Deadly Non-neutral Acid? (DNA)

If you’re like me, you’ve been fingerprinted when entering or leaving the United States as a foreigner. Then you knew that the US government had you identified by everything you ever touched in the US. Whether it be a snack bar in a supermarket or your touching your date’s face before he/she was found murdered.

Now, the anti-criminalization policies have gone one step further. Forget foreigners. If you are a suspect in a crime and are arrested, the US government has the cheek to swab your inside cheek to take a sample of your DNA to add to their database. Forget if you’re guilty or not. That is apparently immaterial.

I’m surprised that all the privacy groups who worry about Internet data gathering, browser cookies, browsing history, online search history records, etc. by Google and other software companies are keeping mum about this issue. This is your DNA we’re talking about - nothing can be more personal than that. And to let the government collect and store your DNA even if you’re innocent - what more intrusion of privacy can there be? Is that how socio-cultural issues work - the Internet makes news, conventional stuff doesn’t?

In other news, you can now (apparently) check if you suffer from bipolar disorder by ordering a test “spit kit” from Psynomics. They will test your DNA and will mail you the test results. We already have pregnancy tests for women, sugar-level tests for diabetics, and blood pressure checkers readily available even in third-world countries like India. Is technology moving diagnosis more and more from physicians to consumers? Will consumers be able to assess if they need a cardiac bypass surgery or an appendectomy by themselves? Will physician’s diagnoses become obsolete some day in the future? Something to ponder about.

New Species from India

Every time we read about nature and wildlife in India, it is almost always depressing news about how elephants are being tortured and how the tiger population is dwindling to extinction. However, there has been a lot of good news too, which is mostly ignored. It is extremely unusual for new biological species to be discovered, and the number of new discoveries from India in recent years is simply astounding. Here is a sampling of some of these treasures.

Peacock Blue Tarantula

Outlook reports: The spectacular Peacock Tarantula was named on the basis of a single specimen obtained at Gooty (Andhra Pradesh) railway station’s timber yard in 1899. Naturalists doggedly searched the area for the spider. About 102 years later, some distance from Gooty, they found the most beautiful spider in the world in a totally degraded forest. Within five hours. While this re-discovery went totally unnoticed in India, it set the network of European and American animal dealers buzzing. Within a year 12 specimens of the tarantula were smuggled out of the country and the babies hit the pet trade the following year. In 2005 when I visited an exotic pet expo in the United States each baby was worth US $350, down from $1,000 in 2003.

Andaman Lizard

Yet another effortless discovery happened at the field station of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Environmental Team in 2004. Lizard researcher Shreyas Krishnan heard a splash in the rapidly growing pond outside. A lizard it was, and one that neither he nor any of the numerous visiting herpetologists had ever seen before. Shreyas had discovered not only a species, but a whole new genus.

Large-Billed Reed Warbler

The Large-billed Reed-warbler is the world’s least known bird. A single bird was collected in the Sutlej Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, in 1867, but many had questioned whether it indeed represented a true species. A live specimen was then trapped by Philip D. Round in March 2006 in Thailand and it was confirmed to be a new species.

This bird was sighted at Narendrapur, 10 kms from Kolkata on 1st April 2007.

Bugun Liocichla

In September 2006, the National Geographic reported that an amateur bird-watcher who was an astronomer, found the first new bird species to be discovered in India in over 50 years.

No specimen was taken, because “we thought the bird was just too rare for one to be killed,” said Ramana Athreya, the bird’s discoverer, in a statement.

Because the Bugun liocichla is so distinctive and doesn’t appear to fear humans, experts say it must be extremely rare or it would have been discovered before now.

Smallest Indian Land Vertebrate

A few days back, Science Daily reported that India’s smallest land vertebrate, a 10-millimeter frog, has been discovered from the Western Ghats of Kerala by Delhi University Systematics Biologist, S D Biju and his colleagues.

Adult males are barely 10 mm in length. In this photograph, the frog is placed on an Indian 5 rupee coin. Biju gave a new name for the frog, Nyctibatrachus minimus.

New Frog Family

In 2003, Biju had discovered a bright purple, bloated frog in the Western Ghats that was so unique it merited the establishment of not only a new species but also a new family.

This creature evolved during the heyday of the dinosaurs. Dubbed Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, it evolved about 130 million years ago, prior to the break up of India and the Seychelles around 65 million years ago.

Arunachal Macaque

As a well populated country of over a billion people, India seems an unlikely place to discover a new primate species. The last time in the world that researchers spotted a new macaque was in the Mentawai islands of Indonesia in 1903.

Hence the surprise discovery of this new monkey species made headlines over the world.

Macaca Munzala, as it was named, grabbed the attention of ecologists as it is one of the highest-dwelling primates in the world.

Limbless Lizard

In May this year, an Indian zoologist found a new species of limbless lizard in a forested area in Orissa.

“Preliminary scientific study reveals that the lizard belongs to the genus Sepsophis,” said Sushil Kumar Dutta, who led a team of researchers from “Vasundhra,” a non-governmental organization, and the North Orissa University.

While modern snakes and lizards are derived from a common evolutionary ancestor, they belong today to two entirely separate groups of animals, or orders.

Indian Egg-Eating Snake

Outlook reports: Another herpetological breakthrough was the rediscovery of the Indian Egg-Eating Snake, a toothless specialist. It was first found in Rangpur (now in Bangladesh) in 1863. Subsequently it disappeared altogether. In 2003, a specimen of the long lost Indian Egg-Eater turned up in Maharashtra.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry for the Elachistodon westermanni, as it is called.

New Dinosaur Species

Not a living species, but worthy of inclusion in this collection, a new species of dinosaur was discovered in 2003 along the Narmada river in Gujarat.

It has been named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or the regal reptile from Narmada. The age of the bones meant that Rajasaurus was a contemporary of Tyrannosaurus rex and therefore one of the last species to live before the dinosaurs were wiped out.

(Credits: This was inspired by the Outlook article referenced in the post, from which I decided to do further research. Photographs are from the articles linked to from the post)

QOTD - 10th Oct 2007

After the intense and enlightening discussion on an earlier post - An Unquiet Mind Over Matter - I couldn’t help resist sharing today’s Quote of the Day from The Quotation’s Page. It’s a perfect rejoinder that serves a sumptuous dessert of humor!

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand

- Kurt Vonnegut
US novelist (1922 - 2007)

50 Years…

Sputnik soared
Atlas Shrugged
Mankind roared
Earth unplugged

Start of a space race
What a disgrace
Amidst all the pace
Who lost their face?

Fifty years
Communism shattered
Man yearns
His dreams shattered

Ayn Rand published
Russia extinguished
Galt spoke
The world awoke

Dagny Taggart
A railroad at heart
Torn apart
Yet, a work of art

Hank Rearden
Beneath a burden
Refused a pardon
Became a guardian

Francisco
Acted like in a disco
His character
Much like a fresco

John Galt
His life exalts
Like single malt
Pure gestalt

Yuri Gagarin
In space, rollickin’
Williams Sunita
Became a Senorita

Mir space station
An unsavory destination
Can man have affection?
Mere words, with trepidation

A pale blue dot
In an ordinary spot
Homo Sapiens
What have they got?

Freedom? Dictatorship? Democracy?
These may be human constructs
But the doomsday if Atlas really Shrugged
Is there for all to see

(In commemoration of the fifty year anniversary of Sputnik’s launch and the publication of Atlas Shrugged.)

Research Highlights from India

When I was young, there was a spate of Indian scientists committing suicide. It had made the cover story of some distinguished magazines. It made me think of how scientists are a relatively ignored lot in our primarily religious and superstitious country. I never could do much for their cause, and hence use my blog to give whatever little publicity I can to deserving Indian scientists.

Energy Conservation

Prof. D. D. Sarma, at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), is working on developing white-light LEDs to replace incandescent and fluorescent lighting to save energy:

If half of all lighting is based on LEDs by 2025, the world would use 120 gigawatts less electricity, saving $100 billion a year and cutting the carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants by 350 megatons annually.

Single-color LEDs are already in common use, such as traffic lights. White-light LEDs are a challenge, because current methods do not yield desired results for white lighting in building interiors. Sarma’s approach is just at a proof-of-concept stage, and there’s a long way to go, but it looks promising so far.

Diabetes

Livemint reported that scientists at IISc may hold the key to taming the diabetes enzyme. Instead of targeting the PTP 1B enzyme that is responsible for Type 2 diabetes, G. Mugesh and his team focused on the sulfenyl-amides that it produces. Their research was published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Most treatment approaches for diabetes type 2 involve direct targeting of the enzyme in question,” said G. Mugesh, assistant professor, department of inorganic and physical chemistry, IISc, adding that such an approach affects other enzymes, causing side effects.

Research highlights are available here (PDF). Mugesh’s homepage is here. Just yesterday, a team of Australian scientists claimed another breakthrough using a different approach showing how competitive this field is. Worldwide sales for diabetes drugs may bring in as much as $21.7 billion for their makers!

Disclaimer: I’m not knowledgeable about medicine at all and cannot understand the implications or minutiae of such research. I’m not sure if this is just media hype of somebody building castles in the air.

Thought to Action

I’m not sure if Laxminarayan Srinivasan is an Indian, but his name sounds of Indian origin. Anyways, his research is so interesting that I’m including it this post. Science Daily reports that MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm to help create prosthetic devices that convert brain signals into action in patients who have been paralyzed or had limbs amputated. What is unique about their research that distinguishes it from the numerous other approaches so far?

Over the past decade, efforts at prototyping these devices have divided along various boundaries related to brain regions, recording modalities, and applications. The MIT technique provides a common framework that underlies all these various efforts.

Until now, researchers working on brain prosthetics have used different algorithms depending on what method they were using to measure brain activity. The new model is applicable no matter what measurement technique is used, according to Srinivasan. “We don’t need to reinvent a new paradigm for each modality or brain region,” he said.

Summary

An unpredictable blogger like me, understandably never gets suggestions for posts, unlike focused bloggers. So it came as a surprise when Rambodoc sent me the news about the white-light LED research asking if I might want to write about it. So, I’m grateful to Rambodoc for inspiring this post. I like Ek Doctor Ki Maut (Death of a Doctor) as a film, but I hate it if it becomes reality.

(Photos linked to original sources)

Related Posts: Artificial Wildlife Conservation, Indian inventor doctor’s breakthrough

Artificial Wildlife Conservation

On the day when a court in Jodhpur sentenced Bollywood actor Salman Khan to five years imprisonment, scientists at the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) celebrated a unique achievement. They had successfully given birth to a black buck antelope, named ‘Blacky’, using Artificial Insemination. For Hyderabad, which has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, this is at least a different kind of news - especially since the black buck is the State animal of Andhra Pradesh.

Artificial Insemination

This is reportedly the world’s first fawn conceived through a non-surgical, intra-vaginal insemination procedure, for which the scientists had to collect 85 ejaculations from five males and insert them in three female blackbucks, out of which one successfully gave birth to Blacky. The Government gave permission to experiment with blackbucks only after LaCONES had successfully produced ‘Spotty’ - a common spotted deer, in March of last year.

While LaCONES is working on technology to help save endangered species, it is interesting to note that it was itself facing a threat of extinction in 2002. President Abdul Kalam finally inaugurated it (PDF) in Feb 2007.

Next on the radar are endangered species like vultures and Nicobar pigeons. (Why are such initiatives important? For e.g., vultures in India have declined by up to 95% in the recent past. Carcasses of dead animals are now eaten by rats or dogs, rather than vultures, that helps spread rabies. India has one of the world’s highest rate of rabies). The scientists are ambitious to talk of even using the technique to address the catastrophic decline of Indian tigers.

Cloning

Scientists at LacoNES are working on India’s first reproductive cloning experiment using rabbits. They have developed cloned embryos so far. Transplanting them successfully into surrogate mothers is the next step. We may soon have the first Indian dolly from this lab!

Was it pure coincidence that it was the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), the institute that owns LaCONES, whose DNA analysis was used as evidence in Salman Khan’s case?

Photo Credit: Outlook Magazine

Technorati Tags: wildlife, wildlife conservation, artificial insemination, cloning, blackbuck

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An Unquiet Mind Over Matter

Regular readers of my blog know that I am a die-hard rationalist. I am a great admirer of James Randi, and greatly appreciate the work being done by Maharashtra’s Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (Committee for Eradication of Blind Faith).

Superstitions and magical tricks have always been used to manipulate the gullible, to gain power over them.

So, when I was invited to an ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) show by HDFC Private Banking in Pune, I thought it was ‘yet-another-magic-show’, and passed it off. However, my investment advisor called me up personally and convinced me to attend, so I and my wife went to see this ‘ESP Show’.

I must say, my rational mind is very unquiet after that. The show was conducted by Mr. Deepak Rao. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia page of his own (yet), but he is said to be India’s equivalent of Uri Geller.

So I waited impatiently to apply my rational mind to uncover his secrets in deluding the audience. During and after the show, I failed completely.

Background

Many people suspect that the performer has ’stooges’ in the audience, who’re actually conniving with the performer. It was not true in this case, as anyone from the audience who raised their hands for a particular act were invited to participate. In fact, Deepak Rao had only one assistant during the entire show. Everyone else was an invitee of HDFC. I can personally attest to this.

There were no objects, gizmos, or equipment brought in for the show. He used material supplied by the audience or by the hotel.

He doesn’t term his feats as “tricks”, rather he terms them as “experiments”. Further, he never guarantees that they will work, he always approaches each ‘experiment’ saying ‘let’s see if this works’.

ESP, Telepathy, & Telekinesis

Mr. Rao showed the following feats in front of our eyes.

1. He asked 3 ladies to come up to the stage and asked one of them to write her birth time on a piece of paper, such that the other two ladies could read it. He himself was turned away during the whole time. Then keeping his hand one by one on each lady’s forehead, while muttering “the birth time is…”, “the birth time is…”, and so on, he finally shook his head and turned away. He then took out his wrist-watch, adjusted it to some time, and then asked the ladies to say out the birth time aloud. He then showed that he had set the watch to that exact time. Note that the three ladies were selected at random from the audience.

2. Telepathy: He asked five random members of the audience to get Rs. 100 notes from their wallets. These notes were then folded and folded such that their serial numbers were permanently hidden, after which they were put in a bowl. A child was asked to pick up one of them randomly from that bowl, and separate random members of the audience were invited on stage to unfold that note privately among themselves. Mr. Rao then proceeded to touch the forehead or engage in a handshake with each of these, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he “transmitted” the alphanumeric characters via “telepathy” to his blindfolded assistant, who read the serial number aloud. It was perfect - E498DC80 - something.

3. He asked a randomly chosen couple on stage to write a name of someone they knew, with his/her corresponding birth date. He then held their hands, touched their foreheads, while muttering, “the name starts with PQRS/MNLP/etc., ” and then, after a few seconds, said, her name is “Sunita”. He then proceeded in the same fashion that declared, correctly, that her birth date was 10th June.

4. He determined a randomly chosen lady’s last name (who’s husband and family were sitting in the audience) by holding her hand and touching her forehead. He then asked her to walk a bit and then accurately guessed her zodiac sign, and her birth date. Yes.

5. Telekinesis: He asked for a key from the audience. A strong key, tied to a key chain. He let us inspect the key. It was strong enough that no one could easily bend it, even using both hands. It was a strong, strong metallic key, and short enough not to be easily bended even using both hands. He then invited a lady to the stage. He kept the key on the lady’s outstretched palm. He asked her to cover it with both her palms. He kept one hand on her palms, one hand behind his back, and concentrated. His hand over the lady’s palms was steady, I watched his other hand behind his back, twisting and twisting something in the air, as he mentally concentrated.

At one point, he gave up, shaking his head as if he as tired after a great mental effort. He said he’s trying, but didn’t know if he’ll succeed. The lady said she could feel something moving in her hand. He did it again for a few minutes. After which, he literally seemed exhausted and shook his head and removed all his hands. The lady uncovered her hands, and viola! The key was bent in an L-shape. It was returned to the owner who confirmed that it was the same key he had given, and now he couldn’t use it to enter his home!

6. He held an ordinary light bulb by the base, uttered sounds of varying frequencies, and shattered it. I can imagine a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, that the frequencies of the sound resonated with the inherent frequency-structure of the light bulb and hence it exploded. But it was ‘magical’ to see it, nonetheless.

7. He said that HDFC was going to be a producer for a Hindi Bollywood film. He placed an envelope on the stage. He then selected audience members to choose from each of the movie’s different aspects. Starting from the theme (murder mystery, comedy, musical, drama), hero (Amitabh Bachhan, Aamir Kan, Shahrukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, etc.), villain (Nana Patekar, etc. I’m sorry, I don’t remember all the names), Music Director (Ismail Darbar, A. R. Rahman, etc.), heroine (you know who), etc. He then selected (based on ‘mind vibrations’) members of the audience, and asked them to choose each of these different entities from among a list. After all the selections were done, an audience member opened the envelope to reveal those same exact choices that Mr. Deepak Rao had predicted the earlier day when he wrote that note.

Summary

These are points to note. Mr. Deepak Rao doesn’t seem to encourage superstition of any kind. There is no religious tone to his show. He says there is a scientific explanation to everything he does. It is a different matter altogether that the scientific explanation he talks about is over and above everything we’ve learnt in science!

Mr. Deepak Rao’s web site is here. You are free to draw your own conclusions. It seems he has created different blogger identities every time he needed to post. This is his blogger profile with only one post. This is his definitive post on a defamation attempt by the TOI. And this is his official web site, where you can find his latest thoughts and presentations, along with a lot of marketing collateral.

He doesn’t exploit gullible folks. His presentations are mostly targeted towards intelligent executives from corporate audiences. In fact, I don’t think his shows will work with a generic mediocre public. I don’t seem to have any rational answers to his feats, do you?

Photo Credits: Master Mind - Deepak Rao

Technorati Tags: india, esp, telepathy, telekinesis, paranormal

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Intelligent Image Resizing

Few weeks back, I had written about Photoswapping images instead of Photoshopping them. Here’s another groundbreaking algorithm for “content aware image resizing”, thanks to Michael from Techcrunch:

The research paper, as well as a downloadable video, by Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan is available here.

Note the differences between the earlier algorithm and this one. The earlier one used a large database of images to add or replace image sections. This one doesn’t work with any external images, and is purely an algorithmic advance towards higher content awareness of the existing image itself. Now you can easily use photos from your Ibiza vacation to print family-friendly photo albums!

It is fascinating to see how we’re making advances in algorithms even today - why wasn’t this invented all these years that Photoshop has been around? (Simple answer: because no human mind had conceived and invented such an algorithm before).

I do wish the inventors get richly rewarded for this magnificent piece of work!

Technorati Tags: digital photography, image manipulation, image resizing, photoshop, image editing

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Yearning for Sense Beyond the Earth

At the start of the day, I was almost sure I was going to write about how the world doesn’t seem like a place that I’m proud to be in.

Depressing Scene

The Indian Left wanted India to be Left behind. The Indian Right didn’t know what was Right anymore.

China, a communist nation, seeks to achieve a nuclear deal with Pakistan, a military dictatorship, which has a proven record of having proliferated nuclear weapons technology.

A group of eight Indian men were attacked violently in what appears to be a racist crime against Indians, not a common occurrence in recent times. But the media headlines in India and the Indian blogosphere continue to be obsessed with whether one Indian, once accused of a crime and now acquitted, gets a visa or not. Controversial racist slurs against Indian celebrities paid to act in shows abroad get wider attention in India than actual racist violence against innocent Indians in a foreign country.

It is at such times, that I feel the world is hopeless. It is not a place where I would be proud to be living. These are the times when I yearn for meaning; I’m yearning for sense, to make it all meaningful, somehow.

My mind becomes very unquiet. That’s when, like rays of sunlight in a darkened room, comes news like this.

NASA Audio Video History on the Web

I used to watch Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series on Doordarshan during the 1980s. I read Cosmos and many other books that increased my fascination of astronomy. I constructed my own homemade telescope in my school days, getting Rs. 75 from my father, and using paper calendar rolls for the tubes. I used it to watch the craters on the Moon and the satellites of Saturn.

With select friends, I used to marvel at the NASA Apollo and Russian Sputnik launches. It was not until 1997 however, that I was able to watch the real action. I used to monitor the Mars Pathfinder’s movement across the Martian landscape with bated breath and indescribable excitement. Every movement of the Pathfinder against a rock, crater, or soil sample was relayed by NASA over the web, and we were enthralled by it all.

For all such aficionados, there is great news. Decades of NASA photos and videos are coming to the web!

The space agency and the Internet Archive said Tuesday that they plan to scan and archive more than 12 million NASA photographs and 100,000 hours of film and video footage for free access online, under an exclusive five-year agreement. As part of the deal, the Internet Archive will host the media album on a new Web site, Nasaimages.org.

Free Home Planetarium: Google Earth is now Google Universe!

This is absolutely wild. I used to have a DOS 3.1 based program in the late 1908s, that depicted the stars in the sky above your actual location, depending on your latitude and longitude. Now, it’s for free. Google Earth has now launched Google Sky! I think it puts the Earth in perspective!

How fascinating and unbelievably true?! Imagine, you can now traverse 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies from your desktop! I’ve spent numerous hours teaching friends, colleagues, and relatives, about the constellations and galaxies, and nebulae during cloudy skies. Imagine being able to do it using your net-connected-PC! Teach your children using Google Sky about astronomy. They might one day become Sunita Williams!

It’s often said that Google Earth and Google Maps took Cartography to the masses. TechCrunch says “Google Sky could well do the same for Astronomy.”

I do not know if this is going to bring Astronomy to the masses. There was once a time, when it was also often said, that looking at the heavens brings mankind closer, as he realizes he’s just a speck of dust on an insignificant planet, on an ordinary sized star in one corner of not just his galaxy, but completely irrelevant as far as the universe is concerned. There was a time when this thought did bring men together, either in the spirit of fear, or in the spirit of science. I don’t know if this is going to mean anything at all in today’s world.

In fact, I’m inclined to think quite the opposite. Rather than studying the stars, mankind will be more interested in how the stars positions affect his or her chances of making it with that other person, how his or her chances with this particular career lie, and so on. Will astrologers use Google Earth to pinpoint horoscopes? Is this going to be the modern panchang or Vedic calendar?

Making Sense

I’m sorry this is a long post. My point is, when such news about such great initiatives by human beings come along, I feel hopeful about this world again. That there are some people who understand what it all means. And then I’m proud to be living in this world again! I’m not sure if anyone will understand what I mean, so I guess I may be writing just for myself.

Images Credit Myself (of objects seen by naked eye myself)

Technorati Tags: india, nasa, politics, astronomy, google, carl sagan, cosmos, science

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Bringing Alternative Medicine into the Mainstream

A week back, the Government of India issued a press release that referenced the Golden Triangle Partnership Scheme. Now, the Economist has a more elaborate article on it:

India, too, has a long tradition of herbal medicine, and its government is keen that this tradition should be brought into the mainstream, to the profit of the country’s burgeoning drug industry. To that end, it is spending about $40m on what is known as the Golden Triangle Partnership, to assess the country’s herbs scientifically, and select those suitable for serious investigation.

Most Indian herbal remedies are based on the Ayurvedic system of medicine, although Tamil-based Siddha and Unani, which has Persian roots, are also used extensively. Proving their worth is a daunting task. There are 80,000 Ayurvedic treatments alone, involving the products of some 3,000 plants. More than 7,000 firms make herbal compounds for medical use. Establishing the active ingredients and exactly how they work would thus take some time.

The Golden Triangle Partnership is not, however, looking for new molecules to turn into chemically pure drugs. Instead, it proposes to make herbal medicine itself more scientific by conducting clinical trials of traditional treatments for more than 20 medical conditions. These include arthritis, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, malaria and psoriasis.

To do that means getting the country’s drug companies to take part in what is, for them, the non-traditional activity of traditional medicine. One of these firms, Ranbaxy, has already opened a small research and development division for herbal medicine and is beginning to look at remedies for conditions such as diabetes.

What are the exact means and objectives of this effort?

To encourage such developments the project’s partners are trying to identify how the potency of herbs varies with exposure to the sun, the type of soil in which they are grown, and when and how they are harvested. With that information, they can define standard doses and clinical trials can begin. If the trials succeed, the treatments that result should be patentable—unlike the traditional formulations.

A bit sarcastically, the article is titled “Growing wiser“. Yes, on the whole, I think the objective is great. The more we are able to make alternative product development a scientific process, the better. At present, anyone can package anything and sell it as an Ayurvedic product, with no tests or checks. The Government promised Rs. 5 lakhs (INR 500,000) to all ayurvedic firms encouraging them to go in for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification, but I’m not sure how much of it went to the bureaucrats for bribes in getting the certification.

While this is all good, I’m not sure about the patentability of Homeopathic treatments. How can a therapy that increases the potency of a substance by diluting it further with water, and thus contradicts the laws of chemistry and physics, get patents? Will it convince the skeptics?

I’m not against alternative medicine. In fact, I would love it to be more scientific and less misused. It may be a huge economic opportunity for India if we’re able to patent and export alternative medicinal remedies that have gained scientific acceptability. I’m just not too optimistic about it yet.

Image Credit: UK Skeptics

Technorati Tags: ayurveda, homeopathy, alternative medicine, pharmaceutical

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