Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Some Qs. people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 74
Interactive science series
Q: What is one scientific fact or idea that every person should know?
Krishna: This universe is based on strict scientific principles. Neither the universe, nor the life would exist without science!
Q:How does science approve or disapprove proverb “do good have good”?
Krishna: Science deals with science, not proverbs. But it has a way to deal with other things - the way of critical thinking which is a part of science training.
When it comes to questions of morality and meaning, the way we go about deciding what is right and wrong, and meaningful or not, is not the same as the way we discover what is true and false or facts. Some emotions like kindness and empathy will be involved. Controlling them is highly important to arrive at a good decision. Just because a criminal cries and acts funnily, you cannot support him. Oh yes, his brain could be differently wired! You try to analyze what could make any person behave so differently from others. On the other hand you can empathize with a poor thief when he steals food. But if you are a logical thinker you will try to understand what circumstances made him stole the food and try to correct them. Critical thinking helps here.
Unlike what several people think, science deals with moral ( derived from reasoning related to...empirical evidence) issues too and can be a good guide to life's journey through the checkerboard of blacks and whites!- Krishna Kumari Challa
Anyone who knows how a nervous system works during pain processing can do no physical harm to any living being. And anyone who knows how the brain really works at the emotional level will never try to harass another living being. Any person who has seen how the scientific rules are followed universally in a given set of conditions, and understood its beauty can never think in local terms and can never come under the influence of artificially created races, castes, groups, communities or citizenships. He sees all the living beings as his own images - following universal rules of life and as citizens of this universe.
People who realize this will do good without expecting anything in return!
Q: How do some stones float?
Krishna: Pumice stones often continue to float on water for several years before sinking. How is this possible?
Image source: Wikimedia
Boats float because the air inside them makes their average density lower than water's. Likewise a network of gas-filled holes allows some pumice stones to rise to the surface. Pumice is formed when hot lava mixes with water and hardens, resulting in a porous and abrasive stone. The surface tension inside these small pores is high enough that gas remains trapped inside, forming bubbles that allow it to float. Underwater volcanoes can spit out so many of these stones that they become pumice rafts miles wide formed from millions of stones. Although the stones' initial buoyancy is understood, water eventually gets inside, weighing the stones down until they sink. But warmer conditions cause the gas to expand, pushing out some of the water and causing submerged stones to bob to the surface again.
Q: How does human consciousness work?
Q: What is consciousness? Scientists are definitely not sure about what it is. Why?Krishna: Consciousness is the sum of millions of neurons at work. We actually are a mere product of trillions of mechanisms. It just is a complex multilayered ecosystem of chemical processes as we now know biological life to be.
Consciousness is generated by the brain. Brain activity, specifically the firing of neurons, is the phenomenon most correlated with consciousness that we know. Our experience of objects, thoughts and actions, the detailed structure of each of these, is identical to the sequential firing of various groups of neurons. The unique correlation of one phenomenon with another, in this case neural firing with the contents of consciousness, may indicate an identity of the individual. The subjective quality of consciousness is explained by neuroscience in terms of self reference. Each brain state, potential quale, must be presented to, or available to some form or structure (presumably more neural activity) representing or instantiating the self and then... there is awareness of the presented potential quale.
Q: Is there any scientifically approved solid evidence for reincarnation?
Krishna : No, there isn’t! There is no evidence of souls, after life and re-incarnation.
Anecdotal stories and ‘dubious research papers and books’ don’t come under the realm of science. Pseudo-science can explain cleverly what science discards.
Pseudo-science goes to places where science refuses to tread.
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
Q: What is the scientific reason behind a person that does not marry in another caste?
Krishna:
Do you really want to know the facts? They are completely opposite to your beliefs! Science strongly recommends inter-caste marriages. This is what science says…
As people in South Asia tend to get married within their own castes, the region becomes a living lab for diseases! Caste groups have a high vulnerability for ‘population-specific’ diseases. A recessive disease is one that can be passed down through families.
According to the research done by CCMB (Hyderabad, India) scientists, the Vaishya community have a 100-fold higher rate of butyrylcholinesterase deficiency, a condition of not being able to assimilate the anaesthetic drug than other groups, Rajus (Andhra Khsatriyas) have high risk of cardiomyopathy which effects heart muscle and Reddys in specific geographic location in the state suffer arthritis.
Likewise Gujjars of Rajasthan, Baniyas of UP and Pattapu Kapus of AP have got high IBD (Identity-by-descent) score that shows they carry certain gene mutations responsible for diseases to future generations. Scientists say that due to Endogamy and marriage in the same caste groups, for instance for the past 108 generations in Vaishya, and in general in the past 2,000 years due to development of castes the disease causing mutations are carried forward to future generations. Out of 80 groups identified for having high IBD score around 14 groups have an estimated size of over 10 lakh population.
Every person in the world not only in South Asia carriers several mutations that if they occurred in two copies would lead to serious recessive diseases. In South Asia ‘founder events’ (loss of genetic variation where small numbers of ancestors carrying mutations give rise to large number of descendants) combined with endogamy (marriage within groups) cause the mutations to often be carried in two copies. In South Asia as due to these two factors it lead to far higher rate of population specific diseases than elsewhere in the world.
South Asians should be viewed not as a single population but as thousands of distinct groups reinforced by cultural practices that promote marrying within one’s community. Although recent changes to cultural norms have resulted in more marriages between members of different groups like castes or subcastes, especially in some urban areas, gene flow between populations was restricted for millenniums. Marriage within a limited group, or endogamy, has created millions of people who are susceptible to recessive diseases, which develop only when a child inherits a disease-carrying gene from both parents. This means that the mother and father must both pass one abnormal copy of the gene to the child in order for the child to develop the disease. A parent who silently carries an abnormal copy of the gene is called a carrier.
You will get more information if you read my article on it : Scientists' strong Recommendation
Q: Why don't kites and vultures get sick when they eat decomposing bodies?
Krishna:According to scientific studies (1), these birds of prey have evolved a strong gut that helps them not get sick from feasting on rotting flesh. Researchers found that these scavengers are laden with flesh-degrading Fusobacteria and poisonous Clostridia. As bacteria decompose a dead body, they excrete toxic chemicals that make the carcass a perilous meal for most animals. But vultures often wait for decay to set in, giving them easy access to dead animals with tough skins.
Vultures will often pick at a dead animal through its back end — that is, the anus — to get at the tasty entrails. Their diet may be filled with toxic bacteria and putrid feces, but vultures are apparently immune to these deadly microbes. The results show there has been strong adaptation in vultures when it comes to dealing with the toxic bacteria they digest. The DNA of their prey was broken down in the vultures' gut bacterial samples, which suggests the birds have harsh chemical conditions in their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts, the researchers found. The acidic GI tract also filters out many microorganisms that live on decaying carrion, so the large intestines have large amounts of Clostridia and Fusobacteria.
On one hand, vultures have developed an extremely tough digestive system, which simply acts to destroy the majority of the dangerous bacteria they ingest. On the other hand, vultures also appear to have developed a tolerance toward some of the deadly bacteria — species that would kill other animals actively seem to flourish in the vulture lower intestine.
Both Clostridia and Fusobacteria appear to have adapted to the vultures' harsh gut conditions, but may also help the birds by further breaking down nutrients, according to the researchers.
Q: Why can't science explain Burmuda Triangle mysteries?
Krishna: Who says so? Watch these videos that clearly explain things scientifically.
Q: Is there an occult science behind everything?
Krishna: Occult is completely opposite to science!
Science is behind everything in this universe, not occult!
Q: What do people who spread antivax hysteria gain?
Krishna: A lot! Pseudo-fame and money. Selling books, giving talks, asking for direct support, ad traffic on blogs/webpages, selling natural remedies or other alternative medicines to boost immunity instead of vaccines etc. - all these things get you money according to my friends in the West.
Media gains by creating sensational stories and the resultant TRPs.
If you are clever and unscrupulous, you will find a way how to make money of the gullibility of many people. Anti-vaxxers are totally business minded. And this is a multi-million dollar business. These people don't care about millions of people who might get harmed because of their false propaganda.
And we are fighting a ferocious war with anti-vaxxers right now because this malady is spreading speedily in this part of the world too.
Q: What is the importance of information in our lives?
Majority of the people don’t know this …
Right now we are fighting a ferocious war with anti-vaxxers, anti-GM, anti-nuclear, anti-science people and those who propagate superstitions, misconceptions, pseudo-science and several other anti-science theories because this malady is spreading speedily in this part of the world and if we don’t arrest it now, it will become a wild fire that would engulf everything on its way.
Man on the street doesn’t even know what he is getting into by believing everything he comes across. And people who blindly copy and paste everything they read and hear and share it with others around don’t even know what harm they are doing to their friends and loved ones. If we don’t tell how to differentiate between the right facts and misinformation, people might get harmed.
One has to realize this to know the importance of authentic data.
Q: Are there any negative effects for being highly intelligent?
Krishna: The one experts point out is “overexcitabilitiy” or OE.
This is a concept introduced by the Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dbrowski in the 1960s, an OE is an unusually intense reaction to an environmental threat or insult. This can include anything from a startling sound to confrontation with another person. Psychological OEs include a heighted tendency to ruminate and worry, whereas physiological OEs arise from the body’s response to stress. According to the hyper brain/hyper body theory, these two types of OEs are more common in highly intelligent people and interact with each other in a “vicious cycle” to cause both psychological and physiological dysfunction. For example, a highly intelligent person may overanalyze a disapproving comment made by a boss, imagining negative outcomes that simply wouldn’t occur to someone less intelligent. That may trigger the body’s stress response, which may make the person even more anxious.
However, showing that a disorder is more common in a sample of people with high IQs than in the general population doesn’t prove that high intelligence is the cause of the disorder. It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health.
Associations between intelligence and health outcomes reflect pleiotropy, which occurs when a gene influences seemingly unrelated traits. There is already some evidence to suggest that this is the case. In a 2015 study, Rosalind Arden and her colleagues concluded that the association between IQ and longevity is mostly explained by genetic factors.
I can confirm one thing ... intellectuals can see more than others, read minds better than others, read in between lines, absorb information from their surroundings more than others, see through the games played by others, thoroughly analyse and understand the situations deeper than others, and ... that is not a pleasant picture. It gives them tremendous pressure, makes their minds boil like hell, and if they are not careful and cannot control this, they suffer a lot psychologically!
Other things that bother them are they cannot enjoy ordinary things like others do! Jokes sound like silly talk! They cannot easily mingle with average people. People don't understand them properly and therefore, try to keep away from them!
Preferring loneliness instead of dealing with 'ordinary people" who don't match their intellectual capabilities.
Problem of explaining in simple layman's terms when asked to explain.
Intellectuals need constant mental challenges.
Being an intellectual is not a rosy picture. But without them the world cannot progress. So some have to suffer for the welfare of the world!
Reply to my above answer from SK: Loved the climax when you said “…and that is not a pleasant picture!” :)
Q: How did Nikola Tesla survive with just 2-3 hours sleep per day?
Krishna: Tesla himself answered this question ... when he said ...
"I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything." ~ Nikola Tesla
There is nothing new in this. Many scientists sleep less and work more.
CITATIONS:
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