2015 May - Interesting Articles & Links

* On GMOs - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/sunday/how-i-got-converted-to-gmo-food.html?_r=1

* Intelligent jokes -- http://www.storypick.com/19-intelligent-jokes/

* On periods - https://mythrispeaks.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/unearthing-menstrual-wisdom-why-we-dont-go-to-the-temple/

* Explained - Heat waves in India - http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/economist-explains-33

* Himalayas - a drone's view - Treton Sports - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hTVNidxg2s

* Ms. Abe in #India - the face of #Japan’s global engagement #DelhiMetro #TunnelEngineering - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/jealous-mountain-goddesses-can-t-scare-this-gutsy-groundbreaker

* Five thins your Resume should convey -- http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2015/01/14/five-things-your-resume-must-convey-in-ten-seconds/

* Technies in rural Japan - http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/with-rural-japan-shrinking-and-aging-a-small-town-seeks-to-stem-the-trend/2015/05/26/3dac3d90-fa8a-11e4-a47c-e56f4db884ed_story.html
- Kominka - ??? ?????? (n) old Japanese-style house
- http://www.plat-ease.co.jp/

* TB: India study confirms Xpert diagnostic test's superiority -- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/tb-india-study-confirms-xpert-diagnostic-tests-superiority/article7252044.ece
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* Weak Yen - good news & bad news -- http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/05/27/weak-yen-good-news-and-bad-news/

* Indian Elite in USA -- http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21651331-india-should-make-more-valuable-asset-abroad-worldwide-web
- Remittances - $70 billion a year to their home country, more than any other group of expats. That adds up to 3.5% of India’s GDP, outstripping foreign direct investment.
- 91,000 Indian-born people with PhDs are now living in America

* Pritish Nandy - The Invisible Middle-class -- http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/columnists/pritish-nandy/The-invisible-middle-class/articleshow/47435906.cms

* Infrastructure: Asia's new battleground (Amitendu Palit, FE, 27May15) -- http://www.financialexpress.com/article/fe-columnist/column-infrastructure-asias-new-battleground/76599/
- China's overseas FDI is becoming larger than inbound FDI
- China's $40b Silk Road Fund -- AIIB $100b investment
- Japan's $110b for building infra in Asia

* Japan - Transfer Pricing Disputes - http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-japan-to-resolve-transfer-pricing-disputes-115052700057_1.html
- Royalty, tax dues, profitability of trading houses, and the commission paid

* J Robeiro in IE again - Strong and Small - http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/strong-and-small/

* Jumpa Lahiri on voluntary exile in Spain -- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3b188aec-f8bf-11e4-be00-00144feab7de.html#axzz3bD2jreBO

* Brilliant - Warplanes and counter-intuitive design -- http://www.outlookindia.com/article/a-world-war--ii-puzzle/294404

* Risk-taking: Yes, you can. But should you?  -- http://www.foundingfuel.com/column/ask-bagchi/the-difference-between-taking-a-risk-and-risky-behaviour

* Why I dont want my child to be a doctor in India -- http://qz.com/406682/why-i-will-never-allow-my-child-to-become-a-doctor-in-india/

* Five Indian Journalists to follow -- http://www.gqindia.com/get-smart/personalities/5-indian-journalists-you-should-be-following-gq-india

* Masturbation - Health Benenits - http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/happy-news-masturbation-actually-has-health-benefits

* Squatting is better - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/18/truth-about-poo-doing-it-wrong-giulia-enders-squatting

* The limits of meritocracy -- http://imgur.com/gallery/h82vC

* Malcom Gladwell on the surprising upside of being a loser -- http://www.wired.com/2015/05/geeks-guide-malcolm-gladwell/

* Shaadi.com - calculate your dowry -- http://www.shaadicares.org/calculate-dowry/

* Maggi - India's favorite comfort food - http://scroll.in/article/701437/how-maggi-became-indias-favourite-comfort-food

* Daughter of the Meiji Samurai in USA - http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/05/20/daughters-of-the-samurai-sheds-light-on-a-strange-chapter-in-u-s-japanese-history/

* Labnol - best sites to learn coding - http://www.labnol.org/internet/learn-coding-online/28537/

* HowIndiaLives - data visualization - http://www.howindialives.com/hilchart_commonsearch_state.php
- JohnRaja - http://www.johnraja.com/

* Why the Rajputs failed miserably -- http://scroll.in/article/728636/what-our-textbooks-dont-tell-us-why-the-rajputs-failed-miserably-in-battle-for-centuries

* Tips to get more for less from air travel (20May15, Hindu - Pradip Jayaram) - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/here-are-a-few-tricks-to-get-more-for-less-from-air-travel/article7224273.ece

* Follow-up on the "I am 20" documentary -- http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/places/samanth-subramanian/midnights-grown-ups?page=full

* Nepal quake - media was part of the problem - http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-nepal-the-ax-is-more-useful-than-the-pen/
* #NepalQuake - An unnatural disaster -- http://www.ekantipur.com/2015/05/11/oped/an-unnatural-disaster/405080.html
* Nepal before and after the quake -- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/06/magazine/06Mag-Everest.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&_r=0
* Nepal quake - helicopters rescuing only foreigners -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3068327/Boulders-size-vans-hit-Nepal-trekking-village-quake.html

* The spectre of Anuna Shanbaug --- http://thewire.in/2015/05/18/the-spectre-of-aruna-shanbaug/

* 7 Habits of Likable People -- http://www.fastcompany.com/3046228/seven-habits-of-likable-people

* Tushaar Shah - Lessons from MP's bumper harvest - http://www.financialexpress.com/article/fe-columnist/mp-lessons-for-bumper-agricultural-growth/73810/

* New GSK Shingles Vaccine may challenge Merck after strong test data (YahooNews 18Dec14) - http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/18/gsk-shingles-idUSL6N0U23MY20141218

* Visvanathan, Shiv (18May15, Hindu) - The Commodification of Violence - http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-commodification-of-violence/article7216730.ece

* Which is the most radioactive city? -- http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/15/what-most-radioactive-city-chernobyl-fukushima

* Indian biotech firms turn the corner - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/are-indias-life-sciences-startups-turning-a-corner/articleshow/47276311.cms
- A 'fail-fast' culture takes root in India - http://www.business-standard.com/article/reuters/india-learns-to-fail-fast-as-tech-start-up-culture-takes-root-115051400085_1.html

* A handshake - coming to grips with it - http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21651169-strength-your-handshake-predicts-length-your-life-getting-grip

* The Sun though a NASA telescope - http://expanse.collectivepress.com/they-pointed-this-telescope-at-the-sun-5-years-later-unbelievable/?s=twt

* Nepal Quake - Wired article on the Yellow House hackers - http://www.wired.com/2015/05/nepal-earthquake-aid/
- http://quakemap.org/

* MIT Tech Review - Innovators - http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/innovators-under-35/2014/

* Hyderabadi's don't give a damn about culture - http://scroll.in/article/723093/while-new-york-celebrates-deccani-arts-and-crafts-hyderabad-just-doesnt-care

* Your DNA changes with the seasons -- http://www.wired.com/2015/05/dna-changes-seasons-just-like-weather/

* This should set alarm bells ringing for @makeinindia - http://dsanghi.blogspot.in/2015/05/the-quality-of-faculty.html #India #TechnicalEducation

* The perfect color combo app (Wired) -- http://www.wired.com/2015/05/coolors-color-palettes/

* Knife-fish - wavy fins and the 20-to-1 ratio -- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/science/the-right-ratio-to-engineer-a-swim.html
- NYT Science Videos - http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000003661279/inside-out-embryo.html?playlistId=100000002331748

* Bastar, Naxals and rich traditions - http://thewire.in/2015/05/11/when-the-naxals-speak-your-language/

* Online ad-injectors - http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.in/2015/05/new-research-ad-injection-economy.html?m=1

* Hersh, Seymyor (2015): The killing of Osama Bin Laden -- http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

* #SalmanVerdict -- Story of a hit-and-run survivor -- http://www.storypick.com/hit-and-run-survivor/

* P Thakurta - on legal notice from the Ambani's on Gas Wars - http://scroll.in/article/725611/what-happened-to-the-legal-action-against-gas-wars-the-book-that-took-on-the-ambanis
- In legal jargon, such notices are called SLAPP or strategic lawsuits against public participation – that is, litigation meant to harass, intimidate and silence critical writers who are expected to give in after they are faced with prospects of incurring high expenditure on legal defence.


* H1N1 Swine Flu - Extraordinary breakdown of public health -- http://www.delhiscienceforum.net/public-health/535-swine-flu--extraordinary-breakdown-of-public-health.html

* Fallout of Shourie's blast on Modi govt -- http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-05/india-s-narendra-modi-still-needs-clarity-after-a-year-in-office

* Gawande - an avalanche of unecessary medicare - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande

* 11 habits to radically improve your life right now! ;) -- http://www.inc.com/peter-economy/11-habits-to-radically-improve-your-life-right-now.html

* Paronjoy Guha Thakurta on Prof. T.J Joseph - mutiliated by islamists in Kerala for a question-paper -- http://www.asianage.com/columnists/caught-clich-670

* How to draft your will -- http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/investment-world/your-money/how-to-draft-a-will/article7167293.ece

* Bumblebees - India has 48 species! - http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/india-home-to-48-species-of-bumblebees/article7167495.ece

* Senegalese writer on immigrants -- http://africasacountry.com/that-moment-when-senegalese-writer-fatou-diome-kicked-european-union-butt/

* GMOs in the US -- http://time.com/3840073/gmo-food-charts/

* Nepal video -- http://mashable.com/2015/04/30/nepal-quake-hits/?utm_cid=hp-hh-sec

* Dunning-Kruger Effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
- a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate.


* Guha remembers an early birder - Zafar Futehally - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150501/jsp/opinion/story_17561.jsp#.VUMFBPmqqkp
- environmental activists in India, I can confirm that they tend to be intensely self-regarding and extremely disputatious.
- he acted as a bridge between generations and between men with a larger sense of self-worth


* Darlymple - Lost Kingdoms - Indian influence in 700-1200AD - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/may/21/great-and-beautiful-lost-kingdoms/
- Met museum - Buddhism along the silk route - http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/buddhism
- http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/23/greatest-ancient-picture-gallery/

Drug Discovery in Noida

Recently, a small company I admire - Curadev Pharma PL - signed a $555 million deal with Roche, one of the oldest and largest bio-pharma companies in the world.

Amazingly, the news seems to have gone completely unnoticed by India's 'mainstream media'.

To be sure, there are a number of good reasons why this development was "newsworthy", especially when everybody seems to harping on the "Make in India" mantra:

Curadev is based out of Noida, a New Delhi suburb, miles away from the nearest biotechnology park or national lab. It has created and sustained world-class R&D facilities in a neighborhood prone to extended, unscheduled power outages;  It has built a team of dedicated professionals in an industry where loyalties are fickle at best and, now, it has entered into a partnership with a pharma major at a time when industry counterparts have settled themselves into making "copycat" drugs & formulations.

So what exactly has Curadev achieved?

An Investigational New Drug (IND) developed by Curadev holds the promise of medical treatment for a wide range of cancers. IND is an FDA technical term for a drug that is 'the subject of an approved marketing application' before it is transported or distributed. In this case the IND is for new drug molecule that could inhibit IDO1 (indoleamine-2, 3-dioxygenase-1) and TDO (tryptophan-2, 3-dioxygenase) -- two enzymes that mediate cancer-induced immune suppression.

Cancer cells grow and proliferate because they are able to fool our immune systems. Many different types of cancer cells produce enzymes like IDO1 and TDO which break down our neurotransmitters before they can alert our immune systems. The new molecule discovered by Curadev would inhibit IDO1 and TDO produced by cancerous cells, allowing our immune system to do its job of marking and destroying unwanted, dangerous cells.

Most Indian companies that reach the IND stage do not have the financial stamina to run the drug discovery marathon. They usually end up selling their discoveries to Big Pharma. Curadev has bucked this trend and entered into a strategic partnership for the next stage.

Lets hope this will lead Curadev to a real blockbuster that is 'Made in India'!

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REFERENCES / LINKS

• Curadev website - www.curadev.in 
• CNBC (20Apr15) - Curadev Announces Research Collaboration and Licensing Agreement to Develop Cancer Immunotherapeutic -http://www.cnbc.com/id/102600552
• http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/curadev-announces-research-collaboration-and-licensing-agreement-to-develop-cancer-immunotherapeutic-500630711.html
• FDA - types of applications - http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/HowDrugsareDevelopedandApproved/ApprovalApplications/default.htm
• Tryptophan - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan
• Indolamines- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indolamines

Emergency Evacs

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, is it fair to permit emergency evacuations based on nationality?

Five year's ago we faced a similar set of questions in Japan. One of the biggest quakes of the century (9.0) had just struck Japan while we were at the University of Tsukuba. The city was about 300km away from the epicentre we had just seen a high-tech, wealthy prefecture reduced to a helpless, confused silence.

At the evacuation centre, students from various countries seemed to naturally gravitate towards their own compatriots. The Bangladeshi's quickly organised themselves into a self-help group, all the Africans huddled together in one hall, the EU folks in another corner, and everybody else tried to figure out places from where they could get food, drinking water, or even a bath.

Then came the news that the Australian government was sending a bus to ferry all the Australians from Tsukuba to Narita airport. At the time we greeted the news with a mix of envy and relief. Envy for those who found an easy way out, and relief that there would be so much less strain on limited supplies.

The recent earthquake in Nepal brought back these memories, and raised them to an altogether different level.

A friend in Kathmandu operates a travel company that promotes social tourism. Since many of his clients had got stranded in remote rural areas, he spent considerable money and time in hiring helicopters to get them out. When the locals realised that the rescuers had come in to pick up only foreigners, and that they did not have space to accommodate even the seriously wounded villagers, they had started pelting stones at the choppers. Luckily, in this case, an air crash did not add to the body count.

Then came this news about Langtang village in northern Nepal. The entire village was flattened, burying about 100 foreign trekkers and 150 Nepali's. Here is a excerpt from the report -

On the third day after the quake a helicopter landed, but hopes of rescue were dashed when the pilots said they were only there to evacuate Japanese nationals.
A few hours later two more choppers came, this time with an order to evacuate only Israelis -- although they did agree to take the two wounded Nepalis after the hikers protested.
After another 36 hours had passed with no sign of helicopters the mood in the village grew increasingly sombre, until (somebody) finally spotted a US chopper, which made multiple trips and flew them (foreigners) all to safety.

I keep wondering how the tourists felt about their cut-and-run response...

Slippery as an Eel

Japanese Eel (Image source:Wikipedia)

One of the prominent landmarks in Tsukuba Science City is an "Unagi" restaurant on Gakuen-Higashi Odori. The "U" in  うなぎ is displayed in a trailing calligraphic brush-stroke to resemble a long, slippery eel that happens to be the speciality of this restaurant.

I had forgotten all about this eatery and its long wood-smoke chimney's until I came across this wonderful article in the New Yorker: The Poetic Life of the Lowly Eel  (23 April 2015).

What amazed me the most was that until a few years ago, nobody really knew that the common "fresh water eel" began its life thousands of miles away in the great oceans. Every American and European eel is born in the same place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where, at the end of their lives, they return to reproduce and die: the Sargasso Sea. It took a Danish biologist Johannes Schmidt 20 years of research to discover this by searching for for tinier and tinier eel larvae!

Similarly, the spawning grounds of the Japanese eel were found in 1991, near the Mariana Trench, after six decades of searching. Those for the New Zealand longfin eel have yet to be discovered.

Even today we have no idea why eels travels so far out in the open oceans to lay their eggs, or on the impulse that leads millions of tiny larvae to swim back the entire distance, passing through various stages of life in sea as eggs, leptocephali ("slim head") and glass eels, before heading towards freshwater habitats.

This is the sort of thing that makes us wonder at our own mind-boggling ignorance about life on earth!

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LINKS

New Yorker (23 April 2015): The Poetic Life of the Lowly Eel -- http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-poetic-life-of-the-lowly-eel