A Little Inspiration

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

Author Unknown

During the four years of my undergraduate education, I was fortunate to be exposed to various different areas in the field of biology. These were molecular biology, systems biology, structural biology, bioinformatics, biochemistry, biomaterials & tissue engineering, evolutionary biology, developmental biology, ethology, neurobiology, biomedical instrumentation, biomechanics, biomedical signal and image processing. Some of the areas which I find appealing are biochemistry, ethology, neurobiology, biomedical instrumentation and biomechanics. In particular, getting to know about and working at the confluence of different disciplines has been a pleasurable experience.

But, given an opportunity to identify one area, I will choose the area of designing point of care diagnostics – cheap, non-invasive, quick and sensitive so that they are accessible to the common man. Most of the villages in our country do not have pathology facilities; even if they exist they are far-off or are very expensive. One example where this is showing positive results is the pregnancy testing kit – no need of going to pathology, even the patients can use it on their own; all they have to do is to pour the urine sample and wait for 5 minutes to check the color. However, these on-the-spot assays have not been commercialized for blood-glucose level, WBC/TLC count, malarial parasite detection; stool and urine sample analysis.

One unsolved problem in this area is to design a cheap, easy-to-use assay system for diagnosing malaria; the current state of affairs is that diagnosis is symptomatic/ one needs to have a reasonably well-equipped pathology facility so as to just diagnose the disease. With the recent advancements in BioMEMS(which have led to ELISA, microPCR etc.), the task seems possible. Using immobilized marker molecules, immunochromatography or may be detecting a simple change in physical property (pH, viscosity, optical/electrical/thermal/mechanical properties) can be a solution. The ultimate dream is to make these tests as simple and cheap as using a thermometer.

PROFOUND QUOTES BY LEO TOLSTOY

"All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do."

"Boredom: the desire for desires."

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."

"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."

"And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for them that is in other people."

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."

"Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible."

"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

infinity: this way: Inequality

infinity: this way: Inequality

Profound Quotes by Helen Keller

1. I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
2. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
3. Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
4. It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
5. Knowledge is love and light and vision.
6. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
7. No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.
8. No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
9. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
10. People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
11. Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.
12. Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.
13. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
14. The highest result of education is tolerance.
15. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.
16. Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.
17. Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
18. We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
19. We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
20. When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us.
21. When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
22. Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/23/stories/2007062350161000.htm

This article is titled "why are levels of child malnutrition high". It very nicely and convincingly rules out the intuitive possibility that low per capita income or widespread poverty is responsible for this phenomena but things like education, immunisation of mothers as well as the infants etc. are the more prominent reasons.

Why blog if you have the option of picking up a pen and scribble in your own notebook?

This was the question I had in mind which would continuously discourage me from writing on this blog. However, whenever I felt like, I did write my worries and joys in my notebook. Today, I was just wondering about "privacy". This was the word which Lilavati madam used very frequently to refer to something personal, which you don't like to share with others. But, then if you do not wish to share it with others nevertheless you do it and one man knows that you have done that and that is obviously -your soul. I used to wonder ever since I came to live in this hall as to why people would immediately latch their rooms once they come to their room after class or lunch..I mean, it appeared cynical to me, particularly the bang of the room and latching, clearly audible from at least a distance of five-six rooms. Why is that we wish to remain away from others..is it because of your worry that others should not know what you are doing ( it happens with one of my friend, who doesn't wish anybody to know that he is studying and he himself curses every other person who studies) or is it because of some stable personal disposition.

Today, I made a promise to myself - which is actually a corollary of my previous promise - I pledge that I will not hide/ conceal anything (however big/ small it is) with anybody. So, now I can blog easily sitting before the comp without feeling why should others know what I am feeling/ is it appropriate to share your "private" feelings with them. But, then if you can never conceal anything with one man, why you should run and flee from others. If you have done anything, good/bad, you should have the courage to accept. The example which comes to my mind is the most accessible one (may be because of my age or because of the atmosphere where I live in) - watching obscene material on the computer. You don't want others to see but then how can you prevent that from yourself. Have the courage to accept. Some of my friends can counter this argument saying that why do you close the door when you bath? Well, I don't have an answer to this but then I think that after bathing, everybody knows that you have bathed.. this may not be true in other cases.( particularly of those which are talked of above)