Monday, January 16, 2006

Sweet Genes

Scientists from an Icelandic company deCODE genetics, have discovered a variant gene that leads to a sizable extra risk of Type 2 diabetes and is carried by more than a third of the American population. This is very important to develop a diagnostic test to identify people who carry that variant gene - so that they have an extra incentive to control diet and stay thin ! Now you may argue, that in our McDonald's dominated world that ain't happening.

In any case, diabetes has a very interesting history. Untill 11th century, diabetes was diagnosed by what they used to call 'water tasters' - you guessed it - who used to taste urine of those suspected having the disease and found it sweet tasting - thus the word 'mellitus' (Latin for honey) was added to its name. (Modern scientists have also discovered another variation called diabetes insipidus - but that is another story). And so such a diagnostic strategy continued till 1870's when during the seize of Paris in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian war, a French doctor Apollinaire Boucharrdat notices the disappearance of glycosuria in his diabetes patients due to the rationing of food and formulated the idea of individualized diets for his diabetes patients (and indirectly gave birth to the nutritionist's profession)

In its illustrious history, Paris has been attacked by and seized multiple times. Perhaps, the most important one being in 885 A.D by the Vikings, which resulted in the formation of France as a kingdom. Around the same time in history (known as the Viking Age), the Vikings crews from western Norway started to drop in on Ireland, capture an allotment of young Celtic women and sail off northwest to a remote island beyond the reach of retribution. The Island was Iceland and over time due to its remote geographical location and natural calamities, an almost unique homogeneous race developed.

Dr. Kari Stefansson saw this feature of Iceland as an unique opportunity while he was teaching at Harvard and raised private capital to start deCODE genetics to catalog the deviant genes that cause the most common human diseases. And thus the Type 2 diabetes variant gene was discovered !

Diabetes gene - water tasters - Franco Prussian War - Seize of Paris - Vikings Age - Iceland genealogy - Diabetes gene

Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Italian Connection

For last couple of decades, every so often in Indian politics we hear about the Italian connection in the Bofors scandal.  It is that time again. However, I am more interested in the wonderful interlinks of the events and personalities.

Bofors is a famous Swedish arms company which was taken over by SAAB in 1999 and has some interesting history

Bofors Defence AB was an iron works, cannon maker, and defence contractor located in Karlskoga, Sweden. The company was founded in 1873 but it originates from the hammer mill "Boofors" founded 1646.

Undoubtedly, Bofors' most famous owner was none other than Alfred Nobel, who owned it for the last two years of his life. Though Nobel prizes and dynamite have always been associated with Alfred Nobel, his literary accomplishments and Shelly's influence on his work are less known.

His only play (Nemesis, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's blank verse tragedy in five acts The Cenci), was printed when he was dying, and the whole stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous.

Percy Shelly led a very interesting life, which was cut short at the age of 30 when his boat Don Juan sank. Shelly's most prolific literary stint was from 1818 to 1822 during his Italian travels. He wrote Prometheus Unbound, The Masque of Anarchy and Adonais (an elegy for Keats) during this time. It was Shelly's Italian connection which revolutionized English literature.

The Italian connection - Bofors - Alfred Nobel - Cenci - Shelly - The Italian connection.....everything is connected

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Phone Taps & Oil Crisis

In the American media, the main news seems to be Vice President Cheney's  brief visit to the hospital !!
 
This reminds me of the joke by Conan O' Brien on the Late Night show:  "Scientist announced a device that can be placed in a pacemaker and will call your doctor whenever you are having heart trouble. When told about it, Dick Cheney said, "I can't afford those kind of phone bills."

Speaking about phones - the biggest political story in Indian media now-a-days is the phone tapping allegation by various leaders (Amar Singh, Advani, Chandrababu Naidu etc.) of the opposition. What can be a better topic for this round of everything connected.

Phone tapping and politics have had a long history. A far more serious political scandal (compared to the current Indian one) developed in Lithuania in 2004 when its President
Rolandsas Paksas was sacked by the country's parliament after secret service phone taps on the President revealed his alleged connections with a member of the Russian mafia. Such a strong step was taken by the parliament to possibly demonstrate its adherence to democratic principles as it was around this time that Lithuania was joining the NATO and EU, a transition crucial for the country's economic health.

Earlier, in 1991, when Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union, it had undergone an economic upheaval for a brief period when it was trying to introduce its new currency Litas to replace the ruble. Even prior to the transition problems, Lithuania had trouble setting up a stabilization fund of USD $200 million to back up the new currency. During the time of crisis, the IMF had stepped in with a loan to save the day.

The IMF was set up following the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 and was responsible for making US dollar the principal 'reserve currency' in the world by setting the value of one ounce of gold at $35 (and making USD convertible to gold)

..this meant that other countries would peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, and—once convertibility was restored—would buy and sell U.S. dollars to keep market exchange rates within 1 percent, plus or minus, of parity. Thus, the U.S. dollar took over the role that gold had played under the gold standard in the international financial system.

This worked well till the 1970s when the U.S  balance of payment deficits (due to financing loans, foreign aid, cold war) became too much to bear and eventually the US decided to end the system of gold convertibility and usher in the era of floating currencies. The person who played a pivotal role in those decisions was then the under secretary of the Treasury for international monetary affairs, Paul Volcker.

Volcker went on to become the Chairman for the Federal Reserve and was succeeded by Alan Greenspan. More recently, the UN assigned him to research possible corruption in Iraqi Oil for Food program, the outcome of which was the Volcker report which had a prominent Indian link. And it was during those controversial times in Indian politics,  that the leaders of the opposition are accusing that their phone lines were tapped by the government.

Politician phone tapping - Lithuanian president sacking - IMF bailout for currency launching - floating currency system starting - Volcker reporting - Politician phone tapping .... everything is connected
 

Sunday, January 08, 2006

New Orleans

NYT has an interesting article about the challenges in rebuilding New Orleans faced by the state and federal government regarding which neighborhoods to develop

a study by the Rand Corporation estimated that in three years the city would have a population of no more than 275,000, down more than 40 percent from its pre-hurricane population of 465,000

As the article identified, the questions around rebuilding are certainly more complex than just a demographic and geographical study.

This has not deterred RAND which has set up a new institute to study the long term solutions for gulf coast's recovery. RAND corporation, which was setup in 1946 to provide research and analysis to the U.S military has come a long way from its initial mission.  However, it has not always received praise as has been blamed for being too theoretical and academic. Critics have quipped that RAND meant Research And No Development.

RAND was also parodied in Stanely Kubrick's classic spoof on cold war, Dr. Strangelove, where it was referred to as the BLAND corporation.   The 1964 movie has many interesting trivia associated with it, including the fact that the Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb himself was the model for the character of Dr. Strangelove. This fact has been widely denied by the makers of the movie, but what is more certain is that Major Kong's plane's primary target, Jonathan Swift, the ICBM complex at Laputa, is inspired by the Swift's 1726 novel Gulliver's travels.

Laptua in Gulliver's travels is a flying island with educated people who are fond of mathematics, astronomy, music and technology but fail to make practical use of their knowledge (RAND !!). Gulliver's travels has been an inspiration and basis of other artistic ventures including the  Walt Disney released, Japanese anime called the Castle in the Sky.  In that movie, Laputa is a flying fortress propelling itself through the sky concealed within the swirling clouds of a violent hurricane.

And it was the impact of such a violent hurricane which made the rebuilding of New Orleans a news story to start with.

New Orleans - RAND - Dr. Strangelove - Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels - Laputa - Castle in the Sky - Hurricane - New Orelans... everything is connected

Ford on the Edge

Ford like all American car companies is struggling for its survival and talks of federal bailout are in the air. Just last week Standard and Poor's cut Ford's credit rating by additional two notches deeper into the junk status. Ford is desperately trying to reverse this free fall towards bankruptcy by introducing a new wave of vehicles aimed at recapturing some of its lost sales. They include:

MKX, a replacement for the Lincoln Aviator sport utility, an eye-catching concept car, the Ford Reflex and a crossover vehicle called The Edge

The Edge of course is also the name of U2's dreamy guitarist (born as David Evans).

Many theories exist concerning how Edge came to get that name. Some say that it was due to his 'edgy' style of playing guitar, while others say it was because he rarely became fully involved in things, preferring instead to remain 'on the edge'.

Edge was also responsible for U2's experimental album Achtung Baby, an album name inspired by Mel Brooks' Producers. This movie and the hugely popular Broadway show is about a producer and a CPA.

When the two meet, their combined expertise points them toward the ultimate scam: Raise more money than you need for a SURE Flop Broadway Show. No one will expect anything back and you can pocket the difference. They need the ultimate bad play to do this. They find it in the Musical Springtime for Hitler.

While Producers was a spoof on Hitler and Nazism, one American who took Hitler and Nazism seriously was Henry Ford himself. He is rumored to have directly funded Hitler when he was starting out in politics (an allegation which has not been proven). Henry Ford had repeatedly voiced his overt approval of Hitler's theories and was also was the first American to be awarded Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle, Nazi Germany's highest honorary award for foreigners.

Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in 1903. By 1928 almost half the world's total car population comprised of Ford's. But during the WW2, Ford saw hard times and was losing $10 million a month and President Roosevelt was considering a federal bailout for Ford so that wartime production can continue.

Ford motor company struggling - The Edge - U2- Achtung baby - Producers - Hitler and Nazism - Henry Ford - Ford motor company struggling .....everything is connected


Monday, January 02, 2006

Tribute to Asimov

Isaac Asimov (whose birthday is today) was the most prolific 'connector' of all times. Once he explained how he came to write 'Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare'

It began, he said, with a book called 'Words of Science.' ' 'Science' led to 'Words on the Map,' ' he remarked, 'which took me to 'The Greeks,' which led me to 'The Roman Republic,' 'The Roman Empire,' 'The Egyptians,' 'The Near East,' 'The Dark Ages,' 'The Shaping of England' and then 'Words From History.' It was an easy jump to 'Words in Genesis,' which brought on 'Words From the Exodus.' That led me to 'Asimov's Guide to the Old Testament,' and then 'The New Testament.' So what was left except Shakespeare?'

Nothing could capture the spirit this blog better.

Asimov and Arthur Clark both used to be asked by a lot of journalists to name the best science or science fiction writer of all times. One day when they were sharing a cab in Manhattan they decided to settle the issue once for an all, in what was called the Treaty of Park Avenue
Asimov was required to insist that Arthur C. Clarke was the best science fiction writer in the world (reserving second best for himself), while Clarke was required to insist that Isaac Asimov was the best science writer in the world (reserving second best for himself).

Arthur Clark, whose story Sentinel became the inspiration for the 2001: A Space Oddessy, has been a resident of Sri Lanka since 1956 where he used to run a diving school in Hikkaduwa. He lost his school during the tragic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (whose first anniversary was last week). Even more tragic was the fact that so many Sri Lankan's lost their lives due to lack of tsunami education in the country who were not aware that the during a tsunami water recedes a great distance, like an enormous low tide, and then the wave comes in like a colossal high tide.

1,500 people were killed on the train at Hikkaduwa. One factor in so many deaths was that adults and small children ran to the train for safety, rather than ascending to upper floors and roofs of homes.

The American Society of Civil Engineers's study mentions that The Colombo Daily News ran an article, about the importance of educating young readers about tsunamis. The article focused on a 1972 Isaac Asimov short story. Asimov's book, 'More Science Words', which included a short essay on tsunamis which described the tsunami phenomenon very eloquently to the layman. According to the article, if the Sri Lankans had read or been educated about the tsunami phenomemon in such clear and consice terms, much of the casualties could have been avoided.

Arthur Clark will testify to it.