19 till I die

Witches of Yore: Biologists and Medics today There were witches then, who used bat ears pickled for thirteen days in lizard blood with armadillo's nails and Lion's ear wax, stirred nine times on full moon days with the left hand to the right hand side and on new moon days, six times with the right hand to the left hand side to create a cockroach with dragon's wings, bad breath and (reference unavailable). We now have biologists growing human stem cell lines that lie submerged in fetal bovine serum over mouse embryonic fibroblasts, infected with virus (grown in cancer cells, again feeding on cow blood extract) that has in it genes from a fluorescent seaweed (put there with the help of the juice of bacteria that were grown on ferment and rotting meat, and molecular scissors from Escsherichia coli), injected into an embryonic mouse's brain to create a mouse with 10% human brains!(Muotri et al 2005) Come to think of it, the way genetic material is being cut, pasted and str...

A Responsible Scientist To the vast majority of of the Indian Public (maybe others as well), the person in a white coat pouring a lustrous green clear fluid from one raised test tube to another raised test tube containing a bright scarlet fluid, is a scientist! In rural areas where literacy equals education, the concept of a scientist might be a little alien. In urban centres, where in some select schools and colleges, select Science educators work passionately, the notion of science and and a scientist is a little clearer. What makes a scientist a responsible one? The view of a practising scientist or student is likely to differ from what the society thinks. It should be rewarding to examine both perspectives. A web dictionary search for the word 'scientist' yields definitions like "an expert in science, esp. one of the physical or natural sciences". The layman's picture of a scientist is critical. It determines the aspirations of the next generation of kids taki...