All kinds of everything...

Back in medical school, we had the honour of having the first-hand experience of listening to a learned man of stature croak cockamamie. The deputy director of Health then officiated some function. The gist of the speech that left an everlasting impression on me was his stand on allocations of funds for research.

From the podcast: Bigger than Bacon, Radiolab.

He lamented the idea of students complaining about the lack of grants for research. He insisted that of one is genuinely interested in doing research, he can even do it under the coconut tree! I am sure many findings can be cooked up under the tree - with the help of coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut toddy!

Somehow, this thought came to me when I was listening to a podcast recently. 

Apparently, the first thing they teach you in underwater surveillance studies is to identify a crackling sound which is not the noise of a advancing naval fleet but a particular type of shrimps. These single clawed crustaceans were correspondingly snapper shrimps. They actually mask the passage of a submarine or ocean liner in the World War! Nice to know but the scientists were not satisfied with just knowing that. What did they do? Using ultra fast speed photography and acoustic measurements with various state of the art equipment, they discovered that the snapping sounds were not due to physical contact of the claws in the some kind of territorial ritual but actually caused by the popping of a bubble. The scientists managed to show that sudden movement of the claw created a vacuum and release a vacuole of air bubble that pops giving the characteristic rustic crackling sound!

What does it matter? How is it useful for humankind? Believe it or not, this knowledge has helped passage of certain medicines through the blood brain barrier.

This was the same scenario before the smartphones came to the scene. Many of the technologies used in smartphones were invented by people who did not know the use of their invention. They just discovered it and patented it, waiting for someone like Steve Jobs to come along and assimilate it into his product.

So, who said research is a waste of resources? It paves the path others in the future to have a blueprint upon which they can improve and hopefully use it in a meaningful for the benefit of the human race as a whole.

So you think you know everything!

To all those in my life who think that they know everything about everybody, their own self and matters of the world and the universe...
An interesting story of a lady and the malady that struck her that I heard over a podcast over Radiolab should be testimony that nobody can be cocksure about anything and anybody.
In 1985, a 36 year old lady (Penny Beernsteen) went for a jog at a beach during a family outing. She was sexually and physically assaulted at a secluded part of the beach. As she could not give a good fight against her assailant, she did the next best thing. She mentally made notes of his short stubby fingers, his mustache, his hair colour etcetera.

Penny Beernsteen

She survived the ordeal and positively made her cocksure picking out of the suspect without a shadow of doubt during an identification parade. A Steven Avery with petty crime records was picked out.
During the trial, his witnesses were weak comprising mostly of family members. Even though he was supposed to be working at a construction site, the correct type of soil was not identified. He was sentenced to 18years of jail.

Stephen Avery

After the initial of depression and anxiety, Penny started doing social work in the prison hoping to reform or at least prevent inmates from getting involved in heinous sexual crimes. Avery kept on appealing his case but was rejected again and again and Penny was always there at all his trials.
On fine day, when DNA evidence became admissible in courts, the crime scene DNA proved that the samples collected were not his. The evidence was instead that of another inmate, Gregory Allan, who at that time was doing time for another sexual crime. In fact, during Penny's mishap, he was under police surveillance but somehow due to lack of manpower he escaped the radar.

Predictably, Penny underwent a turmoil trying to come in terms with the fact an innocent man went to jail because of her. After much soul searching, she picked out courage to meet eye to eye with Steven Avery (it is a small town). After hearing her out, all he said was, "Sometimes these things happen!"

Gregory Allen

Life goes on...
Sometime later, the town was rocked again by the news of a heinous sexually motivated murder case of Teresa Halbach. After much prodding, Stephen Avery's nephew came forward to admit that both he and Steven were the culprits! Again, Penny was shaken up thinking that her testimony drove Avery to serious after a stint in jail. The police just assured her that he was involve in crime before, anyway.
So just when you think you know everything when you see someone in the eye and into the deeper soul, you realize that you really cannot be a perfect judge of character, can you?

Take a listen...@ 00:45:00++
http://www.radiolab.org/2013/mar/26/