:02 a.m. and 6:02 p.m., chemists celebrate Mole Day."

Get it?  6.02 on 10/23.

Why "mole"?  It is a measure of small amounts.  Here's an example: "One mole of water with all 6.02 x 10²³ molecules of H₂O occupies slightly more than a tablespoon."

Decades have gone by since those Neyveli days when I first learnt about these concepts.  I have forgotten the calculations that we used to do involving moles and grams, and the pleasure in cracking them before others in the class did. 

At this point, it is almost like, "who cares!"

We should.  Because, if it were not 6.02x10²³ you and I will be very different.  Life itself will not be anything as we now experience.  Everything in the universe will be different.

How different?  I don't know; I lack that level of imagination!

Will college students understand the humor here?

source

And solve the murder puzzle as well?

Need help?

Yet another reason why students should take science courses and, more importantly, retain that knowledge, right?  After all, would you really want to miss out on such thoughtful entertainment?  haha!

Maybe I should think about final exams for students that will be based on such humor. ...  Nah, I want to continue to earn a paycheck for a few more years ;)

BTW, can this murder mystery compete against the fabled shortest short story?

The "odd man" out is .... a woman?

Of course, there were pioneers who blazed trails that eventually made possible the recent data that a majority of doctorates in America were earned by women. 

In the sciences, however, there is still quite some lag.  All the more impressive then when we look back at the accomplishments of Marie Curie, who is the "odd woman" in this photo, which is one heck of a collection of brain power!

The caption at the source notes:

The 1927 Solvay conference on particle physics: back row, third from right, Werner Heisenberg, sixth from right, Erwin Schrödinger; middle row, from right, Niels Bohr, Max Born, Louis de Broglie and centre, Paul Dirac. Front row, second from left, Max Planck, next to him, Marie Curie, then Hendrik Lorentz and Albert Einstein. Of the 29 pictured, 18 won Nobel prizes, Curie in both physics and chemistry

I wonder how much more advanced our collective understanding of this universe will be if women hadn't been systematically held back all over the planet.  Now, if only we can get more young girls interested in math and science before they fall victims to social pressures!

The "rare earth" chemistry

My grandfather earned his metallurgy degree back in 1938.  Yes, that long ago. For reasons that will be a tad too long for this post, he chose to study at the university in Benares (Varanasi) by the Ganga, far, far, away from his home in Sengottai--which is very close to the peninsular tip in southern India.  If not for his mother threatening to kill herself should he take up a job far away from home, grandfather would have put his education to far greater use.

But, playing with the cards he was dealt, grandfather worked for quite a few years at Indian Rare Earth, and split his time between Manavalakurichi and Chavara.  He worked there until his horribly untimely death when he was just about 51 years old.  (Since then, family lore is that every male in the family goes through a crisis at that age; I wonder what awaits me then; bring it on, cosmos!!!)

I was four when he died.  Soon after that, my parents thought that I as a four year old kid might be a great distraction for my grandmother from her grief, which is how I ended up spending about eight months with her, while the rest of my cohorts went to kindergarten :)  Throughout my growing up, I was immensely influenced by the fantastic stories about him that my grandmother, my mother, and my aunts always had about him.  Not one had anything even remotely negative to say about him.  As kids, we thought it was strangely interesting to see test-tubes of sands of different colors tucked away in a cabinet, and I recall mixing them up wondering whether they would explode :)

So, why "rare earth"?

The rare earths start at lanthanum, Element 57, and run to lutetium, Element 71, and if you look them over, there's a good chance you won't recognize any of them.

Why are these rarely heard elements in the news?  Why is this important?

some patient chemists have learned to exploit the subtle differences among rare earth elements to create amazing technology. Neodymium and gadolinium now make unprecedentedly powerful magnets, which can cool and refrigerate things for pennies, replacing nasty, expensive, ozone-killing chemicals. The Honda Prius uses neodymium in fuel cells. Cerium makes great catalytic converters to clean pollution up, and europium makes energy-efficient LED bulbs. Many superconductors use yttrium, and even simple wind turbines need dysprosium and terbium to store energy, among other things.

Fascinating.  Absolutely wonderful that these rare elements play such significant roles.  So, is America leading the charge on this?  Ahem ... while we were busy fudging mortgage loans, waging wars, and watching reality shows,

China has half of the world's reserves and produces a staggering 95 percent of the ore on the world market. That's because the Chinese government made a shrewd guess in the 1990s and invested in the infrastructure necessary to tediously separate one rare earth from another on an industrial scale. China's dominance wouldn't be a huge concern except that the government has put strict quotas on exports lately. Some rare earths now fetch more than $100 a pound in the United States. (The U.S. once mined rare earths but let the industry flag and would need about 15 years to catch up.)

You got to be kidding here ... come on, isn't there anything that the US can do anymore?
Oh well ...

I am a hydrogen ... not a walrus or "mashed potatoes"? :)

I didn't ever have any disinterest in science, nor did I have problems with it as a student.  I was actually, ahem, pretty good at it.  (editor: will you stop tooting your horn, and get to the point sometime soon?)
Yet, when I read science in some wonderful storybook fashion, I can't help thinking whether I might have enjoyed science that much more.  And, more importantly, whether many of my classmates who dreaded science would have actually enjoyed learning the materials.
Case in point: the ongoing series about the periodic table and some of the elements.  Here is an excerpt from the entry on Antimony:

Antimony has enjoyed wide use throughout history, and not just in alchemical experiments. Egyptian women used one form of antimony, stibium, as eyeliner (hence the symbol for antimony, Sb, even though neither letter appears in the element's name). Pills of the element became popular as a medicine in the 1700s, especially as a laxative, able to blast through the most compacted bowels. It was so good the chronically constipated would root through their excrement to retrieve the pill and reuse it later. Some lucky families passed down antimony laxatives from generation to generation.

Absolutely fascinatingly hilarious.
And how about the following remark about hydrogen and the relative unimportance of all the other elements of the periodic table:

The periodic table is a colossal waste of time. Nine out of every 10 atoms in the universe are hydrogen, the first element and the major constituent of stars. The other 10 percent of all atoms are helium. That's already 100 percent. The rest of the periodic table, Elements 3 through 118, lithium through ununoctium, barely register on a cosmic scale. The rest of the universe, you and I included, is a rounding error.

Looks like the author's book will be neat ... a complement, in a way, to Tungsten :)

"Hard" sciences, indeed ...

Reading the autobiographical essay by the recent Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, V. Ramakrishnan, was educational, informative, and humbling in so many ways. 
His sheer dedication and perseverance is simply awesome .... To be awarded a Nobel in the sciences at a "young" age of 57 means that he has packed in those years experiences that would take me more than a couple of lifetimes!!!
For starters, here is one paragraph:

After my marriage at the age of 23, I was suddenly no longer alone but had a wife and a five-year-old stepdaughter, Tanya Kapka. This sudden change in my responsibilities made me realize that I had to get on with my career. I produced a passable thesis in the next year and obtained a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 just a month before our son Raman was born. But by that time I had already decided I was going to switch to biology.

Let me see ... he has a PhD in physics by the age of 24, is married with two children and decides to switch to biology and then goes to grad school on that .... and does that, and more ...
Ramakrishnan ends the essay with:

On my return to Cambridge in early January, things slowly began returning to normal after the euphoria of the autumn. I began to realize that the Nobel Prize could be seen not just as an affirmation of my past work but also as an encouragement to continue to work on interesting problems. Certainly, it seems to have fired up people in my laboratory, and I look forward to the struggles ahead as we try to answer some of the hard questions in our field and beyond. Looking back on my life so far, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for having been able to lead such a rich life both intellectually and personally.

Read the entire essay here