In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Symmetry.”
Left nose or Right – does it matter for Influenza?
Yes it does. A recent study in Belgium, done on 244 patients with Influenza like illness (ILI) and/or acute Respiratory Tract Infection (RTI) showed this variability. This short report published at Virology Journal this January, described statistically, how the viral load, varies with sample collection pattern and the load of human DNA present in the sample.
Typically samples for suspected Influenza is collected from nasopharyngial swabs, aspirates and washes. But here, mid-turbinate flocked swabs were taken. On a previous article by mayo clinic, this less invasive, patient friendly sample collection procedure showed very good response. Adults can safely collect samples from themselves and children at home, which effectively decreases the out-patient rush during flu season.
This report has several shortcomings still. No specific data on left or right handed person, or any biological difference between two nostrils, is yet included, but may be solved on final version. Yet, this study is very important in Influenza study. till date, Flu surveillance studies focus on viral characterization, typing. But quantity measurement can also be a effective endpoint related with the quantitative PCR variability.
The report ends up with proposals on proper sample collection, multiple swabs from one and both nostrils etc. Viral quantity measurement in the studies of HIV, Hepatitis C virus has already been successful. For Influenza, this study opens a door to study more on a standard procedure for sample collection.
Also posted at : http://www.sciencenutshell.com/left-nose-right-matter-influenza/
Wallflower’s tale
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Silver Screen.”
The picture shows it all.. But I’ll tell you a story. About a lady, a call girl as you say. I see her, from my early age. I went to school, she waited outside the cinema for her work. I went to college, she picked up some other girls. Now I go to office, she remains the same. My age grows, her doesn’t. Her work, her makeup, her lipstick doesn’t allow her. I see, I keep quiet, I understand. I never get close to her, never say a good or bad thing, not even a hi or a bow, she never knows me. I won’t feel ashamed, nor she will, but let her remain as she is, as I am.. May be that’s the perks of being a wallflower…
Parallax at Westminster Bridge
In response to “https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/”
A sunny afternoon, lots of people at Westminster bridge, a lady came rushing, burst out in tears, tried hard to make herself okay. Mumbling vaguely, only one sentence could be heard, “What’d I do now!”
Let leave the lady alone, sobbing, let get back some moments, following the alley. Mrs Lily Baker, a fifty something woman, lost her husband some months ago. Two children, daughter, both in school. Smiling, hardworking housewife. A famous and gentle family in the neighborhood, a poor one in this rich town. All loved her doctor husband, trusted him, and they all made a mutual fund.
Then what, her husband, when on his triumphs of life and death, gave all the papers to another partner. Today, when she came to his office, to take charge, all were forged! That’s all! Mrs Lily Baker, with all their money, respect, future, burst into tears.
The lady, took a tissue paper from her handbag and looked forward. The sun, shinining at its best, from the clouds, creating thousands of rays from the Bronze lady, with her daughters, in a chariot, fighting back the Romans! ” I shan’t lose, My dear lady, Boudicca, I SHALL fight back!” Mrs Baker started walking…
Woman cured of an immune genetic disease, spontaneously!
A 9-year old girl who had a very rare genetic immune disease called WHIM while growing up, was apparently cured in her 30s, spontaneously. Scientists have attributed it to a phenomena called Chromothripsis or ‘chromosome shattering’ during which chromosome pairs disintegrate and reassemble themselves into random and chaotic positions, with hundreds of gene alleles getting lost forever in the shuffling. Researchers claim that the woman might have got rid of the defective gene during one such scrambling of DNA in one of her blood stem cells. Their findings were published in the journal Cell.
The little girl was the first known case of a person who suffered from WHIM (Warts, Hypogammaglobulinemia, Infections, and Myelokathexis) syndrome back in 1964 and was documented in two reports in The New England Journal of Medicine. People who are afflicted with WHIM suffer from recurring infections due to poor immunity and when they grow into…
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Friends, Let’s get some EBOLA killed !
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “(Your Thing) for Dummies.”
I found the most favorite daily prompt on the least free day! I am quite sick, fever it is, and MUST rest now. But when I saw the prompt, I tried to do something… I can’t write much, so thought to share any video for my friends on “My Thing” “Biology”. And where rest? there’s tons of videos on PCR, Cell Biology, Cell structure, DNA replication, Protein synthesis etc etc etc..I started watching and knew a lot! Ha ha ! How many will I share?
Then found this video, on Ebola Virus, may be most media focused after Swine flu and HIV, or may be more than them! But is Ebola THAT important? This video will definitely answer that, and for that, PLEASE watch the video till end 😀
There is also a take home message from the sick teacher of today’s class. That is: “If YOU ALL want to stay out of deadly diseases, just stay in the NATURE’S LAW. Don’t make tree’s, animal’s, virus’s, bacteria’s lives hell; they would definitely make yours!”
Enjoy the class 🙂
Chobi Mela VIII : Redefining “intimacy”
What is “Intimacy” ? close bodies? close hearts? close people? Are we intimate with ourselves? to our souls? My views on “intimacy” not changed, but was shaken, after the exhibition “Chobi Mela VIII“. It started its journey on 2000, and after that, continued biannually.
I am not any photographer, nor I understand art or photography 🙂 But I love to visit all the exhibition of Chobi Mela in various galleries of Dhaka. This year, it expanded its spheres, and was organized also in open places of Puran Dhaka (old town), and Dhaka University Fine Arts premises.
I love to watch photos as a story, as a whole, so took these photographs from distance, with lights and shadows, with their presentations, with my ordinary mobile camera. I didn’t put any caption, as every artist has put their own on the website..and what I loved most? My heart got closer to these people, to those things, I never met, will never meet..
I’d just share one story with you, that by Andrea Diefenbach. Of an HIV/AIDS infected lady in Ukraine. First photo, family woman with her pet cat, happy. next photo, she got infected with drug abuse.. next her tensed husband.. next their war to win her deathbed.. next she died, just died..next her lonely husband..and next? two butterfly pins on the mat..thats it! thats all! Defining “intimacy” with the most distant one!
learning virus genome is fun!
My Biologist and Non-biologist friends, you know, viruses are only microbes, who have either DNA or RNA as genetic material, never both…and for the complex world to be easier, I found a video out there.
you can also check out this awesome site, http://www.shomusbiology.com/index.html by Suman Bhattacharjee
Hope you enjoy 🙂
also posted at : http://www.sciencenutshell.com/learning-virus-genome-fun/
I hunt for the golden stag
Blogging is all about friends to me. One of my friends, Debbie asked me today, to say something about Rabindranath Tagore, our most celebrated and closest to heart person..What might I tell about this extraordinary Nobel prize winner? Outside our continent, he is known as a poet, very spiritual one. But through his long life he did everything in creative fields. He is our first succeed short-story writer, novel writer, song writer, producer and director of dance-drama-cinemas, actor, singer, founder of two very different and famous universities, even the first co-operative founder in rural areas and an activist! And what I love most, his modern paintings in his last age.
Whatever I say, is less. He was inspired both by East and West, and that honed his great talent. The great man renounced his Knighthood, in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919.
I believe, any translation make a writing weak, but how could I express them to my friends in Bangla? I was too busy today, coudn’t gather enough links. Then tried a lot to translate a poem, from memory, a lovely one, “Ek Gaye”, very coincidentally it resembles to Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel lee”. But I failed to make the feelings. So, there is a short piece, translated by Poem hunter.
“I hunt for the golden stag.
You may smile, my friends, but I
pursue the vision that eludes me.
I run across hills and dales, I wander
through nameless lands, because I am
hunting for the golden stag.
You come and buy in the market
and go back to your homes laden with
goods, but the spell of the homeless
winds has touched me I know not when
and where.
I have no care in my heart; all my
belongings I have left far behind me.
I run across hills and dales, I wander
through nameless lands–because I am
hunting for the golden stag.”
(Now, I can say some from my opinion. Here’s a story of the golden stag. As I know, in Ramayana, when Lord Rama, along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, were in exile, Ravana made a magical maze. Ram saw a golden stag and ran after it to catch it..He was so blind to catch it that, when Sita was being taken away, and Lakshmana also searching him, he couldn’t know a bit…I guess, thats the golden stag among our souls also, we so blindly hunt for it, that we can see nothing else! )
My dear debbie, these links are for you, hope you’d check’m out, and love him as we do..and for videos, youtube is always there 🙂 You know, whether its happy or sad or problem time, we sing his songs, by heart, whispering or loud…Our recent and another celebrated novelist and his very fan Humayun Ahmed once said true, “Rabindranath made us a huge fuss, he’s written every impression and expression of our hearts, we just sing them what new would we write?”
Okay, here you go 🙂
Poems:
http://www.poemhunter.com/rabindranath-tagore/poems/page-2/?a=a&l=1&y= http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/history/teachers/rabindranath-tagore/gitanjali/
Short stories:
http://www.readbookonline.net/stories/tagore/134/
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33525/33525-h/33525-h.htm
Biography:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22217/22217-h/22217-h.htm
PDFs:
http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/rabindranath_tagore_2012_10.pdf http://www.kaurab.com/english/bengali_poetry/rabindranath3.pdf http://www.acsa.net.au/brochures/Tagore%20Poems.pdf http://www.iitg.ernet.in/scifac/krishna/public_html/hs_405/tutorials/2013%20assignments/Rabindranath%20Tagore.pdf
Paintings:
http://indiapicks.com/Indianart/Main/R_Tagore_Gallery.htm http://www.ngmaindia.gov.in/sh-rabindranath.asp http://www.calcuttaweb.com/about/people/rabindranath-tagore/tagore-paintings/ http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/rabindranath-tagore-poet-and-painter/
Good night Mr and Mrs Douglas!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Do or Die.”
“Mr Douglas, r u awake?” “See, what time she came to bed!” “but I just have had my dinner” I said silently. “Dinner!! what time is it! Its your time to drink milk! don’t say you poured that in sink again!” Mrs Douglas turned on her back and said in sleepy voice, “She’s all grown up honey..” “ya of course she’s! That day was just yesterday when we two came by her bed, she was frightened, but started to talk..every night this little insomniac kid talked, made stories, laughed, cried..and now suddenly she’s become a GROWN-UP!! and we’ve become OLD!!!” I was numb, what would I say? just looked at Mrs Douglas helplessly. “Honey, it isn’t yesterday, it’s a lot years ago! I can understand. But does she love us less? What are we? ghosts! creepy ghosts! But she loved us from her core! still she remembers us before sleeping, doesn’t she? does she say we are imaginary? like the other kids?? ” Mr Douglas was silent, as usual with his obstinate face. Now it was my time to open mouth “Mr and Mrs Douglas, I never thought why your names are English, I never thought who you are. I just know one thing, every child has guardian angels, I have two guardian ghosts! Whatever my age could be, you two would always be on my bedside. Whenever I’d be frightened at night, wake up, would turn my head back, and know you are always there for me! You will NEVER die! I love you two!” I don’t know how could they, but the old ghost couple hugged me, tight, smiling with tears.. “Now go to bed you old ghosts! Good night Mr and Mrs Douglas!” “Good night baby!”
rainrhyme 