Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
JAI VIGNAN
All about Science - to remove misconceptions and encourage scientific temper
Communicating science to the common people
'To make them see the world differently through the beautiful lense of science'
Members: 22
Latest Activity: 16 hours ago
WE LOVE SCIENCE HERE BECAUSE IT IS A MANY SPLENDOURED THING
THIS IS A WAR ZONE WHERE SCIENCE FIGHTS WITH NONSENSE AND WINS
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
"Being a scientist is a state of mind, not a profession!"
"Science, when it's done right, can yield amazing things".
The Reach of Scientific Research From Labs to Laymen
The aim of science is not only to open a door to infinite knowledge and wisdom but to set a limit to infinite error.
"Knowledge is a Superpower but the irony is you cannot get enough of it with ever increasing data base unless you try to keep up with it constantly and in the right way!" The best education comes from learning from people who know what they are exactly talking about.
Science is this glorious adventure into the unknown, the opportunity to discover things that nobody knew before. And that’s just an experience that’s not to be missed. But it’s also a motivated effort to try to help humankind. And maybe that’s just by increasing human knowledge—because that’s a way to make us a nobler species.
If you are scientifically literate the world looks very different to you.
We do science and science communication not because they are easy but because they are difficult!
“Science is not a subject you studied in school. It’s life. We 're brought into existence by it!"
Links to some important articles :
1. Interactive science series...
a. how-to-do-research-and-write-research-papers-part 13
b. Some Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them...
Part 6, part-10, part-11, part-12, part 14 , part- 8,
part- 1, part-2, part-4, part-5, part-16, part-17, part-18 , part-19 , part-20
part-21 , part-22, part-23, part-24, part-25, part-26, part-27 , part-28
part-29, part-30, part-31, part-32, part-33, part-34, part-35, part-36, part-37,
part-38, part-40, part-41, part-42, part-43, part-44, part-45, part-46, part-47
Part 48, part49, Critical thinking -part 50 , part -51, part-52, part-53
part-54, part-55, part-57, part-58, part-59, part-60, part-61, part-62, part-63
part 64, part-65, part-66, part-67, part-68, part 69, part-70 part-71, part-73 ...
.......306
BP variations during pregnancy part-72
who is responsible for the gender of their children - a man or a woman -part-56
c. some-questions-people-asked-me-on-science-based-on-my-art-and-poems -part-7
d. science-s-rules-are-unyielding-they-will-not-be-bent-for-anybody-part-3-
e. debate-between-scientists-and-people-who-practice-and-propagate-pseudo-science - part -9
f. why astrology is pseudo-science part 15
g. How Science is demolishing patriarchal ideas - part-39
2. in-defence-of-mangalyaan-why-even-developing-countries-like-india need space research programmes
3. Science communication series:
a. science-communication - part 1
b. how-scienitsts-should-communicate-with-laymen - part 2
c. main-challenges-of-science-communication-and-how-to-overcome-them - part 3
d. the-importance-of-science-communication-through-art- part 4
e. why-science-communication-is-geting worse - part 5
f. why-science-journalism-is-not-taken-seriously-in-this-part-of-the-world - part 6
g. blogs-the-best-bet-to-communicate-science-by-scientists- part 7
h. why-it-is-difficult-for-scientists-to-debate-controversial-issues - part 8
i. science-writers-and-communicators-where-are-you - part 9
j. shooting-the-messengers-for-a-different-reason-for-conveying-the- part 10
k. why-is-science-journalism-different-from-other-forms-of-journalism - part 11
l. golden-rules-of-science-communication- Part 12
m. science-writers-should-develop-a-broader-view-to-put-things-in-th - part 13
n. an-informed-patient-is-the-most-cooperative-one -part 14
o. the-risks-scientists-will-have-to-face-while-communicating-science - part 15
p. the-most-difficult-part-of-science-communication - part 16
q. clarity-on-who-you-are-writing-for-is-important-before-sitting-to write a science story - part 17
r. science-communicators-get-thick-skinned-to-communicate-science-without-any-bias - part 18
s. is-post-truth-another-name-for-science-communication-failure?
t. why-is-it-difficult-for-scientists-to-have-high-eqs
u. art-and-literature-as-effective-aids-in-science-communication-and teaching
v.* some-qs-people-asked-me-on-science communication-and-my-replies-to-them
** qs-people-asked-me-on-science-and-my-replies-to-them-part-173
w. why-motivated-perception-influences-your-understanding-of-science
x. science-communication-in-uncertain-times
y. sci-com: why-keep-a-dog-and-bark-yourself
z. How to deal with sci com dilemmas?
A+. sci-com-what-makes-a-story-news-worthy-in-science
B+. is-a-perfect-language-important-in-writing-science-stories
C+. sci-com-how-much-entertainment-is-too-much-while-communicating-sc
D+. sci-com-why-can-t-everybody-understand-science-in-the-same-way
E+. how-to-successfully-negotiate-the-science-communication-maze
4. Health related topics:
a. why-antibiotic-resistance-is-increasing-and-how-scientists-are-tr
b. what-might-happen-when-you-take-lots-of-medicines
c. know-your-cesarean-facts-ladies
d. right-facts-about-menstruation
e. answer-to-the-question-why-on-big-c
f. how-scientists-are-identifying-new-preventive-measures-and-cures-
g. what-if-little-creatures-high-jack-your-brain-and-try-to-control-
h. who-knows-better?
k. can-rust-from-old-drinking-water-pipes-cause-health-problems
l. pvc-and-cpvc-pipes-should-not-be-used-for-drinking-water-supply
m. melioidosis
o. desensitization-and-transplant-success-story
p. do-you-think-the-medicines-you-are-taking-are-perfectly-alright-then revisit your position!
q. swine-flu-the-difficlulties-we-still-face-while-tackling-the-outb
r. dump-this-useless-information-into-a-garbage-bin-if-you-really-care about evidence based medicine
s. don-t-ignore-these-head-injuries
u. allergic- agony-caused-by-caterpillars-and-moths
General science:
a.why-do-water-bodies-suddenly-change-colour
b. don-t-knock-down-your-own-life-line
c. the-most-menacing-animal-in-the-world
d. how-exo-planets-are-detected
e. the-importance-of-earth-s-magnetic-field
f. saving-tigers-from-extinction-is-still-a-travail
g. the-importance-of-snakes-in-our-eco-systems
h. understanding-reverse-osmosis
i. the-importance-of-microbiomes
j. crispr-cas9-gene-editing-technique-a-boon-to-fixing-defective-gen
k. biomimicry-a-solution-to-some-of-our-problems
5. the-dilemmas-scientists-face
6. why-we-get-contradictory-reports-in-science
7. be-alert-pseudo-science-and-anti-science-are-on-prowl
8. science-will-answer-your-questions-and-solve-your-problems
9. how-science-debunks-baseless-beliefs
10. climate-science-and-its-relevance
11. the-road-to-a-healthy-life
12. relative-truth-about-gm-crops-and-foods
13. intuition-based-work-is-bad-science
14. how-science-explains-near-death-experiences
15. just-studies-are-different-from-thorough-scientific-research
16. lab-scientists-versus-internet-scientists
17. can-you-challenge-science?
18. the-myth-of-ritual-working
19.science-and-superstitions-how-rational-thinking-can-make-you-work-better
20. comets-are-not-harmful-or-bad-omens-so-enjoy-the-clestial-shows
21. explanation-of-mysterious-lights-during-earthquakes
22. science-can-tell-what-constitutes-the-beauty-of-a-rose
23. what-lessons-can-science-learn-from-tragedies-like-these
24. the-specific-traits-of-a-scientific-mind
25. science-and-the-paranormal
26. are-these-inventions-and-discoveries-really-accidental-and-intuitive like the journalists say?
27. how-the-brain-of-a-polymath-copes-with-all-the-things-it-does
28. how-to-make-scientific-research-in-india-a-success-story
29. getting-rid-of-plastic-the-natural-way
30. why-some-interesting-things-happen-in-nature
31. real-life-stories-that-proves-how-science-helps-you
32. Science and trust series:
a. how-to-trust-science-stories-a-guide-for-common-man
b. trust-in-science-what-makes-people-waver
c. standing-up-for-science-showing-reasons-why-science-should-be-trusted
You will find the entire list of discussions here: http://kkartlab.in/group/some-science/forum
( Please go through the comments section below to find scientific research reports posted on a daily basis and watch videos based on science)
Get interactive...
Please contact us if you want us to add any information or scientific explanation on any topic that interests you. We will try our level best to give you the right information.
Our mail ID: kkartlabin@gmail.com
Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 16 hours ago. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Q: Is it a fact that cancer is also genetically inherited? If so, how much percentage of cancer affected patients have genetically inherited cancer? K: While most cancers are not directly inherited,…Continue
Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 19 hours ago. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Q: What are wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures?Krishna: Dry bulb temperature is the temperature of the air as measured by a standard thermometer, while wet bulb temperature is the temperature…Continue
Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday. 12 Replies 0 Likes
Recent measles outbreak in the California state of the US ( now spread to other states too) tells an interesting story.Vaccines are not responsible for the woes people face but because of rejection…Continue
Started by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa. Last reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Q: What is the definition of subjective reality? What is the definition of objective reality?Krishna: A person asked me this question sometime back:Why does our thinking differ so much? We are from…Continue
Comment
How Bacteria Talk and how we can use this knowledge to control diseases
Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university's vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.
A USA TODAY Network investigation reveals that hundreds of lab mistakes, safety violations and near-miss incidents have occurred in biological laboratories coast to coast in recent years, putting scientists, their colleagues and sometimes even the public at risk.
Oversight of biological research labs is fragmented, often secretive and largely self-policing, the investigation found. And even when research facilities commit the most egregious safety or security breaches — as more than 100 labs have — federal regulators keep their names secret.
Of particular concern are mishaps occurring at institutions working with the world's most dangerous pathogens in biosafety level 3 and 4 labs — the two highest levels of containment that have proliferated since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Yet there is no publicly available list of these labs, and the scope of their research and safety records are largely unknown to most state health departments charged with responding to disease outbreaks. Even the federal government doesn't know where they all are, the Government Accountability Office has warned for years.
http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/2015/05/28/biolabs-pathogens-...
The link between typhoid bacterium and gallbladder cancer...
Controlling bacterial infections responsible for typhoid fever could dramatically reduce the risk of gallbladder cancer in India and Pakistan, according to a study published by Cell Press May 28th in Cell Host & Microbe. The findings establish for the first time the causal link between bacterial infection and gallbladder cancer, explaining why this type of cancer is rare in the West but common in India and Pakistan, where typhoid fever is endemic. Public policy changes inspired by this research could have an immediate impact on preventing a type of cancer that currently has a very poor prognosis.
S. typhi, typhoid-causing bacterium is endemic in India and has been associated with gallbladder cancer in epidemiological studies. Moreover, proteins that Salmonella injects into host cells activate cancer-related signaling pathways called AKT and MAPK, which support not only bacterial infection and survival, but also the growth and proliferation of cancer cells.
To explore the role of S. typhi in cancer in the new study, the researchers compared tumor samples from Indian and Dutch patients with gallbladder cancer. While both groups showed signs of AKT and MAPK activation and an inactive, mutant TP53 cancer gene, only Indian patients showed strong evidence of S. typhi infection and over-activating mutations in a cancer gene called c-Myc. To mimic the features of the tumor samples from India, the researchers transplanted Salmonella-infected cells with mutations affecting TP53 and c-Myc activity into mice. These mice later developed tumors, demonstrating that Salmonella causes cancer in genetically at-risk hosts as a result of the collateral damage induced by its normal infection cycle.
Additional experiments suggested that Salmonella infection sets genetically predisposed host cells on the cancerous path by secreting proteins that increase AKT and MAPK activity, which remains elevated and perpetuates the cancer trajectory long after the bacteria have disappeared. These same two host signaling pathways are activated by bacterial pathogens implicated in cervical and lung cancer, suggesting that a direct contribution of bacteria to tumor formation could be more common than previously anticipated. "The findings also suggest that the use of antibiotic treatment to control these bacterial infections may come too late for individuals who have already developed cancer," the researchers say. "Instead, the main goal should be prevention through proper treatment with antibiotics, vaccination programs, or better sanitary conditions."
"If typhoid fever is controlled, gallbladder carcinoma in India and Pakistan could be prevented and become as rare as in the Western world."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312815002061
Estimated glomerular filtration rate and albuminuria for prediction of cardiovascular outcomes: a collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587%2815...
Kidney function tests help in measuring over all health
If health care providers have data on kidney damage and kidney function - which they often do - they should be using those data to better understand a patient's risk of cardiovascular disease. Cholesterol levels and blood pressure tests are good indicators of cardiovascular risk, but they are not perfect. This study tells us we could do even better with information that often times we are already collecting.
The most common assessment of kidney function checks the blood for creatinine, a waste product of the muscles, and reflects how well the kidneys are filtering it out (called an estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR). Another key test measures albuminuria, or how much of the protein albumin leaks out of the kidney and into the urine. Higher amounts indicate the presence of kidney damage. It is also a fairly common test, particularly in patients with diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease.
The researchers now found that both eGFR levels and albuminuria independently improved prediction of cardiovascular disease in general and particularly heart failure and death from heart attack and stroke, but albuminuria was the stronger predictor. It outperformed cholesterol levels and systolic blood pressure - and even whether someone is a smoker - as a risk factor for heart failure and death from heart attack or stroke.
Poorly functioning kidneys can lead to a fluid overload that may result in heart failure. People with kidney disease tend to not receive certain medications that can reduce heart ailments, such as statins, likely because patients with kidney disease frequently are excluded from clinical trials performed to prove the efficacy of these medicines.
People with chronic kidney disease are twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease as those with healthy kidneys and roughly half of them die from it before they reach kidney failure.
A vaccine to lower blood pressure? Scientists have devised one for rats, at least.
Scientists jabbed hypertensive rats with three doses of the formulation. It's a DNA vaccine—containing DNA fragments from angiotensin II—a hormone that boosts blood pressure, as well as fragments from hepatitis B, to guarantee the immune system’s attention. Cells suck up the vaccine's DNA, and start pumping out the proteins the DNA codes for. When the host’s defenses gets a whiff of the proteins, it reacts. It really revs up against the hepatitis B fragments. And while it’s at it, it starts taking out some angiotensin II as well.
The result is a reduction in angiotensin II's usual blood pressure raising effects—similar to what blood pressure meds like Benicar do. Less angiotensin II means more relaxed blood vessels, and a drop in pressure. That effect lasted six months in the vaccinated rats, and lengthened their lifespan by eight weeks. Necropsies on the vaccinated rats revealed healthier heart tissue than normally found with high blood pressure, and no damage to their kidneys or livers. The results are in the journal Hypertension
"Long-Term Reduction of High Blood Pressure by Angiotensin II DNA Vaccine in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats"
http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/early/2015/05/26/HYPERTENSIONA...
Why ovarian cancer treatments fail ...
Ovarian cancer cells can lock into survival mode and avoid being destroyed by chemotherapy, an international study reports.
Professor Sean Grimmond, from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, said ovarian cancer cells had at least four different ways to avoid being destroyed by platinum-based chemotherapy treatments.
"One way involves breaking and rearranging big groups of genes - the chromosomes," Professor Grimmond said.
"This is fundamentally different to other cancers where the disease is driven by smaller but more gradual changes to individual genes.
"It is essentially shattering big chunks of the cell's hard drive and moving them around, rather than just changing bits in the files."
The research used whole genome sequencing to analyse tumour DNA samples from 91 patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC).
The study's results are published recently in Nature.
‘Plastic Rice’. 'Synthetic rice'. Have you heard these terms before? One more rice contaminant!
Several Indonesian regions are on alert after lab tests confirmed rice found in the West Java city of Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, contained plastic compounds.
Lab results from state-controlled inspection firm Superintending Company of Indonesia, or Sucofindo, revealed that two rice samples collected from Mutiara Gading market in Bekasi contained contained benzyl butyl phthalate, 2-ethylhexyl phthalate and diisononyl phthalate, also known as plasticizer.
“The two samples of rice look the same; results of our tests show that both contain plastic compounds,” Adisam Z.N., Sucofindo’s laboratory examinations head, said in Jakarta on Thursday.
“Plasticizers are usually used in the production of cables and plastic pipes. In Europe, these substances have been banned for use in children’s toys, let alone as food substances,” he added.
Long-term consumption of the synthetic rice, dubbed “plastic rice” by local media, can cause abdominal pain and even cancer.
Fears of the so-called synthetic rice have spread across the country after a police raid at Mutiara Gading found evidence of it mixed with real grains of rice.
Synthetic rice had slightly different physical attributes compared to natural grains, such as sharper tips.
Rice traders in Jakarta have admitted to not knowing the difference before they were informed by authorities.
http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/authorities-alert-plasti...
“Young Blood” Anti-Aging Mechanism Called into Question
A protein in the blood of young mice that seemed to rejuvenate older animals may do the opposite
http://www.nature.com/news/young-blood-anti-ageing-mechanism-called...
Scientists want contracts to guarantee they won't be muzzled
Canada’s muzzled federal scientists claim they are now being barred from meeting with their union at work to discuss its bargaining proposals to restore “scientific integrity” in government, says the union.
Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, is leading scientists Tuesday in a string of outdoor protests at labs and science-based departments across the country largely because the union can no longer get inside to meet with their members as it once did.
Federal scientists were a thorn in the Conservatives’ side during the government’s downsizing, accusing them of using federal policies to muzzle them, change or suppress their findings and undermine their ability to do their jobs.
The policy would touch on a range of issues and existing policies, but the key proposal is the “right to speak.” The union wants a clause guaranteeing scientists the right to express their personal views while making clear they don’t speak for government.
The other big demand is professional development, allowing scientists to attend meetings, conferences and courses to maintain their professional standards.
They also want contract changes so half of the revenues generated by their inventions and other intellectual property will be plowed back into government research to shore up budgets hit by spending cuts and to attract top talent.
PIPSC argues the changes would ensure science is done in the public interest, information and data are shared, and that scientists can collaborate and be protected from political interference, coercion or pressure to alter data. The policy would touch on a range of issues and existing policies, but the key proposal is the “right to speak.”
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/scientists-want-contracts-to...
© 2025 Created by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Science Simplified! to add comments!