HOME IS WHERE MY PEE IS!

Come to think of it now...the title really plugs well into the CLEAN INDIA mission currently being run by the government. But alas! Mr Goswami, I dont have a headstrong opinion about everything under the sun.

My little fairytale world is knit around the one thing that makes me dream- SCIENCE and its link to the social make-up we see today. I am a staunch believer in "We are nothing but biochemical reactions" theory.

I think, hence I am. And how do I think- biochemicals. I love, hence I survive. Sorry to break the news SRK fans but love is also just biochemicals reacting. I reproduce, hence I evolve. Well no doubt that reproduction is all biochemicals too- from conception to delivery and beyond!

The debate in recent time about an infamous BBC documentary had many charged up Indians criticizing this heinous act by the British. We gave them 200 years- like that wasnt enough! Articles were written, blogs were published and walls were sprayed with comments. And the mascot of  unknowing Foot-in-Mouth Dr Dawkins was an overnight sensation. His tags now included rude, brash, arrogant and insensitive apart from the already existing highlight in his resume- atheist; which is already a dreaded word in the holy society today. With this debate, it seemed like he had earned another feather in his KuKluxKlanish hat.

But am I in favor of the documentary or not, you ask? Because thats the whole point, right? To choose sides.

However, that is not what got me thinking in the first place. The way this debate hijacked all sorts of media with opinions flying in all directions made me feel sorry. Not for Indians or the British but for the silent death of the actual disturbing facts.

A rape is commited every 29 minutes in India, a dowry death every 77 minutes and about 70% of women in India are victims of some form of violence- emotional, physical and mental. These figures are enough to question the “civilized” part of the civil society that we live in. Yet the drama that unfolded was about why was a Britisher allowed to interview an Indian inmate, why were facts being shown in a light to malign India and why did they not highlight the rape incidence in the west which, apparently, is much higher than India.

Really??!! THAT’S the point in the whole documentary?

Its like if some unknown lady on the bus pointed out to me that my kajal is smeared and my answer to her would be, “Oh! But you are so ugly too!”

Its really that crazy when we think logically. Or is it?

Probably not.

Actually, what happened in reaction to the documentary is something very innate, natural and core to our evolutionary make up. Its called Territory marking.

Many species in the wild mark their territory by spraying scent mostly by urinating in the territor. Basically by leaving their scent in that territory they are informing other animals that that piece of land belongs to them and their clan. It is a behavior seen across species ranging from fish, birds, lemurs, wolves to tigers.

Understanding territory marking will make many of our acts in our everday social life suddenly acquire more meaning and hence, make sense.

There are some facts to bring forth before we proceed to understand our innate need for territory marking

·        Territory marking is usually conspecific: Territory is marked by individuals of a specie to inform other individuals of the SAME specie. A male tiger sprays urine on the trees in his territory to tell other male tigers who may happen to venture in that area that this territory belongs to me, Iam the protector of my clan and you better find some other place for your clan as the resources, food and nesting sites are already taken. Basically its calling dibs on that area!

·        Territory once marked is defended against: Once the alpha male (ie the leader male of the clan) marks his territory, he shall defend it vehemently in case it is challenged by anyone. Battles over territory in the animal kingdom range from behavior aggression, visual intimidation to actual duels to death.

·        Territory marking is largely scent based: Marking of a territory is largely done by urinating or by secretory glands that eject out scent that holds information about the specie, sex, dominance etc of the sprayer.

Now take what you have learnt and plug it into our overzealous reaction to the BBC documentary.

We are programmed to defend our territory. It is this hardwired evolutionary behavior that came out in form of those ugly messages painted across many FB walls.

The issue was not what was being portrayed. Rather, it was an foreign member of our specie (British) challenging the social make up of our territory (India). India- a territory already scent marked by the inhabitants (quite literally actually!!). It was this biologically innate need to attack an intruder inside a scent marked territory that came out as opinions and anger across the country.

So the next time Dad lectures you about wasting time rooting for India in the World Cup instead of studying for your exams, you know how to explain it to him.

And Dr Dawkins, you are my literary hero and shall always be. Please don’t mind what my fellow Indians are saying. You know, its just that we get touchy about comments on India because that’s where we pee. And the evolutionary biologist in you knows very well….HOME IS WHERE MY PEE IS!

NO COUNTRY FOR THE AVERAGE MAN

Would you marry someone if they said that they had nothing exceptionally nice about them? Would you buy a product that says it wont do much for your skin, probably just make it average? Would you watch a show that claims that its TRP are just OK- not skyrocketing?

Im guessing not.

And marketing companies make a fortune out of this very fact of human psychology. They cleverly sell their product/people to make you believe that they are the best for you. And if they are all so exceptionally good then they are obviously worth it. 

Well don't feel duped.We love anything that is gift wrapped to make it pretty- compliments, criticism, spouses, friends, facebook pics, latest books, TV shows....even our hospitals nowadays have to be pretty first, for Gods sake!!

Feeling vain suddenly? Shallow? 

Dont!!

Its not your fault.

If liking only the best was vain, then Mother Nature (and please spare me from thy wrath) is the vainest of us all. When Darwin landed on the Galapogas, we learnt a hard fact of nature- it doesnt care about the weak or average. Only those survive who are fittest for that circumstance. Anything a percent below the best, and Nature will spit you off this face of earth without any condolence message. Tough love!

If you are not the best, you dont get any empathy from Nature. Evolution is a guilt-free elimination mechanism reserved only for the fittest. This context of fittest could be in terms of physical attributes, height, weight, skin color, sturdiness or the sweet melody of the cooing you use in your mating call- whatever you do ; it better be the best or your species will see the end of the tunnel soon (soon ie in terms of earth years).

And it is this incessant survival of the fittest that our genes are programmed for. We are genetically programmed to choose only the best and not an ounce below. And this behaviour, meant for evolution and mate selection, has trickled into our socio-economical sphere of life. Its too hardwired in our genes to be allocated only to one sphere, after all!

"Eye-ball grabbing" was a concept started in marketing that is now trickling into our everyday life courtesy Facebook. All our pics have to be the prettiest. All our travels have to be to the exotic locations which allow photo opportunities to be posted on FB. All our anniversaries and birthdays have to be full of love and hugs and kisses. Even going into the labour room should end up into the perfect pic.

Putting our best foot forward or marketing our life in a grand way is something intrinsic to our survival. And its not only us whose worth in life is directly proportional to the number of likes on our profile pic. Everywhere you see in the Natural world, you see an insane driving force to "like me".

Whether its the Red Knot birds ritual of "becoming prettier" to attract females or the Hyenas violent show of aggression to impress prospective mates; we all are prey to the "like me coz im better" philosophy. By hook or crook we want our mates to believe that they have landed the "fittest" mate that evolution will favor in a chance of any likely event in the future. We want our mates to believe that our progeny will benefit from our genes because we offer them the best permutation of features possible.

(The Red Knot male during non breeding season (on left) changes its plumage to look attractive during breeding season (on the right) to attract females. Pic courtesy: Cornell deppt of ornithology)

Though animals make all this effort for the sole goal of survival and mating; we of course have extrapolated it to suit our more complex social make-up. (And also the fact that animals dont have access to FB helps to keep their behaviour restricted!!)

However the underlying genetic intent that governs us all is the same- Be and choose only the fittest or else you might vanish from the face of this earth.

This horrible end that our genes are only too well aware of makes us do everything in our capacity to project the "fittest" image. Hence, we market ourselves in the best packing. And in return, we find ourselves drawn to that which promises a "happily ever after".

And no, it doesnt make you a horrible person. Like I always say, " We are just biochemical entities that our genes  use to propagate themselves. We are just a tool of evolution. Mere slaves to our master!"

So go right ahead and be guilt-free to post that image that Instagram has put so many cool filters on that it doesnt look anything like you in real life but is surely going to get you a hundred likes on day 1 from people you havent met in more than a decade!

It all will be worth it in the long run of evolution!

DAWN OF THE ABNORMALS

Yes, i have shamelessly picked up the title of this blog from a recent blockbuster- DAWN OF THE APES. Well, there are more than one correlation about this. All of which, behold, are scientifically driven!

Apes and humans share the maximum gene similarity. We are merely 2% genetically divergent from our ancestors ie 98% of genetic make-up of apes and human is the same. This statistic however is a classic example of so close yet so far.

We share 98% of our genes and yet look and behave like two ends of the spectrum. Would anyone have bought the hypothesis that apes and humans are just 2% apart? Some humans, i can assure you, would find it insulting to be categorized with Apes.

This is, in fact, the whole basis of my post. What you see might not always be what the reality is. I remember being hauled up by my strict convent English teacher for botching up one of my exam answers in grade IV. Complete the proverb "Seeing is...." was the question put before me. And i had completed it with "NOT BELIEVING." I guess the science enthusiast in me has woken up early.

However, Iam not a point off any linear curve. No cuckoo is flying over my nest.
Have you ever wondered what you see is the reality or not? Mark Twain, one of the earliest literary genius, summed it up very well when he said "Truth is stranger than fiction,but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possiblities; Truth isnt."

Our truth is what we see. Literally. A bus appears red because our eyes sees it that way. Our eyes then send this signal to our brain which in turn processes it and pastes a image of red and a bus like structure. And voila! We have a beautiful red bus zipping by in front of our eyes. Well then where is seeing NOT believing, you ask?? Oh its not that boring.

Lets not look at this whole picture in one go. Lets unlock this labyrinth bit by bit.

Step 1: Our eyes see red: We all know the science behind that. Wriggle back Grade VI physics. Light falls on an object. Object absorbs part of the white light spectra but reflects back one color (Iam assuming we all know that white light is made up of spectrum of colors. Grade IV science- in Indian schools that is :). Anyway, coming back....so the bus we see absorbs the rest of the spectra but reflects the red wavelength back to us.

Step 2: Our retina transmits this information to the brain: The back of our eye has a sort of projector called the Retina. The retina has several color identifying cells called cones.When wavelength corresponding to red falls on the retina the "Red cones" light up and send an electric signal to the part of the brain that is responsible for seeing(Visual Cortex).

Step 3: Visual cortex process this signal: The signal that is sent to the brain as an electric impulse is processed by the highly "intellegent" brain cells and the brain then stores this information as "Red".

Meanwhile similar pathways that lead into the visual cortex hold information about the bus- shape, size, depth.
And another pathway tells the brain how fast the bus was moving, which direction it was going ie all the motor inputs.

And that, my dear Watson, is how we see a red bus moving across.

Sounds insanely complex. Esp when you add the fact that we process all this information in fraction of milliseconds. Right?

Thats where my Class IV English teacher was wrong in cutting my one mark in the exam.

Now that we have understood "seeing", you can appreciate how it can be easily "NOT believing."
So much electric signal, so little time. Can we not goof up? And I dont mean we as people. I mean we as electric impulses, chemical signals and wavelength detectors.
What if our cones got mixed up and the blue cones started picking up the incoming red signal? Would we see a blue bus?
What if the pathway got altered and the visual signal was sent to the part of the brain that was responsible for hearing. Would we "hear" red?
 And please Mr Stan Lee....before you get your writing pad out to see how this plot will unfold into another X-men series...put your pen away. I am talking of Truth and very much the truth. Coz like Mark Twain said- truth is not obliged to stick to what is possible. ("Hearing" red is part of a condition called Synaesthesia. See more of it: here)

It is my days of studying Neuroscience that i realised that there is nothing called "normal" in this world. Its merely like a democracy.Truth or lets call it "Reality" is the one that gets the larger votes. Since most of us perceive red as red, it must be red. And seeing red must be normal.
We forget that what we see is only electric signal. To the person who sees red as blue- thats his truth as much as the red is to the red seeing person. For him the bus is blue. The electric impulse hold no information about right or wrong in them. It doesnt say that you are seeing it as blue but its wrong coz its actually red for the rest of the world. The blue seeing person will know that he is seeing differently only if some red team member mentioned to him that he saw the bus as red.
We perceive the world as much as our wiring will allow us to.

A colorblind person will die thinking that she looks best in that grey cocktail gown while it actually was a red dress. A person with hemispatial neglect will keep thinking he is clean shaven though his left half of the face is bearded. (A video about hemispatial neglect can be seen here) To most of us it might seem odd. Because these behaviours dont conform to the normal. But then like my post says- do you really know what is normal? Normal is what our brain tell us. So as far as these people are concerned, they are all normal. When it comes to the brain- nothing is abnormal. Its just something that doesnt fall in the larger subset.

Any person who has remotely studied Neuroscience will have this awe for the "abnormal." The brain is so complex that to understand its functioning- we turn to whats not functioning. For example, to study color perception; we study pathways in colorblind brains. By studying what happens when things are wired a little differently, we get clues on how they should be wired in a "normal" brain. For studying how the brain perceives motion, we turn to a lady who saw the world in snapshots and not in one continuous motion.

The abnormal tells us what normal should be.

And im not even going into ideals, morals, rebels, society etc. Iam talking of plain and simple brain wiring. If brain tells us red, we see red. Tomorrow if the brain decides to tell us blue, then blue it is. Its that easy to fool us. Infact illusions take advantage of this very fact. However, thats a topic that requires another dedicated post. Some other time, then!

Coming back......
In fact "abnormals" have done us more favors than the ones listed above.  Beethoven, one of the most famous musicians was deaf! How he heard music can be only known by seeing his brain wiring. Professor John Nash popularised in the movie "A beautiful mind" is considered one of the greatest intellect. Was schizophrenia helping him solve problems that a normal brain couldnt? Lewis Carolls's visual hallucinations due to his schizophrenia has given us one of the most creative and dreamy childhood books- Alice in Wonderland which is suspected to be a descriptive of his hallucinations.

I would like to end this post by quoting from that very book. It says what all i said in just one line- another indicative of the creative genuis Lewis Carroll was.

A dialogue between Alice and Chesire Cat:
      "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

Alice didn't think that proved it at all: however she went on. "And how do you know that you're mad?"

"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said Alice

"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

It took a hallucinating schizophrenic person to tell us the actual truth. if we cant categorise anything as normal probably its safer to call us all abnormal.

"Iam mad, you are mad. We all are mad"

NEED FOR CHANGE

The recent political fever in Delhi had caught me too. From a point where we were wondering if the new party’s manifesto made sense, we recently witnessed a never seen before swearing in ceremony of Delhi’s youngest chief minister. In hindsight, though, it seems like the most logical outcome of a confused election. “ At least the newbies deserve a chance,” was the voters state of mind. “Anti-incumbancy” became the buzz word ruling the media waves.

A science blog talking of politics? That too by someone who reads only the science and bollywood pages of the daily newspaper? Don’t worry, for this again is a classic example of a science lover finding the basis of a scientific dialogue everywhere. Argumentative Indian, some may call!

I feel the basis of this unexpected politicial win is mostly because of our need for change. We all love change. We all pine for a break in the monotony. Its wired into our genes.

Which brings me to the next question- if a need for change is so wired in our genes- then is it in also wired into something the genes live for-i.e. reproduction? Is this high rate of infidelity we see in human society orchestrated by our very own selfish gene? Our genes telling us to “spread out” and strengthen the resulting variants?

No no don’t get me wrong. Im not advocating any way of life. I would any day vote for monogamy. Without sounding like a rebel or hurting anyone, im just trying to understand the evolution of monogamy. Because from all that we know of evolution, monogamy would be suicide as it limits the probable chances and variation of pushing your gene pool ahead. Even for the progeny, having a chance to mix with different MHC types would only improve the quality of their resultant genes.

So keeping aside all other aspects, im trying to understand monogamy at the genetic level.

Humans are complex organisms. So keeping the complex human aside, lets study monogamy at the level of some lower organisms (again lower in terms of genetic complexity and not because of some anthropocentric view).

A “pure” study model would be animals who are monogamous by nature. Many birds, goose, wolves etc are known to be monogamous. One partner pairing is rampant among them. Any ecologist will be able to tell you that the need of monogamy arouse from the higher chances of survival of a baby that was reared by parents who have mastered division of labor. The female took care of the baby and did not worry about finding worms to feed it while the male flew out of the nest to look for a hard day’s earned bread. With the mother behind to protect the young one, of course its chances of survival increased tremendously and it got fed well too. Hence we can attribute this increased chance of survival of progeny as a reason that might have caused birds and some other species to evolve this way of life revolving around monogamy. Makes sense evolutionary too.

At present there are not many views other than the child rearing angle in support of monogamy. But what happens when the children are reared?

Even in birds monogamy is now classified under varies tabs with monogamy being used in terms of one partner pairing at a time and doesn’t imply having one partner throughout ones’ life span. Another great trick by evolution actually. Rear the precious gene pool (ie progeny) to its maximum potential by forming monogamous pairs and then mix with another gene set for creating the next progeny with different permutations.

Coming back to my favourite specie- Humans. We seem to have gone a step further and advocated life long monogamy. At least it is taught to be the correct way of life. Cutting a long story short- is there a genetic basis of monogamy in human society where child rearing theory seems to have lost its shine because of the ultra luxury and convenience offered by the modern way of life? So if the life of our children is not being threatened even if both the parents are flying from the “nest” everyday and division of labor among male and female is losing its charm- what is telling us to be monogamous? Why are we comforted in monogamy? Are our genes tricking us again into believing what they want us to or has social conditioning finally blocked us from any genetic gut feeling?

There is no answer available even on Wikipedia right now for this question!

Of course evolution of the modern society is miniscule in terms of evolution of humans. Like I said in my previous blog “Mirror Mirror”, our emotional evolution is happening exponentially and our genes have not yet caught up. So monogamy could be probably another way of life advocated by society to bring some discipline in our lives without any genetic basis. Its like an unsaid universal law. “Forever and ever” is the ending of most fairy tales being fed to children everyday. Walking into the sunset holding hands is the way we all want our lives to be.

But I just had a thought recently that pushed me to investigate a probable genetic angle to monogamy. What if monogamy is helping save a life? It would make sense to evolution then, wont it?

So I started looking into the evolution of virus of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The most popular among these is the AIDS virus. If you are not monogamous sexually this virus leads you to a death you don’t want to even imagine. And one of the major causes of AIDS in humans is having multiple sexual partners. That’s where monogamy is going to rescue you from a fatal horrible end.

So is monogamy one of nature’s way of telling us to steer clear of sexually transmitted diseases?

To test the “naturality” of monogamy, the most logical question is “Do animals of less complex social makeup also suffer from sexually transmitted diseases?”

The answer is YES.

In fact AIDS is a classical case of zoonosis, ie transfer of a pathogen from a non-human host to humans. Originating in chimpanzees, one bite to a hunter in Africa is postulated to be the origin of HIV in humans. Chimpanzees are largely polygamous. So sexually transmitted diseases might not be a surprise. What about goose, wolves and beavers that are strictly monogamous or birds for that matter? There have been incidences in birds of STDs like Chlamydia but in strictly monogamous animals, there have not been any reports or probably not been a study.

The answer is still vague. But it surely will be another angle that we could consider to answer the riddling question of what could have lead the beautiful birds or the ferocious wolves to devise this way of life? Why do we find happiness in monogamy? Why are we taught to “resist thy temptation”?

Lots of scientists are trying to find out the genetic basis to this question? I know for sure the emotional basis of this way of life is correct. Then why are our genes always pulling us into the devils’ fire? Is this one lone case where its better to ignore  our natural instincts?

So what about other natural instincts? Should we stop listening to our genes which are clearly making us falter?

What about my “happily ever after”??

The answer surely doesn’t lie within- for this question. But it sure is a great debate. A case where nurture Vs nature debate has the scale clearly tipping towards Nurture.

In our span of one human life (of around 100 years) opting for monogamy gives us happiness. But what about seeing this on a larger scale? Over the span of human evolution (which takes millions of years) will monogamy kill us by reducing the permutation and combinations of our genetic material and making us susceptible to some horrible disease of the future? Are the “straying” individuals of today’s society actually helping us save the human race by mixing their gene pool (of course without the knowledge of their wives!!)

Makes for a good debate, right? And I would leave it as I leave all my other blogs…open ended. All comments and thoughts would be welcome….

Lets talk about….eh….monogamy, baby!!